earlgreytea68 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
earlgreytea68) wrote2011-07-18 11:58 pm
earlgreytea68) wrote2011-07-18 11:58 pm
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The End of My Harry Potter Decade
In the summer of 2000, I was in college, and my sisters played softball on traveling teams. Well, they did that most summers, but we are discussing that particular summer. I was never as serious about softball as they were, but I would tag along on the family travels.
We were in Virginia. One of the girls on the team had an 8-year-old brother who had a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. This was the summer Goblet of Fire came out, so Harry Potter had been all over the news, and I was like, "What *is* this Harry Potter thing?" I asked the little boy if I could borrow his book, and I read it during the softball game, and I loved it, I was hooked. I went that night to a Barnes & Noble in Virginia and bought books two, three, and four. I finished two and three during the car ride back home. I started book four while my mother was at the DMV with my sister (that was the summer she turned 16), and I finished it that night, at 4 a.m., after which I immediately went back and re-read the last 150 pages, amazed.
And then began the waiting game. Because in those days it felt like the world of Harry Potter moved excruciatingly slowly. There was so much time, it felt like. There was so much time for speculation, for lazy conversations about who would live and who would die and what random sentences in the books had really meant.
We were in Virginia. One of the girls on the team had an 8-year-old brother who had a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. This was the summer Goblet of Fire came out, so Harry Potter had been all over the news, and I was like, "What *is* this Harry Potter thing?" I asked the little boy if I could borrow his book, and I read it during the softball game, and I loved it, I was hooked. I went that night to a Barnes & Noble in Virginia and bought books two, three, and four. I finished two and three during the car ride back home. I started book four while my mother was at the DMV with my sister (that was the summer she turned 16), and I finished it that night, at 4 a.m., after which I immediately went back and re-read the last 150 pages, amazed.
And then began the waiting game. Because in those days it felt like the world of Harry Potter moved excruciatingly slowly. There was so much time, it felt like. There was so much time for speculation, for lazy conversations about who would live and who would die and what random sentences in the books had really meant.
I was living in Boston when Book Five came out, in law school. We went to a midnight party. I did not start the book that night, thinking it would keep me up all night, but the following day. I still remember that I stopped reading that night right after they found Mr. Weasley after his attack. "I'll stop now," I thought. "Before Dumbledore explains what's going on. Otherwise I'll never be able to sleep." Dumbledore, of course, never really explains what's going on in OotP until it's too late. I finished the book on Sunday, was torn up over Sirius and furious with Dumbledore. I thought that I didn't like Book Five. Not enough not to keep reading Harry Potter, of course, but it wasn't one of my favorite books. (To put it in perspective, though, it was that same summer that someone recommended to me that I read "The Golden Compass" to help with my Harry Potter withdrawal. Never has anything made me appreciate Harry Potter more than "The Golden Compass" did...)
I was living in New Orleans when Book Six came out. I re-read Book Five in preparation and remember laying by the pool crying and realizing that, somehow, I actually kind of *adored* OotP. (Today, it's my second-favorite of the series, behind PoA.) Book Six was the midnight party I went to by myself, because I didn't have any Harry Potter friends in New Orleans. It was at the Borders in Metairie, and I showed up at midnight so as to minimize my time standing around all alone. It was much less of a zoo than the Boston midnight party had been (we went to Downtown Crossing for Book Five, I think), and I was home soon enough. I read the first chapter and then went to bed, because I had to pick up my family at the airport that morning. They were coming for a visit, and we went to Biloxi. I had made a conscious decision to read Book Six slowly, to truly savor the experience of having a new Harry Potter book in my hand, which would only happen once more in my life (apparently). It took me almost a week to finish Book Six, which I did while laying by the pool at the hotel in Biloxi, sobbing over Dumbledore. I remember that you could look up and down the rows of lounge chairs, and every other person was reading Harry Potter, the same way every person on the T carried the books around. We are living in a world where I doubt that will ever happen again (and, even if it did, everyone would be reading the books electronically, so we wouldn't even know anymore that we're all sharing the same experience).
I was back in Boston for Book Seven. We went to the midnight party at the Coop in Harvard Square. I had to pretend to have a doctor's appointment to get out of work early enough to make sure I'd get in line on time, and I had to conduct a conference call in my car on the way to Harvard Square. The party in Harvard Square was enormous, spilling over into Harvard Yard, where bands were playing. The city was actually playing the movie of Goblet of Fire for free at the Hatchshell, and we watched a few scenes before getting back into line. We had tea from Tealuxe that I waited in the world's longest line for (the restaurants all stayed open extra-late, a change from their usual European hours) and fretted that people might spoil us on the last line of the book (comforted by the idea that there would be a riot if that happened). The Coop workers had special custom-made shirts that had tallied all the pages in the series: [number] pages read, proclaimed the shirts, [number] pages to go. I wanted to buy one of those shirts but they told me they weren't for sale.
