So much to learn
18/11/08 21:17 Filed in: Harry Potter
I've gotten back into doing the work for my personal
Harry Potter Concordance. It's very challenging,
detail-oriented work in which I'm trying to note and
catalogue every character, every place, every race of
creature, every spell, every book, and every special
term or item mentioned in JK Rowling's books,
including the book and page number where each mention
is made.
Not the kind of thing one takes on casually.
So why am I doing it? Quite frankly, I'm not always sure. One reason is that I enjoy this kind of work: I like cataloguing and organising things, making things neat and orderly. I prefer computer games like Solitaire and Free Cell, where you organise a mess, to war games or character-driven vehicles like Super Mario Brothers, Zelda or whatever the more modern equivalents are. I enjoy the process of reading each page carefully, noting down the various bits of information that appear and organising them into a different form. Once I'm done, I'll have taken seven incredible narratives and converted them into an orderly collection of facts.
My goodness, am I really doing that? Sounds awful, actually. Those poor books. They deserve better.
Another reason I'm doing it is that it gives me a chance to understand the Potter books better, to get a stronger idea of how they are put together as narratives, how Rowling reveals and builds character, how she has constructed this amazing world. That kind of understanding can only help me as a writer. By knowing how a supremely talented writer works, I may get better myself.
I think a third reason is that the work gives me the chance to spend a lot more time within the Potter books and the world they inhabit, time to think about the myriad details of that world, to see connections and understand relationships.
I'm one of those people who enjoys familiar people and places, who will read the same book numerous times in his lifetime and watch the same films over and over again. Some people talk about eating comfort food — food that makes them feel good inside, happy and warm and safe. Well, for me I have comfort books and movies. They are places I like to be, worlds I like to inhabit. I enjoy being onboard the Enterprise in the 23rd century with Kirk and his crew. I find the people in most romantic comedies and some sitcoms attractive and likeable; their lives are light-hearted alternatives to the world I live in on a day-to-day basis. I find it comfortable and exciting to be at Hogwarts with Harry and his friends.
So I go back time and again.
Plus, my partner's friend, Debbi, and her two daughters, Thea and Marieke, count on me to be able to challenge them in Harry Potter trivia. And I can't let them down. Maybe someday I'll actually beat them!
Not the kind of thing one takes on casually.
So why am I doing it? Quite frankly, I'm not always sure. One reason is that I enjoy this kind of work: I like cataloguing and organising things, making things neat and orderly. I prefer computer games like Solitaire and Free Cell, where you organise a mess, to war games or character-driven vehicles like Super Mario Brothers, Zelda or whatever the more modern equivalents are. I enjoy the process of reading each page carefully, noting down the various bits of information that appear and organising them into a different form. Once I'm done, I'll have taken seven incredible narratives and converted them into an orderly collection of facts.
My goodness, am I really doing that? Sounds awful, actually. Those poor books. They deserve better.
Another reason I'm doing it is that it gives me a chance to understand the Potter books better, to get a stronger idea of how they are put together as narratives, how Rowling reveals and builds character, how she has constructed this amazing world. That kind of understanding can only help me as a writer. By knowing how a supremely talented writer works, I may get better myself.
I think a third reason is that the work gives me the chance to spend a lot more time within the Potter books and the world they inhabit, time to think about the myriad details of that world, to see connections and understand relationships.
I'm one of those people who enjoys familiar people and places, who will read the same book numerous times in his lifetime and watch the same films over and over again. Some people talk about eating comfort food — food that makes them feel good inside, happy and warm and safe. Well, for me I have comfort books and movies. They are places I like to be, worlds I like to inhabit. I enjoy being onboard the Enterprise in the 23rd century with Kirk and his crew. I find the people in most romantic comedies and some sitcoms attractive and likeable; their lives are light-hearted alternatives to the world I live in on a day-to-day basis. I find it comfortable and exciting to be at Hogwarts with Harry and his friends.
So I go back time and again.
Plus, my partner's friend, Debbi, and her two daughters, Thea and Marieke, count on me to be able to challenge them in Harry Potter trivia. And I can't let them down. Maybe someday I'll actually beat them!