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I am still officially on hiatus, but when I read James Wood’s review of HHhH, a new postmodern historical novel by Laurent Binet, in The New Yorker, I had to post about it. Binet’s novel, which revolves around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the intelligence service of S.S. in Nazi Germany during WWII.
Binet does not use invented characters, and has asserted that the narrator is not, in fact, a character, but himself. This is significant because throughout the novel, the narrator discusses the fictional techniques the author is using to tell the story. Wood describes this all in much greater detail, and also contrasts Binet’s (ultimately shallow, he contends) use of these techniques with those in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, another self-aware historical set during WWII.
Basically, it seems to me that HHhH is one of those incredibly pretentious postmodern novels that make me roll my eyes. Like the trashy romance novels of postmodernism. (Not that there’s anything wrong with trashy romance novels–except, wait, yes, there is, because most of them rely on horrible sexist stereotypes and cultural norms that are borderline offensive.)
I love weird writing. And of course postmodernism is a hotbed of weird stuff. But I can’t stand weirdness for the sake of weirdness, weirdness that screams LOOK AT ME, I’M DIFFERENT AND SMART. I love weird writing that actually says something new and important about the world we live in. The reason I love postmodernism and metafiction so much is because they give us a way to fight against those hurtful, painful cultural norms that constrict us and force us to be things other than who we really are, who we really want to be.
Based on Woods’s review, and his quoting of certain glib passages from Binet’s novel, it sounds like HHhH, at best, highlights silly fictional techniques, and at worst, makes light of horrible tragedies to prove how smart he is. I think this is a novel I’ll skip.
A painting of Don Quixote reading by Adolf Schroedter
Cervantes has a habit of interrupting his stories at critical moments. For example, in Chapter VIII, Character-Cervantes (as I discuss in my post Don Quixote: Meta-Masterpiece) interrupts the story of Don Quixote’s battle with the Basque to tell us he doesn’t actually know the ending.
Or, for example, the story of Cardenio, which the unfortunate gentleman relates to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Chapter XXIV until Quixote takes offense at Cardenio’s words about Queen Madásima from the novel Amadis of Gaul and sends Cardenio into a mad rage, effectively cutting off the story until later in the book.
Or again, when Quixote and company find themselves at the infamous inn of Sancho’s blanket tossing, where they seek amusement in the story,”The Tale of Ill-Advised Curiosity,” only to have the narrative interrupted by Quixote in the throes of a dream about slaying a giant but really destroying some of the innkeepers wine skins. The moment the story stops, is of course, the moment after we learn that one of the tale’s main characters will die.
This technique not only builds suspense and tension, but says something about readers, too: They are not passive audience members, but participants in the story.
Keep in mind that Quixote himself is a reader-turned-participant in the extremest sense. He has read all the books of chivalry he can find and has decided to take up the sword himself to do great deeds in the name of his Lady Dulcinea del Toboso. And we are, as Cervantes points out on many occasions, reading a book about his exploits. This makes Quixote the ultimate reader participant.
It’s worth noting too, that often, it is Quixote who causes the interruption in the telling of a story, be it on purpose or on accident. In the third example, that of “The Tale of Ill-Advised Curiosity,” the characters reading the tale are Cardenio, Dorotea, the curate and the barber. Cardenio and Dorotea are caught up in a love tangle (not triangle) somewhat similar to that in “The Tale of Ill-Advised Curiosity,” and all four of them have created a story in which Dorotea plays Princess Micomicona, who needs Quixote to slay a giant for her, in order to get Quixote home. They, too, have become participants in Quixote’s story, and it is only fitting that he should interrupt their entertainment to continue the story they’ve created.
Although Cervantes was ultimately parodying Spain’s complete obsession with chivalrous novels, I also read Don Quixote as a parody of the extreme inaction and passivity of those same readers. I doubt Cervantes wants us to put on armor and take up swords and wander around the country slaying wine skins, but interact with the books you read. Think about them critically. Talk about them. Write about them.
