Posted on 08/01/2007 6:59:32 AM PDT by ParsifalCA
I am warning those who have not finished the series . . . and there must be still a few of them by now. . . that there are spoilers ahead. I have just finished the last book . . . having spent an enjoyable evening with it thanks to Sam’s Club and an indulgent wife.
I am done with Harry Potter and enjoying the literary aftertaste the way one enjoys a fine meal almost as much after it is done as when it is being consumed . . . though it is a bit sad that the series is finished.
And it is really finished . . .
Will one be able to re-read the books with pleasure?
I think the answer is only a tentative “yes.” If one knows the “puzzles” and “the secrets” of the book, it will not take away the charm of the characters or the fun of a good Quidditch match, but the first read will always be the best.
The strength of these books is in the plot and the second read, when everything is known, will be satisfying for finding all the clues to what happens . . . but I am hard pressed to know if I will want to re-read them a third or fourth time.
A really great book is as good on the fourth read . . . and some children’s books (Little White Horse) are better.
I deeply enjoyed the last book and thought the ending satisfying. For those who found them quite Christian, they will find much in this last book to give strength to their idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at exilestreet.com ...
*shrug* While I admire your stick-to-it-ive-ness, I think after the 5th or 6th time the crack addled male prostitutes line failed to get traction, I would have asked a more realistic question.
It does make you seem a *little* obsessed with the topic...
Shakespeare is full of cliches too...
Why would anyone be surprised that Italian children in Italy are learning about an Italian poet in school?
Why would anyone be surprised that American children are reading American authors in school (okay, and British, too, because we only go back 230 years) instead of reading Italian poets?
Thank you.
I agree with you. If people think that Harry Potter novels, or even any-and-all fantasy fiction, is a bad idea for their children, that's their judgment call to make as parents.
I also agree (with somebody-or-other) that the marketing of genuine (or pretends-to-be-genuine) witchcraft-related material with fantasy fiction is a problem. I even complained at the bookstore when they had Wicca books in the same display as Tolkien items!
Thanks. I have never read the books (the subject doesn’t interest me), but I think that parents need to pay attention to what their kids read.
If more people simply said that ... "This doesn't interest me," or "I don't enjoy that." ... instead of "It's terrible, it's junk, it's badbadbad," there would be fewer arguments!
I think that parents need to pay attention to what their kids read.
I agree, and I'll disapprove library books for my children any time I think something is a poor choice, even for my 16-year-old.
That's how I got hooked on Harry...
As I said, if parents read it and are comfortable with it, it is certainly their decision. I have no doubt that the Harry Potter books are excellent as evidenced by their success and I would certainly rather see kids reading a book than playing psychotic video games.
rofl rofl rofl rofl
When all else fails to remind a person God has a sense of humor,I need only point out that He made people.And then He made a platypus to confuse them.
Sad are those who would remove all man-made reproductions of nature in painting and carving as graven images,and deny all imagination,demanding that only the Bible and the mechanical sciences be allowed. I think there was such a time,generally referred to as the Dark Ages.A time when men and women were most cruelly murdered for slight differences of opinion about God. Is God threatened by what mistakes you or I might (will) make?
I hope a certain poster is now less full of it after his break.
My husband got interested in them first, and then decided the appropriate-aged kids could read them. (I’d been resistant, more because of the insane-fad element than the books themselves.)
Then one night when I was up with the baby, I found “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” on the floor in the bathroom I never use ... and there was nothing else to read until I finally got Vlad to sleep ... and by the time I was able to go to bed, I really wanted to know what happened next!
“Deathly Hallows” (the latest) is the only book we own. We get everything from the library. As I said, I take the occult seriously, and I respect the opinion of parents who think these books or others are not right for their children. There’s no fiction so important that anyone is going to be harmed by NOT reading it.
Who? I dont know who that is and I am not a girl. I am a man.
All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence
I trust your judgment implicitly, who knows if I’m bored and have nothing else to read I may read them one day.
That's probably true, but I don't think people have to be strictly consistent, except if the paint themselves into a corner by overgeneralizing on FR :-). Parents have the right, even the duty, to use their judgment, even their intuition, to discern what's edifying or potentially harmful for their children.
I'll page through a book by an unfamiliar author my children are interested in, and if I see anything that makes me uncomfortable, I'll say, "Put it back, you have lots of other choices." And all of them comply.
We sometimes have breaks from fantasy and science fiction books for a month, or through Lent, or all summer ... "some other fiction or nonfiction." My oldest (16) spent last summer reading big-game hunting books, travel writing and explorers' stories, and Christian historical fiction. She griped every trip to the library, but she enjoyed the different books we found.
People have different tastes in literature. That's so simple! I have a VERY eclectic taste, everything from realismo magico in Spanish to Homer (in English), to Barbara Cartland romances.
No one is more tuned into HP than my teenage son. Also, no one is more politically tuned in than him.
Accygirl was (maybe still is) a Thread Dementor, something in your post reminded me of her.
We’ve had quite a few trolls of one stripe or another, and perhaps I’m a little too hair-trigger.
Nice quote for your screen name. I hope you enjoy FR as much as I have!
OK, as a comic book fan, I just have to say that that little typo made me laugh more than anything else on this thread! :-)
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