On the trail the Bird Woman wheeled to McLean with a dumbfounded look.
"God!" muttered he.
At last the Bird Woman spoke.
"Do you think the Angel knew she did that?" she asked softly.
"No," said McLean; "I do not. But the poor boy knew it. Heaven help him!"
The Bird Woman stared across the gently waving swale. "I don't see how I am going to blame her," she said at last. "It's so exactly what I would have done myself."
"Say the remainder," demanded McLean hoarsely. "Do him justice."
"He was born a gentleman," conceded the Bird Woman. "He took no advantage. He never even offered to touch her. Whatever that kiss meant to him, he recognized that it was the loving impulse of a child under stress of strong emotion. He was fine and manly as any man ever could have been."
Author: Gene Stratton-Porter
From Goodreads: In this book a homeless waif finds his deliverance in the primeval Limberlost swamp. Maimed and abandoned as an infant, Freckles seeks a chance to prove his worth. He is given that opportunity as the guard of the precious timber of the Limberlost. In his stewardship of the woods, he finds happiness in the companionship of the birds and other wild creatures and in the love of the beautiful Swamp Angel. This moving story of courage and virtue will warm the hearts of young and old.
Notes: Stratton-Porter was a naturalist and wildlife photographer in the Limberlost area of Indiana, where both this book and its companion novel, Girl of the Limberlost, are set. Her obvious knowledge of and love for the territory and its native creatures give life to these two books, and it seems likely that the unnamed Bird Woman is based to some extent on herself.
I read the later-written, later-set Girl of the Limberlost first, and by my judgment it's a better novel—more cohesive and marginally less sentimental—but I was curious about the characters of Freckles and the Swamp Angel, who make a brief appearance in GotL, so I was thrilled to find this book available on Kindle. Fortunately for me, I can handle sentiment with comparative ease; it's the book's worst failing, on technical grounds at least, but Stratton-Porter's hyperdramatic sensibility is also responsible for some rather beautiful little moments.
The orphaned and handicapped title character, for instance, is friendly with birds and beasts and humans alike, has an exquisite singing voice, and is utterly, lovably heroic. He's perhaps a little too good to be true, but then, this is a romantic story, and a little bit of larger-than-life virtue is called for. To those of us who would rather spend our reading hours with a pure-hearted hero than one of the Byronic or anti-heroic sort, there's not a fault to be found with the gentle, passionate, artistic youngster.
The Angel is cut from the same piece of cloth (which fabric is, in both cases, likely to prove either extremely chafing or extremely warming). Sixteen years old, flawlessly beautiful, and as innocent and sweet as the little birds Freckles feeds, she's also handy with a revolver, cool-headed enough to flirt with a hardened criminal in life-threatening circumstances, and unbeatable at mixing drinks. I'd have envied her to hatred if I hadn't loved her so much; for me, it was just a delight to get to know the motherly society queen Elnora meets in GotL.
Some of the book's ideas and ideals are incomprehensible in today's world, but the depiction of an artistic soul's adoration of natural beauty is timeless. It's this, along with the characters' open-hearted compassion and quickness of love, that make for the best scenes in the novel. Those features, together with the naturalist's descriptions of a historical ecosystem (which is now undergoing partial restoration), make the novel itself worth reading, sentiment and all.
...and last week was the Fourth of July, and did you see all the sparks people were shooting into the sky?!! It was all very exciting, and beautiful, but somehow I talked myself into posting every day last week even though it was a holiday week and Lou had three days of vacation. Fellow friends of Harry... I'm taking a day off!!
Also, I want to give Masha another week to get in on this chapter. Blogging is hard in summer. Especially when you get your first real sunshine in weeks. :)
I'll extend the time on last week's linky, so you'll all have another week to post anything Sorcerer's Stone-related you want, and in the meantime I'll prepare the post on the final chapter.
Here are a few magical things to get you by for the week:
There's always that moment before the great act, suspended before them like lustrous fruit to tempt, in which the would-be heroes could turn back, should turn back. The moment when hesitation could creep in and infect them; the subconscious whispers, "No one would notice now if you turned back." Self-preservation urges us to stay alive a little longer.
That moment comes and goes in Chapter 16, with no fanfare or great build-up, so casually as to go unnoticed.
Second, this little video is so ubiquitous among Potter fandom that if you're a bolder soul than I, you could probably walk into any decent-sized milling crowd, call "Snape! Snape! Severus Snape!" on pitch, and have someone respond "Dumbledore!"
Also, if you've ever wondered how all Rowling's clever names get managed in the countless translations, wonder no more. I love it that Filch was translated to a word meaning 'magpie' in Italian. Thanks to Jessi for the link.
Most Fourth of Julys that Lou and I have sat out on the corner behind his parents' house, watching the city fireworks through the trees, it's been cloudy and sprinkling.
Not so last night. I could see Saturn and the star Spica (a favorite of mine; you'll find out why if you ever read my NaNo novel) directly above the display, along with the occasional floating lantern, which always gets that song from Tangled stuck in my head. A few young men of the neighborhood shot mortars and Roman candles from across the street, and one of them played the trumpet, and Lou and I and his parents and their neighbor enjoyed the starlight and the music and the colors in the sky.
And today it's sunny, so you get lots of garden pictures.
* * *
Lots and lots of garden pictures.
To begin—I like loads of color in my flowerpots and beds:
Flower basket: I didn't plant these, so I'm not entirely sure what they are
...I think the yellow-flowered plant on the left is bush cinquefoil.
To its right are blue pimpernels and verbena.
Pinks!
And lavender.
...and I'll gladly take it in the herb and vegetable gardens, too.
German chamomile
Pumpkin blooms
It's also been a week for firsts. The first sweet pea:
the first dahlia:
the first crocosmia:
the first baby pumpkin:
and—not the very first, but early harbingers of homemade salsa:
and snap peas, all in a rush.
* * *
Candid shot:
"Do that typing thing again. I want to pounce
on your hand."
* * *
Lou has had these three days off work, which has been lovely, if perhaps unusually dangerous. So far, he's chopped the tip of his finger with garden shears, I've exploded a plate in the microwave, and one of the young men's fireworks fell off its stick and shot brightly-colored sparks our direction. (At least it wasn't the mortar.)