Neil Gaiman’s novel-length fairytale Stardust employs an omniscient narrator and occasional authorial interjection–both play a crucial role in not only the telling of the story, but also in the reading of the story.
The omniscient narrator was common in ye olde Literature (think Austen, Bronte, etc.), but is actually kind of frowned upon in modern writing classes.
Instead, fledgling authors are encouraged to use first person or limited third to allow the reader to get close to the character. There’s nothing wrong with getting inside a character’s head, but sometimes it’s nice to not have to deal with someone else’s neuroses (I don’t know about you, but I have enough of my own, thank you).
Authorial interjection, also known as breaking the fourth wall (although that’s more of a stage term, the first three walls being the right, left and back sides of the stage, the fourth being the invisible one between actors and audience), is much more common, but sadly almost always relegated to a comedic special effect in contemporary literature.
Gaiman’s use of these techniques serves to make the story feel more old-timey, more like a fairytale that our grandparents might have told us when we demanded they tell us a story before bedtime.
But more than putting us into the proper frame of mind, the use of the omniscient narrator creates suspense and tension, and is perhaps the most important device in the story (it’s a device because it’s used to present the story in a particular way, and it comes with certain expectations, like the main characters falling in love and living happily ever after).
Without an omniscient narrator, we would know only as much as Tristan, the main character, and half of the suspense would evaporate before it had a chance to even condense in our minds, since the forces wishing Tristan evil often do themselves in before they have a chance to do Tristan any harm.
Since we know more than Tristan, we often get the urge to yell at him for being stupid, or for not following advice or directions. Plus, it makes us feel nice and smart and quite good about ourselves for being so smart.
While the few instances of authorial interjection are used in situations where the characters are not in any grave danger, they don’t fall into the category of comedy for comedy’s sake. These instances serve to pull the reader more fully into the world of the narrator, and by extension, the characters the narrator brings to life for us.
Any emotional distance we may have felt from the characters because of the narrative filter is replaced by a closeness with the narrator. By speaking to us directly, he’s made us a part of the story. And how can you feel distant from a story of which you’re apart?
When I had the chance to interview Sherry Shahan, author of Purple Daze, for the Figment.com blog, I jumped on it. Figment is a website that gives young adult writers a place to experiment, write and share their stories with each other. It’s pretty cool, and you can join even if (like me) you aren’t quite a teenager anymore.
Purple Daze is a novel comprised of interconnected poems, letters and journal entries, and tells the story of six teens in an LA suburb throughout 1965. One of my favorite aspects is how she weaves the characters’ personal stories into the broader story of the year: Malcolm X’s assassination, race riots in LA, the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Rather than just contextualize the characters’ stories, it allows us to see how their experiences truly represent the time, and the difficulties young people faced coming of age in that era.
Since Figment is a site for writers, I based many of my questions around that theme. Some of them, though, also speak to the themes I often address on this blog: those of storytelling and how to put a story together. Many of the questions I asked about how she wrote the book, and in what order, didn’t make it into the final interview cut, so I’ve included them here. Please read the whole interview first over at Figment: Interview with Sherry Shahan.
Sherry Shahan Interview “Outtakes”:
Q: Which poem was the hardest to write?*
A: While cleaning out a closet I found a shoe box jammed with letters from a friend who was a Marine in Vietnam. I’d kept his letters more than 40 years. The character Phil in the novel evolved from them. Developing his story arc was quite painful, since I had to be inside his skin while during the living hell of Vietnam. Even now, after years of writing and revising, I have a hard time reading the poem about Phil’s friend getting shot.
Q: The easiest?
A: This haiku appears about three-quarters of the way into the novel. It’s from Cheryl’s perspective, after she learns that her boyfriend (Don) has had sex with her best friend:
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
I HATE DONALD DUCK
This was particularly gratifying to write since my boyfriend really did sleep with my best friend.
Q: Which poem was the most fun to write?
A: Downtown L.A. was burning (Watts Riots), Vietnam was raging, peaceful protesters were being attacked with billy clubs. At the same time, these kids had the pressure of high school, expectations of parents, and relationship issues. Amazingly enough, they still had an absolute blast. I wrote the rock concert poem while listening to Jefferson Airplane.
