That’s the question being asked by Philadelphia Literature Examiner’s Peter McEllhenney. He answers, “no,” not great; but they are literature. I’m not really sure what that means. It is a very interesting article, however, assessing Rowling’s strengths and weaknesses. I wonder the extent to which Hog’s Head patrons will agree and disagree.

The question caught my attention immediately, because the first 60% of Hog’s Head Conversations contain essays which, in one way or another, answer this question, “yes” – primarily the two essays that start the volume: “The Literary Value of the Harry Potter Books,” by Colin Manlove, and “Repotting Harry Potter: Popular Lit Made Legit,” by James W. Thomas.

Rowling’s strengths, according to McEllhenney, are her storytelling (his assessment of this is spot on) and her characters (who, if not very complex, he says, at least “engage our sympathy” and “are vividly drawn.”)

Her weaknesses are her “prose style” and the oldness of her themes and insights. The first I won’t touch here; we’ve discussed it before, and you can feel free to pick it up in the comments if you’d like. The second baffles me.

Nothing new about the themes? What makes something great literature is not the same thing that makes something a great dissertation or article in an academic journal. “Newness” has got nothing to do with it. In fact, Great Books evoke the great old themes of humanity, not anything “new.” We’re talking about “ancient human desires” (Tolkien) like love’s victory over death here.

Further, I’d disagree that her “insights” into those themes are “nothing new.” She’s managed to communicate these old themes to a whole new generation of readers who’d never pick up Homer or Dante; it’s old themes in a new story. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s first aphorism in Aids to Reflection begins:

In Philosophy equally as in Poetry, it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.

I think Rowling accomplished this, and I think it puts her in the “great” category.

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Another guest post by revgeorge!

Glad to be back with another post on HBP. Sorry I’ll have to briefly touch on many points.

The Trio plus One is enjoying an interlude of calm and happiness. Harry is blissfully happy with Ginny. Even Ron and Hermione are happy and laughing for once. But there are still hints of gloom. Ginny mentions three Dementor attacks. The war is still going on despite the relative insulation the students enjoy at Hogwarts. Do you think Rowling succeeds in showing us the intensity of the war raging outside through only snippets of information breaking into the pretty much routine life of Hogwarts? After all, even though Voldemort’s back and war is on, this school year for Harry is pretty much the same as usual. Any thoughts?

Quite a bit of time seems to pass in this chapter without much comment. Harry & Ginny’s happy times are curtailed because Ginny must study for OWLS and Harry has detentions still with Snape, which Snape seems to relish dragging out. So, several weeks or more must pass rather quickly in this chapter.

Hermione won’t let the Half-blood Prince go and through her research comes up with the picture of Eileen Prince. After much heated discussion, no one is satisfied with this information. Harry is certain the Prince is a boy; Hermione thinks it must be Eileen Prince. In a way they are both on the right track. Eileen is the mother of the Prince, and the book is most likely hers passed down to Snape. But Snape is the self proclaimed Half-blood Prince.

Right after this discussion about the Prince, Snape is mentioned again. It’s almost as if JKR is slapping our faces with the latent connection, Half-blood Prince=Snape, with just enough doubts thrown in with Eileen Prince to keep us from seeing the connection clearly.

Harry then receives another note from Dumbledore and heads off to meet him. Along the way he passes near the Room of Requirement just in time to hear Professor Trelawney thrown out of it by an apparently ecstatic Draco. Interesting point about the Room, if you try to get in and find out what someone is doing, you can’t. But if you try to get in for your own purposes, like Harry with the potions book or Trelawney and her sherry bottles, you can get in with no problems and possibly interrupt someone trying to work secretly. Does this make sense? Wouldn’t the Room had made some especially hidden place for Draco to work? Plus, for the first time all book neither Crabbe nor Goyle are on lookout.

This chapter then closes off with two terribly important things, which I will just comment on in brief. Harry finally hears from Trelawney who exactly overhead the prophecy being made, Snape again! Dumbledore says in Order of the Phoenix that the eavesdropper was found out half way into the prophecy and thrown out of The Hog’s Head. But Trelawney sees Snape caught by Aberforth after she comes out of her trance. What’s going on here? It’s obvious that Snape only gives Voldemort half the prophecy but did he hear all of it or did he catch only part before being caught and held up to be seen by Trelawney?