Other than that—I'd say it's been peaceful, but Maia, apparently displeased with the change in routine, has taken to walking over the top of us during the night. Last night at one-thirty—admittedly, not long after we went to bed—she stood on my shoulder and licked her jowls close to my ear; fifteen minutes later, she sprang out of the window, landed on my knees, and slid off. This morning, she took to pacing back and forth across us, stopping to ask for a chin rub, attacking my hand, jumping off the bed and up into the window, and then returning to pace across us again. It's all very well for her; she spends most of the day buried under the covers, sleeping away the sunshine.
Happy Independence Day!!! To celebrate, it seems I'm talking about something English (or, if Lawhead is right, Welsh.) Is that bad form? I promise to say a prayer for America and watch fireworks later. :)
Book blog Pages Unbound is hosting a Robin Hood reading event this week, so I'm answering their discussion questions. I'd love to hear your answers—Robin Hood is a fascinating legend—so feel free to answer the questions on your own blog, in Pages Unbound's combox, or in mine.
What versions of Robin Hood have you read? What retellings?
Hood by Stephen R. Lawhead and The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley are the two that come to mind. It's possible that I've forgotten others. I've also read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and the outlaw and his merry men are featured therein. I've reviewed Hood and The Outlaws of Sherwood on this blog.
What movie or television versions have you seen?
I grew up with the animated Disney version, and am still known to sing some of the songs around the house and smile over them. As an adult, I've seen Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and its spoof, Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Do you have a favorite book or film?
It's impossible not to love the old Disney, with its lively characters, cheerful songs, adventurous children, and happy ending. Men in Tights is naughty but desperately funny. Hood is the most interesting in a historical sense—Lawhead's study of the legend, explained in the back of the book, is as fascinating as his storytelling—and The Outlaws of Sherwood was probably the most enjoyable read for characters and relationships.
Who is your favorite classic character?
Eh, I'm a girl and a romantic. I like Marian.
How do you feel about female Robin Hood characters?
As in, the substitution of a girl for the traditionally male protagonist? Or the general shortage of women in old tales like this? The former could be interesting if done well. The latter... suffice it to say that that was one of the reasons I liked the McKinley version. McKinley puts females in lead roles even if they weren't present in the original myths.
Do you like an emphasis on the romance between Robin and Maid Marian, or more emphasis on adventure?
Adventure bores me very quickly if it's not strongly supported by character and relational development. Said relational development does not have to center around the romance, however, as there's lots of superb camaraderie to be had in the Hood mythology. But even though Marian was a rather late addition to the canon, historically speaking, I confess that I'll be a bit disappointed if the love story is left out entirely.
Now, she stopped what she was doing and looked at me. "Do you understand how insane you sound right now? How could your whole life be so different in less than twenty-four hours?"
"Because that's the way it is around here," I told her. "Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once."
"Not that fast," she grumbled.
"Well, then, maybe I'm just actually having a summer," I offered. "You know, a big one where Things Actually Happen. Hey, it's like I'm a tourist or something!"
Author: Sarah Dessen
From Goodreads: Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.
Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.
Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?
Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?
Sarah Dessen's devoted fans will welcome this story of romance, yearning, and, finally, empowerment. It could only happen in the summer.
Notes: The contrast of small town and big city is a common theme in fiction, and Sarah Dessen sets it up here in the context of one teenager's relationships. Relationships are Dessen's great strength as a writer, and I loved how much of the aforementioned contrast she managed to put in simply by thoughtfully portraying personality, conflict, and connection.
It's always something to write up when the adults in a teen novel are decent, loving people, and Emaline's mom and dad—her dad, not her father; to Emaline, those are different men—are flawed but fantastic. They're on the small-town side of things; the dad because he's a hardworking construction guy with a passion for home improvement, and the mom because she made a bad choice at eighteen and wound up with Emaline. The stepsisters provide a sort of Cinderella dynamic to the family, albeit not such a mean-spirited one. And whereas the stepmother is the usual Cinderella villain, in this case there's a stepfather, and he's the good guy. Emaline's real father is the one to wreak havoc upon her emotions.
The usual Cinderella tale also contains a prince to raise the heroine from a life of drudgery to greatness, but I won't spoil the end of the story here. The prince's stand-in, Theo, is the center of the big-city half of the contrast, at least as its advocate. By ordinary inclination, I do prefer the tall, scholarly, lightly dorky type of guy over the hunky, shirtless poolside boy that is the presumed standard of all hotness, but I could never quite get fond of Theo. His arrogance about artistic symbolism was the worst of him; fond as I am of literary symbolism, interpretation absolutely must come with humility. At the very least, it must come with the understanding that it's a personal take on the work rather than an infallible reading of artistic intent. In the case of the novel's less-than-perfect romances, Luke, the pool boy, with all his faults and bad choices, was the better man.
Here it seems worth noting that while the novel's marketing (the Goodreads synopsis, for instance) suggests that Emaline is torn between small town life and sophistication, the impression I got throughout was of her rejection of the superlative lifestyle, of the need to have The Best—emphasis hers—of everything. She herself is of the small town, and over and over again, she recognizes something in the city folk that she reasonably disapproves: the arrogance, the disproportionate value system, the way untamed ambition sets parents against children and children against parents, even the limitation of experience. Big city characters and life choices do not go entirely without redemption for the most part, however, and part of the story's goal is to allow Emaline to take some part in that life without losing her roots and herself.
A lot of the core beauty of story and theme was situated in relationships that Emaline only facilitated—the conflict and resolution between Clyde and Ivy, for instance. Clyde is one of the best characters in the novel, certainly one of the wisest, and his climactic response to Ivy made for one of my favorite scenes.
The other non-Emaline-centric beauty that struck me was the incongruous relationship between Daisy and Morris. From its chastity to its artistry to its humility to its inspirational strength, it's a lovely thing. It's a more compelling romance than either of Emaline's.
Parents may wish to note that Emaline herself has no concern for chastity. There is at least one bedroom scene that I recall, though it isn't detailed.
While the story isn't quite as romantic overall as the marketing might suggest, in itself it's a hopeful thing. The heart of the book is in family and friendship, and in powerful little reconciliations between things like dreaming and grounding, potential and realization, and love of home and love of the world beyond. For that, it's really a pleasant read.
Good afternoon, fellow book clubbers! I'm feeling a bit distracted and even Confunded today, possibly owing to an Energizing Charm going a little bit awry and keeping me up till four A.M. for the second time in a week.* I do hope this post makes sense by the time I'm through with it.
Highly recommended, all of them. And now, for the sake of getting this post done today rather than next Tuesday, we'll move on.