Q: Which poem did you write first?
A: I don’t remember which piece came first. I began by scribbling notes on a lined pad. Sketching characters and playing around with ideas. I sometimes wrote letters from the viewpoint of my characters. I let them ramble on and on. Later, I highlighted passages that showed insight into their innermost thoughts and feelings.
Q: Last?
A: The manuscript had been accepted by the editor when I found an article about Norman Morrison, a devout Quaker and father of three young children who set himself on fire in an act of self-sacrifice to protest the Vietnam War. I knew this had to go in the book.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
A: When I began I didn’t have a support group or know any other writers. Today it’s much easier to connect with like-minded people online. Check the local newspapers for events that include writers, such as poetry readings. They’re usually free and you’ll meet such interesting people. Writers are generous. We’re willing to share information, just ask.
*This question and answer did appear in the original interview, but I wanted to include it here for completeness.
For more information on Sherry and to check out her other books (she’s written more than 30!), visit www.SherryShahan.com.
I decided to read Leila Marouane’s The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris after reading a brief review in The New Yorker. At first I agreed with the reviewer, who thought the “postmodern hijinks” at the end of the book were a bit much.
As I thought about it, though, I came to believe they were essential in telling the story of this confused man trapped between identities and lives.
The basic plot follows Mohamed, an Algerian immigrant to Paris who has changed his name to Basile, whitened his skin and straightened his hair in order to fit in with all the white people. Basile/Momo has lost his faith, and decides that at age 40 it’s high time he ditched his v-card. So, he moves out of his mother’s house into a nice apartment in a better Parisian neighborhood.
As soon as he moves out, he meets an Algerian woman in a cafe. She’s reading a book called Djamila and her Mother. The author of the book is Loubna Minbar, a name rather similar to Leila Marouane. From that point on, Minbar comes up constantly, and the women that Basile/Momo meets all seem to know the author personally. They tell sometimes conflicting stories about her, that she will take your life and turn it into a book and then run away, and that she’s really an Arab who changed her name to sound more white (as Leila Marouane herself did when she moved from Algeria to Paris–her birth name is Leyla Zineb Mechentel).
Basile so desperately wants to lose his virginity that I can’t help routing for him, but when he has an encounter with a woman named Djamila I knew something was up. The beginning of the book was very linear: it was the straightforward story of Basile getting his apartment and trying to get away from his mother. As time went on, it got increasingly less linear. We missed the beginning or ending of his sexual encounters (none of which ended with actual vaginal intercourse), and got bits and pieces of the story in fits and starts.
Loubna Minbar is the one thing that keeps all the stories together, and toward the end Basile/Mohamed begins to worry that the concierge at his apartment is actually the author Minbar, and that she’s writing a book about him.
And she is. Or at least Leila Marouane is. The beginning of every chapter goes like this: “I went back to my apartment, he said, thinking about blah blah blah.” “He said” or “he continued” is always right there, so you know from the beginning that while it appears the book is in first person, someone else is relating the story Basile himself told the narrator.
The concierge, who’s name is Lisa (another “L” name…), at the end tells Basile’s mother that he never leaves the house and that he’s constantly reading these books and thinks she is the author, which confirmed my suspicions that none of Basile’s sexual encounters actually happened.
While I did find this ruse frustrating, and I did feel slightly cheated and jerked around at the end, these “postmodern hijinks” did accomplish one thing fairly well. They illustrated with clarity how it must feel to be stuck between two worlds: Algeria and France, religion and secularism, mother and girlfriend or sexual partner(s). And indeed, that is what Basile/Mohamed is. Half the people in his life know him as Mohamed, the other half know him as Basile. He wants nothing more than to have sex, but he can’t get away from his mother (she calls him constantly). He constantly quotes Muslim scholars and poets, yet no longer prays or goes to the mosque.
Were these sexual “encounters” with these book characters actually real, Marouane would have been exploring a different set of problems (like feminism/masculinity and how men from patriarchal religions view women–a little bit of which we do see in the book). As it is, she’s wormed her way into the deep psychological cleft in Basile’s mind that is neither one thing nor the other that affects a good many young Muslim immigrants in France.