Once we had our copies, we went home. I was obsessed at the time with the Arctic Monkeys' "Fluorescent Adolescent," and blasted it in the car while driving. I made tea when I got home and laid on the couch reading, fully intending to read all night until I was done. At around 4 a.m., I realized that my eyes had started to droop. Recognizing that I had literally waited years to be reading this particular book, I decided not to sleep through it and took a catnap, tumbling into bed and setting my alarm for 6. At 6 I woke up and started reading the book again. Boston was having gorgeous weather, so I sat on my balcony to finish it, sniffling the whole time and hiding the cover of the book so no passersby would call out spoilers to me. I liked the book a great deal. I glowed with it immediately afterward.
The movies have always been secondary to the books for me. I've always enjoyed them, but I do not have the same passion for them, do not feel them as entwined into my life as the books are. I saw the first few with my father, who has never read the books. It was father-daughter bonding time. I did wear a witch's hat for the first movie. And I went to midnight showings of the last few releases, including this most recent one, at which I wore my Hogwarts t-shirt and my Gryffindor sweatshirt and carried my wand. I assume this will be the last midnight movie I will ever see, just as I assume I will never again wait hours upon hours in line at midnight to purchase a book. The movies have always been secondary to me, but they were still Harry Potter, and for a little while you could pretend that you were not already living in a world in which Harry Potter was over, if you focused on the movies.
And now even they have ended. I loved the seventh movie, I thought they finished the series with a bang, exactly how I would have wanted them to. I cannot be critical, I can only be grateful, that at some point I picked up a little boy's book at a softball field and eleven years later, on the verge of making the biggest change I have ever made in my entire life, I watched Harry Potter seize control of his destiny on a big screen. An actor who had started as a tiny boy and who I've now seen play romantic leads on Broadway, and I watched him grow up at the same time I was trying to grow up myself, and I don't need to explain how I feel about it all being over now, because everyone else who fell in love with Harry Potter feels the same way.
I am still doing my epic re-read, and I take notes, and I fully intend someday to get caught up on actually posting those notes. I wonder these days if I will ever *not* be, in some way, shape, or form, re-reading Harry Potter, if a perpetual bookmark will be caught somewhere in one of those books. I realized recently, like a stunning revelation, that I keep expecting every book that gets recommended to me to be as awesome as Harry Potter, and this would be like lightning striking twice. It is unfair to those books, because Harry Potter was, I think, for me, once in a lifetime, and I think that it should be.
I have a new baby nephew. He has a wand from Harry Potter World and strict instructions from me to his parents that he is not to be exposed to any Harry Potter movies until after I've read the books with him. I don't know how spoiled he will be, from a plot point of view, and I don't know how different his experience of the books will be than mine was, reading along as they were published. I don't know if he will understand the frenzy of the midnight parties, the way it felt like the world I was inhabiting paused for the length of time of the reading of a few hundred pages. But I do know this: Whether he is spoiled or not as to the ultimate ending, there is a little boy in the world--many, many little children in the world--who have not yet read the first line of the first page of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." There is a little boy in the world--many, many little children in the world--who have so many years in front of them before they read the last line of the last page of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." And I am so confident that they will. Harry Potter isn't over. Harry Potter will never be over. It will always, somewhere, be just beginning. That's the magic of a good book.
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A HP/Chaosverse Tete-a-tete.
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...there is a little boy in the world--many, many little children in the world--who have not yet read the first line of the first page of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
I am all happy weepy now, and full of feelings, damn you. ;)
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Anyway, thank you for this beautiful reflection on such an era. I relate deeply to so much of what you said here because so much of it mirrors my own experience with the books and movies. It seems we discovered the series around the same time as well. I remember blitzing through the first four books and then having to wait FOREVER for the 5th one. So thank you for sharing this and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the movie.
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I wrote about my Potter history here (http://ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com/252059.html) if you're interested. It's been a part of my life for 12 years! SO HARD TO BELIEVE!
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i remember smuggling the books into catholic school when i was about eight. hell i even remember saving a few copies from a book burning the local church was organising.
i mean jo taught me how to read.
ijust can't belive it's over.
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I can't believe it's over, either.
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I think this is both beautiful and so, SO, poignant.
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Now you've gone and made me cry a little.
This was a FANTASTIC post.
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I loved Book 4, hated Book 5 and didn't get back to the series until after Book 6 had been out for a while.
I had plans to get Book 7 at midnight with my boyfriend, but then he and I parted ways about a month before, so I waited at the local Safeway and got my copy at Midnight.
The movies were fun, and I saw 7.1 last fall with the boy I was smitten with. Just saw 7.2 with same boy this past weekend...so many bittersweet endings.
I don't want to grow up!
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It's amazing to me how vividly everyone can remember these books/movies and the position they played in their lives. It is very special indeed, this Harry Potter world.
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And there was much rejoicing! :D
I love Harry Potter. Love the books more than the movies, but I still really liked the movies. Eventually, when my son is able to sit still and listen for a while, I'll read the books with him. I think he'd enjoy it. His only exposure to HP so far is watching part of the first movie with me (namely, the Hogwarts Express part; once the train disappeared from the screen, he disappeared from the room!).
I greatly enjoyed the Re-read, and look forward to it continuing. No hurry, I know you've got a lot going on in your life right now, but when you're ready, you will have an audience. :)
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And yeah, eventually I do intend to get around to catching up on EVERYTHING I've been neglecting, including the re-read!
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I literally grew up with the books (I keep meaning to make a post of my own about them) and you just describe everything so perfectly.
*sniffle*
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