* * *
This Week in Reading Harry
Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 16. If you've never, ever read it, GO READ IT BEFORE YOU READ THE REST OF THIS POST. Otherwise, there will be SPOILERS.
I was going to take in Chapter 17, too, but there's just too much to talk about in both. We'll therefore have one more week on the first book.
Potential Discussion Points:
1. Harry's Declaration of Intent. It's page 270 in my yellowing, fraying little paperback. Oh, what the heck, I'll just quote it:
"SO WHAT?" Harry shouted. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the house cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there, it's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that trapdoor tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?"
He sounds like he's been watching Star Wars, and he's unwittingly off on a couple of the facts, but the power in this statement is almost limitless. There are things in here that won't be fully explained to Harry himself until books five and six, but he feels them well enough now to stand on them: he knows Voldemort, and he knows the cost of renouncing evil. He knows that the mundane things that matter so much to us in the moment, things like the winning of points and the relief of withdrawing from challenges, mean nothing when the time comes to stand against the darkness that lurks loose and ever malignant in the world. He knows that it's better to suffer and to die than to align himself with wickedness or let it gain its desired ground.
That's pretty impressive knowledge for an eleven-year-old. It convicts me of my own weakness and hesitations every time I read it.
A word about Neville: courage is the dominant trait of Gryffindor, and while there has been a lot of reckless wandering-around-dangerous-places-at-night, disobeying elders, and standing up to bullies, the purest form of courage I've seen so far is from Neville. It is exactly his lack of chutzpah that make his actions so courageous: standing up to Malfoy, holding his own against Crabbe and Goyle, and risking detention and loss of life (we all know which Hermione would find the more horrifying!) to warn his friends of a dirty trick. Neville may be the bravest character I have yet to encounter in Harry Potter.
SPOILERS.
BRAVERY LOVE NEVILLE SPOILERS. So many thoughts that I can't yet speak of!! But Neville displays his pure courage again in this chapter, and while he's misguided as to his friends' intent, what he did was fantastic moral courage at its core. This will be returned to briefly in the next chapter.
3. Ron's response to Neville's courage. Oh, Ron, you're just so... so human:
"Don't you call me an idiot!" said Neville. "I don't think you should be breaking any more rules! And you were the one who told me to stand up to people!"
"Yes, but not to us," said Ron in exasperation. "Neville, you don't know what you're doing."
His second argument has some merit; Neville doesn't know what he's doing, which is the boy's only mistake here. But Ron's first argument has no merit at all. It sits right at the heart of human weakness: the rules apply, but not to me. We all excuse ourselves where we would condemn anyone else.
4. The problem with quasi-Latin spells spoken aloud. Here, I quote my fellow Blogengamot member, Matthew "Korg20000BC" Boyd (DH SPOILERS at the link):
The fight in the cafe brings up a problem about wand duelling. I did a little experiment and found I’d be able to cover about 10′-15′ and solidly punch, hit, kick or push someone by the time they could yell “Petrificus Totalus!” Now, imagine if the witch or wizard’s target was armed with a staff, rock, chair or even a sword (like Godric Gryffindor). It seems that the wizarding world has locked itself into a reliance on magic and perhaps forgotten what they are physically capable of. Maybe that’s why there is a total absence of Physical Education at Hogwarts. I’d put my money on an active muggle over a witch/wizard at close range.
Neville already has his fists up, but then again, he's eleven, and he'd have had to fight Hermione. Maybe it would have been different if Ron had thrown the curse.
5. The tests of faith and skill.
Remember Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indy and friends have to dive out of the way of blades and find their way across a trick floor and step out over an abyss—a leap of faith, Indy calls it?
Here's where I wish I knew my Holy Grail mythology a little better. (I did see Monty Python, but...) Harry's pursuing the Philosopher's Stone (not to claim it for his own, but to save it from someone else, much like Indy). The Stone provides wealth and immortality, which on the latter point at least, bears some similarity to the Grail quest. Harry undergoes a number of trials, mostly enchantments, which test him and Ron and Hermione together in both skill and faith, in knowledge and in heart.
The tests, perhaps because they're headed up by Dumbledore, are basically an alchemical progression; we primarily get to see the nigredo and albedo in this chapter. Cerberus and the Devil's Snare are nigredo tasks. The winged keys (silver) and passing the white chessmen are albedo tasks. The joining of ice and fire by potion and spell at the end of the chapter signify completion of the albedo and prepare Harry to face the final task, which involves a red stone and total purity of heart. We'll save the rest of that discussion for next week.
Organized here for your convenience (let me know if I missed anything):
Getting to the third-floor corridor without getting caught. Requires invisibility cloak, which I'd love to talk about more if it wouldn't mean DH spoilers. ;) Involves safely bypassing Neville, Mrs. Norris (and, by extension, Filch), and Peeves, all of whom have their own reasons for stopping the Trio.
(Enchantment 1, by Hagrid) Cerberus/Fluffy. Note that he's guarding the Underworld. Passing him safely requires the use of music, "a magic beyond all we do here," as Dumbledore said. Music is David's antidote to Saul's evil spirit, and it is perhaps in a similar sense that the hellhound is neutralized by harp and pipe.
Blind drop into abyss. Here's that leap of faith, and Harry, naturally, is the one to first make it. The symbolism of Harry passing the hellhound and going underground on a leap of faith to face Voldemort is serious business, but it's only half the story; we'll be elaborating on this further next week.
(Enchantment 2, by Prof. Sprout) Devil's Snare. The trickster plant that sneaks around you, binds you closer the harder you struggle, and eventually strangles you. Devil's Snare is an appropriate name; the plant's defining attributes are highly suggestive of temptation and sin, and it cringes away from light and warmth.
(Enchantment 3, by Prof. Flitwick) The locked door and the winged keys. Here, we get into three trials that require the special skills of one member of the Trio. The first is Harry's; he's the Seeker, the one who sees things other people don't (like the fact that Voldemort is after the Stone, and that stopping him is more important than not getting expelled.) He is the one to use his otherwise mostly showy Quidditch skills to find the key, to catch it, and to unlock the door.
(Enchantment 4, by Prof. McGonagall) The chess game. This is Ron's big moment, and one of the reasons I love him. Ron is selfish and a bit volatile and, as aforementioned, very human, but he's got the heart of a knight. He shows it beautifully in this scene. For some reason, his choices of bishop for Harry—religious significance, there—and castle for Hermione seem appropriate as well, but I'm not sure I've ever put my finger on why.