Basile’s delusions were rather quixotic in nature, and the whole book had a Don Quixote vibe to it. The purposes of the two books are also similar: Cervantes parodies popular Spanish culture, Marouane parodies and explores the issues surrounding Muslim immigrants in France. While Sexual Life was funny, I think Don Quixote is funnier, especially because we know he’s delusional, while we have to guess with Basile.
The book doesn’t conclude so much as end, rather unlike Don Quijote. After I shut the book, I was left with a vague sense of unease, which usually means a story has struck a nerve, or at least got me thinking. The lack of ending in this case is entirely appropriate. Basile/Mohamed has yet to reconcile the differences between his two selves, much as the rest of Muslim France has yet to figure out its own balance.
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information, to see a list of books I’ve read, go here.
- Hours read as of 2/19: 50
- Funds raised as of 2/19: $235
*Join the Facebook group, or Follow @metafictionblog on Twitter!
February is Library Lovers’ Month, and Pittsburgh’s City Council will declare Feb. 15 “Love My Library Day.”
To celebrate and show my support, and to wish the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh a happy Valentine’s Day, I am sharing all the reasons I love my library. Please share why you love YOUR library in the comments!
One of the dinosaurs you can see from the library. Photo (c) 2008 Kelly Thomas
1. On the second floor of CLP Main in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Oakland, a bank of windows let you look into the dinosaur exhibit of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. There are a ton of great nooks up here to browse some books, check out the dinosaurs and watch all the kids stare up in awe at the giant skeletons.
2. CLP has an enormous book collection, and you can request books from any CLP library and have them sent to your neighborhood branch for easy pick-up and drop-off. My local branch is one of the smaller ones, but thanks to this feature I can get any CLP book, and walk a few blocks to pick it up. Pittsburgh has more than 80 neighborhoods, and while there aren’t 80 library branches, wherever you live in the city you’re never too far from one of the 19 neighborhood branches.
3. It takes me about 10 minutes to walk to my local branch, the Allegheny Library. The Allegheny Library was actually the first Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1895. It was housed in its original building until 2006, when lightening struck the clock tower and caused a lot of damage. (No, seriously, it happened! Read about it in the Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review.) In 2009 a new Allegheny library opened up the street. I attended the grand opening, and I got to sign the original 1895 guest book, which has the signatures of everyone who attended the opening in 1895, the signatures of everyone who attended the centennial celebration in 1995, and now everyone who attended the grand opening of the new building. Pretty cool, huh?
4. The Pennsylvania Room on the third floor of the main branch is the first place I go whenever I want to learn about my adopted city. I especially love the books of old photos, or the ones like Pittsburgh Then and Now which shows photos of various Pittsburgh locales in the past and the present. Another of my favorite finds from this section is The Steps of Pittsburgh, which in addition to detailing the history of the city’s more than 700 public staircases, provides walking tours for many neighborhoods.
5. CLP also has a large multimedia collection. DVDs, CDs, ebooks, audio books, eaudio books and more. I just bought a Sony eReader, and the ability to borrow electronic books from my library was a big factor in my decision. I especially love CLP’s collection of foreign movies. A few years ago I worked my way through most of the Spanish movies and found a lot of gems. They even have anime, documentaries, TV shows and work out DVDs.
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information, to see a list of books I’m reading, and to make a pledge, go here.
- Hours read as of 2/14: 42.75
- Funds raised as of 2/14: $202.38
*Join the Facebook group, or Follow @metafictionblog on Twitter!
Kurt Vonnegut presents an interesting theory about writers in his last novel, Timequake. In it, he says that most women writers are “swoopers” and most men are “bashers.”
Swoopers write “higgledy piggledy” and write a first draft as quickly as possible, and then go back and “painstakingly” fix everything that’s wrong. Bashers, on the other hand, write very slowly and work on each sentence until it’s perfect. “And when they’re done, they’re done,” says Vonnegut.