After this an enraged Harry rushes off to Dumbledore’s office to confront him but is quickly dumbfounded when he learns Dumbledore has located another horcrux and wants Harry to go with him. His excitement and anger wage war until Dumbledore presses his thoughts out of him.

For more discussion:

• Thoughts on Trelawney. She seems a complete old fraud but yet does have a real gift. What do you make of her and prophecy and divination in general?
• Dumbledore’s face whitens when Harry reveals he knows Snape told Voldemort the prophecy. Why do you think Dumbledore reacted this way, and what do you think of his attempted defense of Snape?
• Dumbledore told Harry to keep his invisibility cloak on him at all times but yet gives Harry time to go back to Gryffindor Tower to retrieve his cloak. What do you think of this?

Any other thoughts? After this chapter things get progressively darker for awhile.

Related Posts

• Sectumsempra, by Arabella Figg
• Horcruxes
• Essence of Insanity, by “Lily Luna”
• The Unknowable Room, by “revgeorge”
• Lord Voldemort’s Request

Beautifully done by Red Hen Publications, this is content of the back cover for the special Azkatraz edition of Hog’s Head Conversations: Essays on Harry Potter.  Note the charities that will be helped with purchases of this volume at Azkatraz!

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Our next guest post comes from Arabella Figg! ~ Travis

This is my first post here, and what a chapter to work on! So, no metaphorical Dung Bombs, please. (All page references are from the American edition.)

Sectumsempra could well have been titled Truth or Consequences, as deceit plays the starring role. Moreover, two events we’ve long-anticipated—a confrontation between Harry and Draco, and another kind between Harry and Ginny—occur.

The chapter begins with good news—Katie Bell’s return and the Ron/Lavender and Ginny/Dean breakups, Harry can now pursue Ginny, but fears Ron will disapprove; is he right (Ron has previously indicated how he would feel)? He returns Katie to the Quidditch team, displacing Dean who has played most of the year; was this fair?

Why do you think Slughorn stops holding Slug Club parties after telling Harry the truth about his Horcrux conversation with Tom Riddle?

Now we come to the heart of Sectumsempra: Harry’s bathroom encounter with Draco.
We have seen some amazing changes in Draco in this book—from brutish strutting to terrified crying. We also learn what drives him: if he fails, Voldemort will kill him. Is there any significance to Draco seeing Harry in a cracked mirror?

Throughout his many travails involving desperation, frustration or fear, Harry has never shed tears (except in grief over Sirius’ death). What does this say about him? How do you feel about Draco’s tears; do they diminish him? Though Draco has always been cowardly, do you feel differently about him in this chapter?
What follows is not Harry’s finest hour. We have to ask, who are the heroes and villains in the following sequence?

(Note: Sectumsempra is a favorite curse of Snape’s. He uses it nonverbally twice in the series: against the tormenting James Potter (OotP 647), and in trying to save Remus, instead accidentally severing George’s ear (DH 688).

Now, into the bathroom, friends. First Harry spies upon and then unwittingly humiliates his tormented enemy by watching him cry, thus engendering a duel. To counter Draco’s Cruciatus curse, Harry employs the Prince’s Sectumsempra curse, which he’s been itching to try, to disastrous results. What were his other options?

Snape seems to arrive at the bathroom quite quickly. Was he following Harry or Draco? If he was watching over Draco, should he have diverted Harry from entering?

Along with using his wand, Snape sings over Draco three times to heal his wounds, each pass a step of healing. What relationship to Phoenix song might this have? What about any symbolism in both blood and water drenching the scene (and Harry)? What do you make of this line: “There were bloodstains floating like crimson flowers across [the wet floor’s] surface” (523)?

When Snape orders Harry to wait for him in the bathroom while taking care of Draco, “It did not occur to Harry for a second to disobey” (523). Yet within minutes, he’s boldly lying to an expert Legilimens (quite familiar with his mind) about where he learned the curse. Though Harry knows Snape sees the Potions book in his mind, he continues lying, and disobys Snape’s order to give over the Potions book. Instead, Harry switches covers with Ron’s book (involving Ron in his deception), hides the Prince’s book in the Room of Requirement (now the Room of Hidden Things), and brings Ron’s book to Snape. Harry then “firmly” and with “defiance” (527) heaps lies upon lies to Snape about the book’s ownership and provenance. Snape calls Harry “a liar and a cheat,” (528) and gives him a Professor McGonagall-approved Saturday detention for the rest of the term, thus making him miss the rest of the Quidditch matches.