(Enchantment 5, by Prof. Quirrell) The troll. Quirrell's rather coarse contribution is already knocked out cold, and the primary significance of this task, as far as I can see, is in its reminder of what first bonded the Trio together. Harry and Hermione don't have to do anything but step over it and go on.
Walk through fire. This is another act of faith as well as one of skill and self-confidence—or, in Harry's case, Hermione-confidence. I suspect there's a lot of plausible symbolism in this little moment that I don't even know about. It reminds me of the final purification in Dante's Purgatorio, not that the matter of Lust particularly applies; it reminds me of a lot of little Scriptural references (Isaiah 43:2; 1 Corinthians 3:13; 1 Peter 1:7 and perhaps some other testing-by-fire verses). What Harry does in sending Hermione back and going on alone is arguably his bravest act so far, and Hermione contradicts those O'Brien arguments about secret knowledge and superpowers by telling Harry what's really important—the strengths that will really help him survive.
Art by Gustave Doré.
The seventh and final enchantment doesn't appear till next chapter. We'll finish all these half-started Book 1 discussions there, and find out who was waiting in the last chamber.
And if you already know who was in the last chamber, and whose side Snape was really on, here's a wizard rock video for you. Otherwise, SPOILERS.
* Muggle explanation: I think I had too much coffee, too late in the day. ** Weird story: here I'm randomly Googling Snape's logic puzzle, and as it turns out, I KNOW two of the thirty-five people who are listed as having correctly solved that mathematician's test. IN REAL LIFE. Small world. *jaw hits floor*
Christie tells me that she hopes to get her Harry Potter post up tonight or early tomorrow, so I'm reversing post days. Today you get... well, the Today post. Tomorrow, you get Harry. :D
'Course, Masha hasn't put up her linky yet over at Piękno, so I'm just stealing her meme until she does.
Feeling... bright and cheerful. The sky is bell-clear, and it's honest-to-goodness hot outside, about eighty degrees (go ahead and laugh, all ye who are not from the Pacific Northwest). We get heat like this so rarely that I think of it as splendid. I'm in tank tops and shorts and French braids and enjoying every bit of it. Also, I've just had two extraordinarily pleasant days, on which I shall elaborate under the later sensory headings.
Seeing... bright blue sky and summer flowers; the first buds on my sweet peas; half-grown baby tomatoes (weeks earlier than we had last year, I think); the first female flowers on the pumpkin vines.
Smelling... the light, spicy scent of a glass of holy basil (tulsi) tea.
Tasting... homemade einkorn flatbread and pico de gallo, fresh fuji apples, and "doubled" eggs, all courtesy of my little sister.
Listening... to the strange whistling roar the WTA buses and semi-trucks make going by on the street.
Grateful... for everyone's prayers about my choir directing yesterday, and for a blessedly supportive choir and musical team. I felt very prayed for and loved, able to relax for the most part, to take little mistakes and difficulties in stride, to keep track of the cues, to be decisive, and to freely enjoy myself. And I was surrounded by helpful people who knew just what they were supposed to do and when.
As it turns out, directing is so much fun. You feel the pulse and dynamics of the music all the way through you—even subtle changes you might not notice when singing, like a shift of time signature. You lean in toward the choir and widen your count, and they raise their volume and intensity; you crouch back and narrow your count, and they bring the music down to a hush. You can speed or slow the beat by tiny increments, enough to emphasize the feel and meaning of the song, and you can make the count crisper or smoother to go marcato or legato or anything between. And the ensemble follows you, gets into it with you—at least, they do if they're as superb as my little group. I could see and hear and feel the response, and it was gratifying even before Mass ended and people started coming up to me and being all sweet and encouraging. I get to work with the nicest people. :)
Also, when you're directing, you can ask the accompanist to play organ on one of the hymns. There's not enough of the king of instruments in this world. At least, not enough in our Sunday Masses. ;)
Seriously: if you prayed for me, thank you. There was a memorable moment during Mass when I thought of all of you who had offered prayers, understood how much they were helping me, and was grateful.
Reading... the last two chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in preparation for tomorrow.
Loving... my little sister-who-does-not-like-to-be-named-on-the-internet and her daughters, with whom I spent a happy late morning and early afternoon. Lots of cuddles and smiles, countless instances of "Watch me!", four small hands helping me peel and mayonnaise the eggs—and spreading both egg peel and condiments over half the kitchen in the process—and coffee and shared thoughts and the occasional movie quote with my sister.
Hoping... that I'll get asked to substitute-direct again sometime. :D Even though I never like having any of our team missing.
Maia: "My nice, warm, clean bath towel.
You're not allowed to take it away and fold it."
* * *
"You're very graceful when you direct."
Laughter—I've practiced in front of the mirror, and it's possible I'm overdoing the aesthetics. "It's those seven months of ballet I took."
"Well, it helps. You don't need to be so nervous, you know."
"Oh, I'm nervous, like, ninety-five percent of the time, anyway."
"Yes, I know. I can see that. I used to be the same way."
"Oh, good! You mean it's possible to grow out of this?!"
"Yes. You just have to get to the point where you realize it doesn't matter. Like this; it's just the music for one Mass, at one parish..."
This week's cantor took the time to encourage me after choir practice, and his advice applies to a lot more in life than my mind can take in at once.
As it turns out, directing is splendid fun. Worth pushing through the nervousness for. And our choir is made up of fantastic, supportive, good-natured people, which helps a lot. I still have plenty of opportunity for major mistakes on Sunday, but the practice was both humbling and affirming. Sometimes it's hard to remember that it's possible to make little screwball errors, blush and falter, make something of an idiot out of yourself, persevere, and still be loved.
* * *
I've always loved standing beneath a ripening cherry tree.
And for all it's more or less out of the gardener's control, especially when said gardener forgets to go to pruning class and therefore doesn't do anything: there's something so satisfying about seeing trees thick with developing fruit.
Actually, Lou and I did prune the cherry tree. But I didn't dare take loppers to our gorgeous old apple tree without instruction.
Another thing this gardener had nothing much to do with: the neighbors' wild rose is growing up into our snowball bush, and I'm not about to stop that.
The day lily is in its first bloom, which is especially exciting as I had no idea what color it would be. I like the rusty orange.
