80. A week of Pottering

POTTER IS STILL WORTH THE WATCHING...

We made it to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the day after the opening. Five of us went and four enjoyed it. Well, I reckon if you manage to please 80% of your audience you've not done badly.
I thought it was like the other films, good so long as you didn't expect a replica of the book: I enjoyed it. Mind you, I did not believe it to be that much better or worse than the previous four Potter outings. True there is an increasing darkness in the narrative, but that only reflects the mood of the books.
I cannot see why some critics have chosen to unfavourably compare Chris Columbus's direction of Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets with the later offerings of other directors. Not only had he the task of transforming a bunch of inexperienced children into actors but he had also to set the standard for later productions. I think he did a splendid job.
My apologies now if you have not seen any of the films. Currently there are some good DVD offers on the internet.
Probably my favourite of the series so far has been The Prisoner of Azkaban. Just how much director Alfonso Cuaron had to do with it I don't know, but the recounting of J.K.s clever idea about Hermione using a Time-Turner to transport her and Harry back to where they thought Buckbeak had been executed and thence to the lakeside where Sirius had been magically saved from the Dementors was excellent, as was the earlier scene where Hermione, much to the amazement and admiration of Harry and Ron, punched Draco Malfoy on the nose.
I thought The Goblet of Fire was a bit truncated but it was quite a long book so I suppose director Mike Newell, faced with obvious time constraints, had to resort to some massive scene and character cutting.
This also applied to The Order of the Phoenix which is but a shadow of the book. The director, David Yates, has also been chosen to direct The Half Blood Prince and shooting should commence in September.
It is thought that Deathly Hallows should be out around 2010.
That's my eightieth year but I don't mind waiting.

AND THE READING

I have just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: allegedly the last book in the Potter saga.
It is a combination of rip-roaring action and stultifying inaction.
My son, fearful of spoilers, read it over the weekend. The action, he opined, was written with a canny eye to the film adaptation. The inaction (my opinion) was either a deliberate ploy to influence the mood of the reader at that point in the narrative or an example of J.K. treading water whilst she determined in which direction to swim next. He thinks definitely the latter.
We are agreed that publishers Bloomsbury need not worry too much about the permanent departure of their famous son. Even if Harry does not come back, Hogwarts will.
Incidentally, without spoiling anything, I knew right away by whom the silver doe Patronus had been sent. Long ago guessed the sender's secret, too. It was a lovely notion and it has kept me a bit smugly know-all since the very first book.
Heck, Jo, I've been reading whodunnits since I was nine years old.
On the lightest of notes, it has rained throughout most of my reading time. When I left the house for the shops the other day I realized that I could remember neither Hermione's spell, finite incantatum, nor Arthur Weasley's meteolojinx recanto (both rain stoppers, courtesy of J.K.) so I pointed my umbrella skywards and formed my own incantation, rainomoroverus, which I terminated suddenly when it dawned on me that I could get back home to find I had brought to an abrupt end the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2 (an elderly woman who has done me no harm).
Joanne Rowling, if by magic you should ever read this, you remain high on my list of favourite writers. Even in the talent blind world of publishing somebody would have had to find you. I'm glad they did it in my lifetime.