Who are the honorable and dishonorable ones (or is each person partly both) during this sequence and why? How did you feel about Snape calling Harry a liar and cheat? Consider Harry, throughout the series, cribbing Hermione’s homework to pass his classes, and lying in many and varied circumstances? Did you read this scene differently after having read DH? Has Snape always been truthful to Harry, no matter the cruel and self-serving the delivery?

Hermione later upbraids Harry, but Ginny defends his use of the curse. Both love Harry, in different ways. Who is right and/or honorable here?

The chapter closes happily. At long last, after a critical Gryffindor win, Ginny runs to Harry and…they kiss! Did you feel this hit the expectation mark? What about Ron’s reaction?

There’s so much more to ruminate over in this chapter, but I leave it to you. For example:

• Why do you think Harry didn’t connect the curse and the Prince’s book with Snape, as Snape’s knowledge of this curse, questions and behavior were, as Rowling might say, “obvious”?
• Truth or Consequence: what might have happened if Harry been truthful about the Potions book? Was he right to deceive Snape?
• Draco knows that Snape has made the Unbreakable Vow (323), yet says Voldemort will kill him if he fails. Does this fit with the Unbreakable Vow as explained in Chapter 2?
• Why do you think Moaning Myrtle (after what we learned about ghosts in OotP) remained a certainly unhappy ghost?
• What does this chapter reveal about achieving access to the Room of Requirement? Why did Harry fail earlier and then succeed?
• Did Harry’s viewing his father’s misdeeds during detention have any value, especially after his Pensieve experience in the previous book?
• What setups for the last book do we find in the Room of Hidden Things?

Have fun!

Related Posts

• The Seer Overheard, by revgeorge
• Horcruxes
• Essence of Insanity, by “Lily Luna”
• The Unknowable Room, by “revgeorge”
• Lord Voldemort’s Request

• Journey to the Sea, Issue 12 is posted! Great stuff in here on Hades/Death in mythology. I’m really looking forward to reading through this issue.
• HP Progs’ Episode 101 is an interview with Steve Vander Ark about the Harry Potter Lexicon
• Cory Godbey is doing Tolkien tribute work: Here’s Bilbo, and here’s Gandalf. Love ‘em both.
• The Tolkien Professor is working his way through lectures on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Looks like a great set of lectures. Free subscription through iTunes (HT to Amy Sturgis)
• Janet Batchler continues her re-read of Harry Potter: Here’s Book 5!

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We haven’t talked at length about some of the characters that we would meet in the DH films.  I personally can’t help but wonder who will play the wonderfully delirious Xenophilius Lovegood (assuming they leave him in the script…).

But, a little news/rumor found its way to IGN today concerning the casting of Rufus Scrimgeour.  It seems as though Bill Nighy might be taking up the scowling minister’s robes.  Lately, he’s best known for his turn as Davey Jones in the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  And uber-dedicated sci fi/fantasy nerds will recognize him from the Underworld movies (which, IMO, suck…). 

His resume is long and varied.  He’s a very versatile actor, and recently he’s been in everything from the hilarious British film Hot Fuzz to The Constant Gardener to Valkyrie (outshining Tom Cruise by a mile — you know, like it’s difficult or something…).

I think his choice is interesting, and it is potentially a quiet but very definitive home run.  But, it’s also got me to thinking about who might play some of the other characters that haven’t made it on screen yet.  Or, for that matter, which ones might be cut in the name of filmic-adaption.

Thoughts?  Ideas?

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Chapter 23 (”Horcruxes”) is one of the most important chapters in the book with great implications for what happens thereafter, especially the last novel. The Felix Felicis potion is wearing off as Harry arrives at the portrait of the Fat Lady, but not before he finds out from Nearly Headless Nick that Dumbledore arrived at the school an hour ago. How lucky indeed! Harry arrives at Dumbledore’s office and now both of them can finally see the true, unaltered memory of Slughorn. A few observations:

1. Tom Riddle is wearing Marvolo’s ring so he already killed his father and paternal grandparents prior to the memory. Slughorn’s comments that he has “never been wrong about a student yet” is interesting because the reader knows that he is in fact wrong about Tom Riddle. Perhaps the main reason why Slughorn says this is because of Tom’s “careful flattery of the people who matter…” We know Slughorn has a weakness in this regard, but perhaps Slughorn shouldn’t be faulted for this. Many people, with the exception of Dumbledore, were taken in by the charming and talented Slytherin student.