Elderberry flowers are startlingly beautiful, as is that flax, and the red bark mulch I spread last Saturday is a pleasant improvement on the cat's ear and clover that were attempting to fill in the blanks before. ;)
Lastly, here's one of my early summer thrills: the sweet pea vines finally poking up through the rosemary.
* * *
Music of the week: When I walked into church for choir practice, our accompanist was playing a beautiful arrangement of a favorite old hymn I hadn't heard in forever. I asked him about it when he finished, and while I didn't positively catch the arranger's name, I think I've tracked down the right piece. Anyhow, it's lovely.
* * *
Today still needs to include housecleaning, dinner prep, a count-through of Sunday's music (my right arm is really feeling the workout), an errand to the fabric store, the making of a pan of brownies for tomorrow's family picnic in Eastern Washington (ten hours of driving and five hours of small talk all in one day, and then having to be up on time and mentally present for choir the next... yeehaw), and, if possible, scrubbing some spilled currant jelly out of the refrigerator. I'm off.
"I would like a question answered today," said Tiffany.
"Provided it's not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs," said the man.
"No," said Tiffany patiently. "It's about zoology."
"Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it."
"No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short."
The teacher's eyes narrowed further. Children like Tiffany were bad news. "I can see you're a clever one," he said. "But I don't know any teachers of zoology in these parts. Vetin'ry, yes, but not zoology. Any particular animal?"
"Jenny Green-Teeth. A water-dwelling monster with big teeth and claws and eyes like soup plates," said Tiffany.
"What size of soup plates? Do you mean big soup plates, a whole full-portion bowl with maybe some biscuits, possibly even a bread roll, or do you mean the little cup you might get if, for example, you just ordered a soup and a salad?"
"The size of soup plates that are eight inches across," said Tiffany, who'd never ordered soup and a salad anywhere in her life. "I checked."
Author: Terry Pratchett
From Goodreads:They're small. They're blue. And nobody messes with them.
Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the very monsters of Fairyland. Luckily, she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.
Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself....
Notes: The Tiffany Aching series was recommended to me—by whom, I've forgotten; probably Mr. Pond—when I said I'd found the first two Discworld books enjoyable, but not compelling enough to make me want to read more. My complaint had been the lack of strong lovable characters, which is a common problem among humor novels. As it turns out, the recommendation was good. Lack of lovability wasn't a problem for Tiffany at all.
It could have been; nine-year-old Tiffany is unaffectionate and practical to the point of caricature. But she's also hard-working and hard-thinking, fiercely loyal to her home and her land, and determined to be like her Granny Aching, who healed sheep with "turpentine and cussin'" and smoked Jolly Sailor tobacco and said little but was respected by all. It's hard not to love a character like that, and my inner ten-year-old wants to be much more like her than I am.
The portrayal of both Tiffany and her Granny is very much a good comic one, but what makes it great is that it's also deeply thoughtful. Granny Aching, for all her few words, lives in Tiffany's memory as a source of wisdom; there's a striking compassion beneath her tough exterior, and a lot of questioning and resolving beneath Tiffany's. There were a number of times that I stopped to ponder over a paragraph of one or the other's ideas.
And along those lines: because I have been so intensely religious all my life, it's hard for me to read a book like this without seeing the author's basically secular worldview waving at me from the text. It's a felt difference between this book and, say, the otherwise fairly comparable Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Most readers will not notice this, and some will of course be glad of it, but I was loosely uncomfortable with the here-and-there subversive tone, nontraditional ideas of virtue such as the "make your anger work for you" thing, and the profound emphasis on self-actualization as prime good. It wasn't malicious enough to put me off the story, but it was present.
But I loved the part about waking up.
Deep thoughts aside, the narrative is just plain funny. It's always hard to predict another reader's sense of humor, but I laughed aloud a lot. Pratchett keeps grown-up humor going throughout, while never quite transgressing the borders of reasonable middle-schooler understanding. The Nac Mac Feegle are an uproarious lot, from their names to their language to their roguery, and Tiffany and Granny, the teachers and the witches all offer plenty of amusement. They make for a fun read. This is a satisfying summer fantasy story, and I could definitely see myself going in for the sequel.
The Today meme is hosted by Masha! Join in over at Piękno, or leave your own sensory notes in the combox...
Today I am...
Feeling... a little tired, and a little nervous. It took us twenty minutes longer than usual to drag ourselves out of bed this morning, even though—small victory!—this eternal slowpoke dragged herself to bed before 11:30 for once. I think it's the rain. As for the nervousness bit, I'll be steadily nervous through Mass on Sunday, and it'll probably take me the afternoon (or possibly the rest of the week) to get rid of the residuals, but it's all right. A part of me is actually excited about directing choir, terrors notwithstanding.
Seeing... Maia skulking around like she thinks there might be an intruder in the house. By 'intruder', she means 'anyone other than Lou, Jenna, and Maia.' Her people are not as unfriendly as she is. I promise.
Smelling... all the girly post-shower scents. I love citrussy, tropical smells and am a total sucker for all the Clairol Herbal Essences and Calgon body mist marketing campaigns. Even when I hate their commercials, as I generally did with Clairol back when I had a television.
Tasting... that odd, bitter taste in the back of the throat that hints at the possibility of getting sick. I'm probably not; that's a semi-constant feeling in cold, rainy Washington State. But I'm taking elderberries, just in case.
Listening... to a freshly-burned copy of an album I made for my nieces and nephews. Out of distrust for my CD burner and iTunes, I try to listen to every copy I burn to be sure it's glitch-free.
Grateful... for Mary; for her comforting, motherly nearness, for her help in calming my mind.
Reading... I'm in between books now, but am about to pick up Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter.
Loving... my sister Beth, who talked with me on the phone for an hour and a quarter yesterday with a fussy baby on her lap, and planned sewing projects for my next visit.
Hoping... that my Kindle weather app's promise of "abundant sunshine" in early July will come to pass sooner rather than later. It's been holding heat and sunshine out like a dangling carrot, always four or five days away, for what feels like most of June. I'm wearing my skort and doubled-up tank tops and hoping for at least a short break in the clouds this afternoon.
It's raining and dark enough to be evening even though it's midafternoon, and the owl just came by which reminds me that I have mail which I am supposed to be putting together and sending, and Christie hasn't posted this week, so this will be a short post. But I promise you, Christie has an excuse. She and her husband are from different countries, which means they're currently stuck living a bit too far apart to Apparate or ride thestrals, let alone broomsticks, and I hear magic carpets get a bit whippy out over the Atlantic. But the brave man has made the crossing, and I promised Christie myself that she didn't have to post while she had him home, so the H.P.B.C. is going to take this week easy and possibly next, too.
