Better Late Than Never?

[angelophile]

As mentioned, I finished reading the first Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Philosohthatsabigwordletscallitsourcerersinstead Stone a couple of days back.

Presumably I found it enjoyable enough, as I've now started on the second. So, thoughts.

In all honesty, it probably fitted my expectations, which weren't that high for the first book - I was expecting a kid friendly, entertaining book and got it. What I don't get is why the book set the world alight. I mean, it's certainly okay, but it's not startling to the level that I could get uber excited about it.

The Roald Dahlisms started to fade after the first chapter or so, but there was still plenty that smacked of his style of prose, but Harry Potter himself certainly isn't a Roald Dahl type hero. Compare Harry to James or Charlie - surrounded by monstrous characters but they wouldn't wish harm on them. In fact, Charlie was the kind of lad who expressed concern even for the monstrous brats he was having adventures with. Not so Harry Potter, who seems to spend most of the book wishing harm on people - be it Malfoy, Snape or Dudley, he always seems to be looking for a fight. While Charlie might have seemed too saintly, Harry comes across as rather aggressive and with a mean streak - literally his first line on being told he'll be able to do magic is not to express the desire to do something wonderful, but to curse his cousin.

Harry in the movie was a much more sympathetic character than he came across in the book for me. In the movies he comes across as shy and self doubting. In this first book, more obnoxious and jock-like than anything, good at sport, quick with a smart-ass remark, ready to pick fights, nursing grudges. It's funny because his in-book personality comes across slightly at odds with how twee and sickly sweet a lot of the rest of the book is. It's all very jolly hockeysticks, Enid Blyton (and at best a wannabe Tom Brown's Schooldays) in a way that's too sympathetic to be properly spoofing the public school genre. And I'd have given my right arm for there to be a decent Flashman type character instead of just Malfoy, who's fairly obnoxious, but hardly enough to justify the worst enemy *fistshakes* attitude from the central character. He's just a git and a fairly limp one at that.

Of course, the plot's fairly slight and it's mostly just a set up novel to introduce readers to the fantasy world of the character and in that it succeeds well. There's not really a whole lot that's original in the setting though - it seems more a lumping of cliches together, be they magical or public-school based, along with a generic big bad looming over everything. It all seemed rather derivative, but at least Rowling stole remixed other works and mythology and mixed it together in a way that wasn't entirely lifted from other books. but there's just a few too many moment where it was "oh, that scene's like..." I felt the book lacked the original concept that would really make it something truly new, though.

And that's a little where the book falls down - it's brief for the benefit of children, but rather relies on the readers knowing about dragons and ghosts and what mystical castles look like without much descriptive prose. I rather like a wordy description to aid the imagination myself, but so I would have rather liked a better idea of what something like Diagon Alley looked like, but on the other hand, encouraging a healthy imagination is to be encouraged too.

It's interesting to see how the book compares to the movies, though. It's clear certain casting was inspired, other roles an improvement on how they're written in the book (despite Rowling's claim that she "always had Maggie Smith in mind" for McGonagall, that doesn't tie in with the physical description of her in the book at all, but the movie version is an improvement) and it's clearly that Michael Gambon's boisterous take on Dumbledore is a lot closer to how I read him in this book that Richard Harris' subdued version.

I'm still bemused by the decision to rename the book in the US though. The Philosopher's Stone is an actual alchemic concept, the US title's just generic.

Anyway, a harmless enough read, but I'm hoping for more from later books in the series. At the moment I'm hard pressed to see what the fuss is about.

Comments

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, it probably fitted my expectations, which weren't that high for the first book - I was expecting a kid friendly, entertaining book and got it. What I don't get is why the book set the world alight. I mean, it's certainly okay, but it's not startling to the level that I could get uber excited about it.

This pretty much describes my reaction to the book.

I read it before seeing the movie, of course, so I didn't have that in my head, but yeah, Harry is a bit dark. I actually don't mind it so much though, since it sort of works with the idea that he could have been Slytherin. I just wish we got a better progression of fighting those impulses and growing up.

The hero also lost quite a bit of his appeal when I realized that, despite the fact that he looks like a nerd to us, he's the magical world equivalent of a popular jock. He's constantly handed stuff (priviledges and magic items) he hasn't really earned, girls everywhere like him. And although, for a popular jock, he's _relatively_ nice, it's not really as entertaining to read about as someone who really is the underdog and has to work at things.

Unfortunately I don't feel the books improve a whole lot. They get a little more depth and a little more complex as the characters age, but it still reads very 'kiddy' to me.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

"The hero also lost quite a bit of his appeal when I realized that, despite the fact that he looks like a nerd to us, he's the magical world equivalent of a popular jock. He's constantly handed stuff (priviledges and magic items) he hasn't really earned, girls everywhere like him. And although, for a popular jock, he's _relatively_ nice, it's not really as entertaining to read about as someone who really is the underdog and has to work at things."

Yes, this. Although it's common to the genre (Charlie finding his golden ticket, James being given his magical crystals etc etc) it's what they do with those singular gifts that molds them.

Harry never really struggles. He arrives at the school and everybody's in awe of him. Then someone gives him a fantastic broomstick. Then a magical cloak. Then leads him to a magical mirror. Then defeats a troll for him. Then solves the problems for him allowing him to get to the main villain, who's then defeated, not by anything he's done, but power left in him by his mother.

So Harry never really has a tough time of it, apart from the one brief moment after they've lost multiple house points sorting out the dragon, when he's unpopular. The gifts and privileges and favoritism showed actually make him less sympathetic to me because Harry himself does very little. And he never seems particularly grateful about any of it.

I actively disliked the ending where Dumbledore screwed over the other houses in the school to bump up his favorite's score to help them win the house cup. That sat wrong with me.

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

That was a lot of my reaction to the book as well--I really don't understand where all this admiration of Harry comes from, or the books themselves. I think the idealized public school thing is a big part of it, more perhaps than Jock Harry, as it does seem like an awfully nice place to have gone. Then of course there's learning magic, I mean, who wouldn't want?

[parsimonia.livejournal.com]

It's very interesting to read your take on the book. I read Philosopher's Stone not that long before the movie came out, and before I read LotR.

I think when it comes to knowing what ghosts and dragons and other typical fantasy elements are like, the book kind of assumes the readers' awareness of them. At least, it assumes the reader has been exposed to typical fantasy elements through cultural osmosis if nothing else. I do think that most magical and Wizarding World-specific elements do have their own particular Harry Potter twist to them, but it assumes you already know the basics. (Which, I actually kind of like, because you don't end up having to be told what you probably already know.)

It's funny, I never really picked up on Harry being a jock or a jerk in the first book, but I can see what you mean. It kind of makes sense, though, given that he hadn't really been surrounded with very many examples of kindness or ethics.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Oh, it certainly makes sense, given the background, but I admit to liking the Roald Dahl standard more - that terrible things can happen but the hero's still sweet - the Charlies and the Jameses and the Matildas and so on. While him wishing harm on everyone who doesn't worship at his feet (and that's how it comes off - the people who don't view Harry with a sense of awe from the start are Snape and Malfoy, so Harry hates them) is real-world natural for a child who's had a crappy life, it's not a particularly heroic outlook and I like the idea of kids having heroes who are better than that. Especially as, as mentioned above, Harry's life at the school is full of privilege and he just comes across as spoiled by that in parts. ("How dare Malfoy be mean to me! The teachers love me! Students adore me! I've been given all this stuff!")