2. The fact that Tom has the ring calls into question whether he really needed to know what a horcrux was. Despite what Slughorn says about the availability of horcrux books at Hogwarts, there is one book as we discover in the last novel, Secrets of the Darkest Art, which gives explicit instructions on making a horcrux. It is possible that Tom Riddle had access to that book before speaking to Slughorn. While horcruxes was banned as a subject at Hogwarts as of Professor Dippet’s reign as headmaster, there is no indication that any books on horcruxes were immediately taken out of the library, at least until Professor Dumbledore took over as headmaster. All the questions Tom asks Slughorn are building up to the information that he really seeks: can someone split their soul into two or more fragments. Such information would not be found in any book because it was never attempted.

3. Harry responds to Dumbledore’s comment that Harry has a power the Dark Lord never had with “I can love!” and almost saying “Big Deal!” Dumbledore picks up on this and says, “Yes, Harry, you can love…Which, given everything that has happened to you, is a great and remarkable thing. You are still too young to understand how unusual you are, Harry.” Harry’s reaction is not unusual because up to this point, he has heard constantly that love conquers all and that love will defeat Voldemort in the end. Harry sees Voldemort as stronger and does not yet see or understand that he can defeat Voldemort because of his self-sacrificial love in the end.

This leads us to the last part of the chapter and probably the most useful for discussion, namely what is the role of free will in the whole prophecy business. Dumbledore says that Harry is “setting too much store by the prophecy” before essentially saying that if Voldemort never killed Harry’s parents, would that have given Harry the desire for revenge. Of course not. It is because Voldemort killed his parents and is seeking to kill him that Harry will have to face the Dark Lord in the end. As long as Voldemort sets store in the prophecy, Harry will not rest until he defeats him. How can we understand Harry’s choice in light of the prophecy? Does Dumbledore answer the question sufficiently? How about Harry’s choice to go to Voldemort in the Forest and give up his life in light of his knowledge that this scenario has been planned already by Dumbledore? Is free will still involved?

Finally it is only fitting to close this post with the quote that closes the very chapter we are about to discuss:

But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew – and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents – that there was all the difference in the world.

Related Posts

• The Seer Overheard, by revgeorge
• Sectumsempra, by Arabella Figg
• Essence of Insanity, by “Lily Luna”
• The Unknowable Room, by “revgeorge”
• Lord Voldemort’s Request

My post for The Harry Potter Alliance’s What Would Dumbledore Do Campaign:

Save the Malfoys, Save the World

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• Use Your Imagination!

Azkatraz had planned on closing its online registration today, but they’ve decided to extend it a few more days.  If you haven’t registered yet, now’s the time!  Here’s what’s still available:

• Weekend Pass (including the Ball) – $130
• Single-day Pass for Sat/Sun/Mon – $45 per day
• Master of Potter Administration including breakfast, lunch and cocktail reception on Monday – $130 without a registration, $100 with a regular registration, and $75 for Merlin Circle sponsors
• Dessert with Chris Rankin – $75
• Sunday Keynote Luncheon with Eddie Newquist of the HP Museum Exhibit – $65
• Sunday or Monday breakfast – $35
• Fog Bowl/Quidditch competition – $35 (includes pizza and a team shirt)
• Azkatraz Film Festival featuring Cherrybomb – $15
• Photos with Chris Rankin – $30

If you’re a regular around here who’s considering just a day pass, and you can’t decide which day to purchase, here is my speaking schedule.  I’d love to meet you!

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• Azkatraz: $145 Registration Fee Extended!

A special Azkatraz edition will be available at the conference in San Francisco.  It should be available to all at Amazon.com shortly thereafter!

Zossima Press, 2009

Cover Artwork by Michael Politakis

Cover Design by Red Hen Productions

Stay tuned for list of authors and essay titles!

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