In the meantime, some fun for all of us who want to see Slytherin and Gryffindor lighten up and make friends. It is impossible to watch this music video without grinning. At least, it is for me.
And in smashingly awesome Harry Potter and-other-stories news, The Hog's Head has kicked out the nargles... and trolls, and goblins, and a couple of old Death Eaters, sounds like... and is back up and running! Many thanks to Aaron the hard-working tech-elf! Firewhiskey is being poured into clean glasses, the Blogengamot is pulling up bar stools and finding things to talk over, and Travis thinks Benedict Cumberbatch could be our next great Snape or Voldemort. I think I'm with a couple of commenters, however, who suggested we wait till Cumberbatch is a little older and have him play Dumbledore.
Now I'm off to go read the next chapter or two. If I can manage it around a trip over the mountains and my first attempt at directing choir for a whole Mass by myself—as Dumbledore said, "Ah, music! A magic beyond all we do here!"—I'll have something up for next week even if Christie still needs time off. :)
There's nothing that baffles and frustrates Maia like spotting us through the window.
Maia: "This is so weird. It's like, an out of body experience or something. WHY CAN'T I GET WHERE YOU ARE?"
Me: "Aw, kitty, you're so cute sitting up in the windowsill."
Maia: "I DON'T UNDERSTAND. There's this... this forcefield! How did you get on the other side of it?"
Me: "You really hate it when your people are outside and you're inside, don't you?"
Maia: "It's not right, it's just not right! There has to be a way around it! Where's the magic portal?"
Me, to myself: "I probably shouldn't tell her it's in the laundry room."
* * *
It's official: the fennel is as tall as I am, which takes some doing.
In other gardening news: I haven't had flax in the yard since I was a child, and I'm loving these little blue flowers.
Also, during all the rain of the last couple of days—when it's been too wet to walk the yard much—the raspberries have begun ripening. The first batch is always the sweetest.
And I spent last Saturday rescuing the vegetable garden from the buttercup invasion, as well as handling one of the more intense tasks of the year: tying up the tomato plants and pruning the indeterminate ones. Unlike last year, when the poor little starts were wet and sun-starved, this year's tomato patch has had the freedom of warmth and shelter in plastic-covered garden hoops. When I took off the plastic cover to start trimming and tying, I found a three-foot-deep jungle.
This task involved hunting out the long-lost baby cucumber vines, which I found growing happily along the jungle floor. It also entailed planting basil starts in a few square inches of spare earth and pouring used coffee grounds around them to keep the slugs at bay, and redirecting the enthusiastic pumpkin vines to parts of the yard they're permitted to take over. I had to wall them off from the tomatoes with cage wire. I love my pumpkin vines, but they're not allowed into the tomato patch.
If I didn't suck at photography,
I'd have spotted the blue tape before shooting that picture.
Oregano, thyme, leeks, cilantro, peas and pumpkins.
For better or for worse, I do not make hard choices when I don't have to. Faced with the necessity of removing a couple of little pumpkin vines from the hill, as well as pulling a couple of tomatoes that came up of their own accord, I dragged a couple of old pots out and gave the little plants their chance at life. They're much behind their fellows, but hey, we have room.
Tomatoes on the left, new strawberry starts from Mom on the right!
* * *
Music of the week: This Ralph Vaughn Williams piece, "The Lark Ascending", is mood music for today. I'm just loving it.
Master Nathaniel was drinking in every word as if it was nectar. A sense of safety was tingling in his veins like a generous wine... mounting to his head, even, a little bit, so unused was he to that particular intoxicant.
Endymion Leer eyed him, with a little smile. "And now," he said, "perhaps your Worship will let me talk a little of your own case. The malady you suffer from should, I think, be called 'life-sickness.' You are, so to speak, a bad sailor, and the motion of life makes you brain-sick. There, beneath you, all around you, there surges and swells, and ebbs and flows, that great, ungovernable, ruthless element that we call life. And its motion gets into your blood, turns your head dizzy. Get your sea legs, Master Nathaniel! By which I do not mean you must cease feeling the motion... go on feeling it, but learn to like it; or if not to like it, at any rate to bear it with firm legs and a steady head."
Author: Hope Mirrlees
Synopsis: In the long-lost days of Duke Aubrey, both human and fairy tradition had their influence on the city of Lud-in-the-Mist, which sits on the border of Fairyland. But the Fairyland-loving Duke was a rascal, and the law-abiding citizens banished him. With his banishment, importing fairy fruit—or fairy anything else—was criminalized, and the very name of Fairy became taboo.
In the days of mayor Nathaniel Chanticleer, however, the unspeakable things have begun to resurface. Haunted by the memory of a single Note he once heard in playful mimicry of old mysteries, Nathaniel himself feels set apart from his fellow lawmakers—and when fairy fruit smugglers and an enigmatic but popular doctor wreak discord and havoc in the city, and Nathaniel's own son shows disturbing signs of having eaten the fruit, Nathaniel is drawn into the resurgent conflict between the worlds of Law and Fairy. Only he can save young Ranulph and the city of Lud-in-the-Mist.
Notes: This is a tale of the relationship between Fairyland and ordinary life, which puts it at the heart of my favorite storytelling traditions. Born during the late lifetime of fellow countryman George MacDonald (relevant works: Phantastes, Lilith), and just thirteen years younger than G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy), Mirrlees seems to write under the guidance of the same muse that led them. It wouldn't surprise me if she were directly influenced by either one or both; nor would it surprise me if, like both of them, she influenced Tolkien (I'm thinking especially of "On Fairy Stories") and Lewis with her own work. Neil Gaiman (Stardust) apparently admits her as a favorite, and while I haven't heard anything Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) may have said on the subject, I strongly suspect she's read this book.
For all its both retrospective and forward-looking similarities to other great works of fantasy fiction, it's one of the more unpredictable tales I've ever read that yet managed an emotionally satisfying ending. I won't spoil the central points of unpredictability, but the satisfying ending bit required me to put my whole heart into sympathizing with the unlikely protagonist, which I did.
Nat Chanticleer, a plump, gin-and-cheese-loving, middle-aged lawmaker, is outwardly as steady and stodgy and Law-driven as his exquisitely stuffy friend Ambrose and all their comrades. But inwardly—well, inwardly, he's heard the Note. It's the Note that makes Nat a kindred spirit. He's never perfect; he's dithery and melancholic, and he bears comparatively little attachment to his daughter, for all he loves his son. But that Note helps him, and it's the first thing that puts tears in my eyes when I think back over the book.
For all the story's unpredictability, it's primarily a fairy tale. It reads a little like an allegory for something, but it's hard to fix on what, precisely. Mirrlees converted (from what, I'm not sure) to Catholicism just a couple of years after publishing this novel, and perhaps she, like me, saw in Catholicism one of the few places where Faerie took safe refuge from modernity, but her conversion did apparently come after writing the book, and her creatures of Fairyland are nearer relatives of Clarke's gentleman with the thistle-down hair than they are to any saint. That said, with the exception of possibly justifying certain dispositions of a certain rascal—I dare not get more spoilery than that—the allegory reads as true.
It's certainly an old-fashioned story; modern readers might find it difficult to get into, as it's heavily frontloaded with description and backstory. Nobody browbeat authors back then with the fear that such tactics might bore readers. The first half felt a tad long to me, but the second half—once the story began to be less about Lud in general and more about Nat—did not.
The second half is worth reading the first half for. It's hero's journey and murder mystery and philosophical conflict between law-abiding and lawlessness, and I thought it honestly delightful. But even the first half contains some startling little thought-gems and a lot of beautiful poetic prose.
I could see people disliking it, but it's hard to imagine who. If you like Clarke's work or Gaiman's, MacDonald's fairy stories or Tolkien's, it's worth giving Lud-in-the-Mist a try. It's not derivative fantasy; it's one of the classics from which the greats derive. I loved it. I could see myself reading it again. And perhaps again and again after that.
The Today meme is hosted by Masha! Join in over at Piękno, or leave your own sensory notes in the combox...
Today I am...
Feeling... close to all my friends who are suffering. So many prayers today. <3
Seeing... sheer gold curtains waving in the breeze. It's so wonderful to be warm enough to open the windows, even if I am sitting under a fleece throw and drinking hot coffee.
Smelling... fresh air. One of the great things about Bellingham is that it's almost never smoggy.
Tasting... the last cup of that Italian coffee, at least until it goes on sale again, and—last night—the very first cherry off our Benson sapling in the front yard. Lou and I split the cherry, which proved amazingly flavorful and sweet. That's a splendid little tree. I'm still furious at the deer that came by sometime Saturday night and ate a lot of the leaves off.
Listening... to myself singing "Dante's Prayer" and "Eileen Aroon" and "Scarborough Fair" and "Comin' Thro' the Rye" in the shower and around the house. My Scottish accent is horrifying. But I enjoy myself.
Grateful... for summer skies—the kind with puffs of white cumulus drifting across vivid, warm-weather blue.
Reading... the last chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, which is making me laugh a lot; a friend's long-awaited fantasy novel manuscript; and the sixth and seventh chapters (out of twelve) of my own work in progress.
Loving... my nieces and nephews. I got to spend Sunday with my family, and enslaved myself to the small fry out of sheer devotion. Being an aunty is one of my best consolations in life.
Hoping... for lots of pumpkins this year. I'd love to give some to the aforementioned small fry, and maybe let the little neighbor boys come over and pick one out, too. The neighbor boys are fascinated with the garden, and their mother tells me that watching Lou mow the lawn is a highlight of their week. :)
Good morning, magical friends! It's sunny, I'm wearing my Hufflepuff outfit—minus the fishnets—and it's time to talk about monsters and fame and unicorns and planets and Harry! Before we do, though, here's last week's recap and a mini-essay... I have a feeling those will be common henceforth:
Masha posted first with a beautiful drawing by her husband—seriously, you should follow her for Seth's artwork as well as her own commentary—and some tender thoughts on Ron's inner hungers and strengths as seen through his Mirror of Erised experience. Meanwhile, Christie posted pictures of her attempt at our first butterbeer recipe, which looks tasty, even if, as she said, chocolate wine made it not beery enough. She also expounded upon on some of the particulars of Dumbledore's conversation with Harry, to lovely effect.
Masha also linked two well-known anti-Potter articles in her post, coming from two entirely different directions, and here comes the mini-essay.
Mini-Essay #1: A Brief and Inadequate Reply to the Two Main Varieties of Serious Potter Critic
Anti-Potter article number one is one of the most famous among Potter fans: Harold Bloom's 2000 piece titled "Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes." Professor Bloom—of Yale—is a very well-known literary critic, author of The Western Canon as well as many other books, and certainly not someone whose literary understanding can be thrown away lightly. He's had a very interesting career, judging by a quick scroll through Wikipedia (yeah, I know), and I confess to respecting him more after looking at his achievements than I did after reading his article.
This response is inadequate on several levels; I don't have time to go point by point, and I don't begin to have comparable education, let alone experience. Others have done better. My difficulty with Bloom's piece is simple: he and I have totally different perspectives on something, and I'm not sure whether the point of profound disagreement is centered in the evaluation of literature itself or in the definition of what it means for reading to "enrich mind or spirit or personality." But we certainly have inconsonant opinions on the latter.*
Anti-Potter article number two is too recent to have gained the kind of widespread internet contradiction that it would have in the heyday of Potter fandom. Obviously, Michael O'Brien has gained widespread contradiction enough to put him on the defensive, however, and the whole tone of the piece is affected by this. To be fair, the piece is an interview with him on the very subject of his critics: Steve Jalsevac's "Michael O'Brien responds to his critics re: Harry Potter" at LifeSiteNews.
O'Brien, author of the controversial A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind as well as the Father Elijah books and many others, has achieved something of a cult following for his detailed, religious-based criticism of various fantasy works. I hate to even give it the vague honorific "religious-based", since as a Catholic, he should know that there's no one-holy-Catholic-and-apostolic interpretation of any fictional work. The relationship of fiction to dogma is even fuzzier than the relationship of fiction to reality.
The inadequacy of my response is in how little space and time I have to devote to it at present. I'd love to go point by point, as displayed in my overexuberant reaction in Masha's combox. But I'll keep myself to the base problems with O'Brien's critical technique, which are twofold.
First, he treats symbolism as if each symbol is a neat container for a single positive or negative idea. This is simply not true. Snakes, for instance, are not universally irredeemable symbols of evil. They're not even treated that way in the Bible. With no appeal to the context of a given symbol's portrayal, O'Brien is doomed to miss the point of the story, and he consistently does.
Second, his understanding of the moral universe of Harry Potter is so baffling as to make me think of the ever-popular Internet aphorism, casually attributed on Goodreads to both Edmund Wilson and Diana Tixier Herald—goodness only knows with whom it actually originated—which states that "No two persons ever read the same book." If he'd read the same story I had, he could never have said this:
"In Potter world, the saving of the world comes through acquiring secret knowledge and perfecting supernatural powers, while never really developing significant character or virtues such as those we can so clearly see in Tolkien’s and Lewis’s heroes."
There are reasonable criticisms to be made of the Harry Potter stories, and he makes some, but that's certainly not one of them. He's wrong on all three points there, demonstrably wrong:
"the saving of the world comes through acquiring secret knowledge" The idea that "secret knowledge" and the power thereof can save either world or individual is Voldemort's mistake, not Harry's.
"and perfecting supernatural powers" Every last conflict between Harry and Voldemort is a David and Goliath scenario, as far as magical skill is concerned. It's also explicitly stated numerous times by a certain character that love, not magic, is Harry's sole hope of standing against his archenemy.
"while never really developing significant character or virtues" I just don't understand how it's possible to read Deathly Hallows and come away thinking this. Love. Courage, both physical and moral. Forgiveness. Compassion, even for an enemy. Respect. Harry makes visible, remarkable progress in all of these areas.
That last point, in particular, is farcical. If anything, Rowling is clearer in her symbolism and her direct emphasis on virtue than Tolkien was.
* * *
This Week in Reading Harry
Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapters 13-15
It's hard to focus on single discussion points in these chapters; there are so many events to think over. Neville's character gets some development, and it would be hard not to end up loving him. Hermione and Harry manage to leave the Invisibility Cloak behind while sneaking around the castle at night, which has never made any sense to me, since Hermione is quick-thinking and cautious, and since the cloak is the only thing Harry has that was his father's. Harry's scar acts up in one of the most horrific scenes the books possess, and he's rescued by a centaur named after Florence, Italy (in Italian, the name is Firenze). Hagrid proves to be a valuable source of information, while cooing to a baby dragon and calling himself "Mommy".
Hagrid is so much fun. I just love him.
Some Other Potential Discussion Points:
1. Nicolas Flamel. This historical character—yes, he was real—has had long-standing legendary (and probably not real) status as an alchemist. A successful one; that is, he's said to have made the philosopher's stone. Rowling put the legend into play for her first mystery, and the sorcerer's stone, from which comes the Elixir of Life, is guarded underground at Hogwarts behind a series of enchantments and, appropriately, Cerberus.
This is only going to get more fun in the next chapters.
2. "Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles" Ron's offhand remark about the Ministry of Magic's handling of Muggle sightings of dragons is one of the first revelations of unethical Wizarding practices surrounding the Statute of Secrecy (the law preventing wizards from revealing themselves and their world to non-magical humans.)
3. Popular opinion. Rowling knows how fame treats a person now, knows it firsthand, but she apparently had a perfectly good understanding of it from the outset. Hogwarts students as a group vacillate between lionizing and demonizing Harry, and as far as I know, every famous person suffers this.
Ron was probably my favorite character in book one, and his loyalty to Harry in this section was part of that.
4. Legality and mercy. Harry and Hermione get into trouble saving Hagrid from the law and himself. Hagrid is good-hearted, but not at all likely to pay much attention to seemingly arbitrary regulations about monster-keeping. And his confidence in his monster-managing skills—this is just the beginning of it, we haven't met Aragog or Grawp or the Blast-Ended Skrewts yet—is hyperconfidence; he's hiding a baby dragon in a wooden house.
Even law-abiding Hermione doesn't hesitate to help Harry get the dragon safely off to someone who has the wherewithal to keep it, though it means breaking a lot of school rules—and when she's caught, she doesn't betray Hagrid even to lessen her punishment. Nor does Harry.
This sort of ethical dilemma is generally resolved by Rowling with an eye to compassion rather than judgment, to mercy rather than straight-up justice. Ethicists and moralists will be arguing till the end of time over which virtue is more important in which case, but I think it's within the bounds of Catholic freedom to believe that both mercy and justice—as well as both compassion and judgment—are important, and that humility and wisdom and respect are prerequisites for good decision-making wherever the two seem to conflict.
In this case, going to Dumbledore would've been the best way to protect Hagrid, but Harry's just an eleven-year-old newcomer who doesn't yet know his headmaster. He handles it like a well-meaning eleven-year-old kid would, and suffers the consequences.
5. "Mars is bright tonight" The centaurs are reading the signs of war in the sky—and being infuriating in the process, which is mostly what the centaurs in Harry Potter do.
6. "Always the innocent are the first victims" Ronan's sighed philosophy strikes me as something to contemplate, but I'd need to put more time into it than I've got this afternoon. Anyone who wants to unpack his statement, feel free.
7. Unicorn blood. Firenze explains: "...it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn... Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."
This paragraph sets up the—if you'll pardon the wordplay—crux of the entire Potter saga. The conflict on which the whole story turns is this conflict between defenseless innocence and selfishness taken all the way to monstrosity.
Voldemort sets himself up as a god again and again throughout the story, sometimes coming off as a temperamental Grecian-style deity, but sometimes as something more sinister. Whether Rowling intended it or not, Voldemort's portrayal is often Luciferish, often a direct inversion of the Christ-image. This is one of the latter moments. Eucharistic imagery is inverted here as, instead of the divine self-sacrifice, we have a demoniac sacrifice of the innocent Other. And Firenze sets the passionate tone of righteous response:
"Do you not see that unicorn?" Firenze bellowed at Bane. "Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must."
As for what else stands between the defenseless innocent and the selfish monster, we'll get into that in chapter seventeen. But it's worth noting that both Harry and Voldemort are set up symbolically as representatives of our inner self. This becomes very clear in, if I remember correctly, books five and six—but if I say more about that, there will be spoilers....
Disserendo!**
* I was SO tempted to find a random trash can picture on the internet and caption it "The Dustbin of the Ages". Juvenile, I know, but that phrase just kills me. ** All right, Latinists. This is me using Google Translate; feel free to tell me I'm using the wrong word for the imperative "Discuss!", and that I'm liable to wind up smashed under a stack of hardbound doctoral theses....
On the trail the Bird Woman wheeled to McLean with a dumbfounded look.