Now, as I stated in my introduction post to this series of posts about books I’m reading for my public library’s Read-a-Thon, the version of Timequake that I read was an abridged audio book. I make that disclaimer because whenever I read an abridged audio book (sometimes unabridged just aren’t available and I still use cassettes, so that makes them an even rarer breed) I’m terrified I will miss something important. So, in advance, I apologize if I miss something important. Blame the abridgment.
It’s interesting enough to think about the way we write and whether or not it can be more or less split down the gender line (if you’re a writer and you’re reading this, leave a comment and let me know which group you fall more into process-wise and maybe we can do an informal poll), but Vonnegut takes it a step further.
It was not entirely clear to me whether he meant “swoopers” or “women” when he said the following, but as he lumps them together I suppose we can assume he means both. He says that swoopers/women writers are happy to write about and record the lives of people who are “funny, tragic, whatever” without thinking about “why or even how they’re alive in the first place.”
Bashers/men on the other hand, chip away and break down the doors of what it means to be human and the nature of existence. Vonnegut then proceeds to tell an anecdote about World War II, in which he fought. Or as he calls it, “my war and Kilgore Trout’s war” (Kilgore Trout being Vonnegut’s fictional alter ego who appears in many of his novels). The anecdote, which shows us a former Nazi official who is dying, is meant to drive home the point that Vonnegut is a basher.
(I wish I could tell you exactly what the officer said to Vonnegut, but I don’t remember and the trouble with audio books is you can’t flip back and find what you’re looking for!)
Right in the beginning of the novel, Vonnegut tells us he’s been working on a novel called Timequake, but it didn’t work, and instead he wrote the novel we’re reading now. He refers to the failed version as Timequake One, and mentions it frequently, telling us what happened in the original draft. The fact that he abandoned a novel and entirely re-wrote it as a hybrid novel/memoir means that, in essence, his “bashing” did not work. His process failed (as the writing process is often wont to do). He may have struggled and sweated over every sentence, but in the end he had to go back to ground zero and start from scratch.
Granted, that doesn’t necessarily mean he got lost in swooper territory, and yes, sometimes stories and novels just don’t work. Because he does keep parts of Timequake One in the final, published version of Timequake, I will argue that he probably did have to “painstakingly” fix what was wrong, throw out what didn’t work and re-work what he wanted to keep to make it fit the new novel.
So, can anyone really be solely a swooper or solely a basher? Kurt Vonnegut, who claims to be a basher, shows us that sometimes it doesn’t always work to write that way, so based on that evidence, I have to go with “No”.
I will give him one thing, though: Vonnegut certainly chips away at the meaning of what it is to be human and the nature of existence. (But does that mean women writers can’t? No way! Margaret Atwood, is, I think, a prime example of a woman writer who does something similar to Vonnegut in her appraisal and exploration of human nature — but that’s another argument altogether.)
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information, to see a list of books I’m reading, and to make a pledge, go here.
- Hours read as of 2/6: 33.5
- Funds raised as of 2/6: $160.75
*Join the Facebook group, or Follow @metafictionblog on Twitter!
As a parody of novelas caballarescas, or books of chivalry, Don Quijote does beautifully. But it parodies more than that.
In the prologue, Cervantes laments to a friend about how he has no “preceding verses” to preface his book, or lists of great philosophers and thinkers that he’s quoted, as do his peers (mainly Lope de Vega, a playwright — he and Cervantes did not get along, to say the least).
His friend tells him that he doesn’t need such things, because the books is whole without them, but suggests if Cervantes must have quotes, he should copy a list of quoted men from another book, because no one will be able to tell the difference, and what place does Aristotle have in the story of Don Quijote, a great knight-errant?
I could spend an entire post on the prologue, but it’s what comes after the prologue that I think is really brilliant and drives home the point of how frivolous the preceding verses and quotations are.
Cervantes goes on to write — get this — sonnets and poems from famous knights to Don Quijote, Sancho Panza, Dulcinea del Toboso and even Rocinante, Quijote’s horse. His point, with the sonnets, is that a work should stand on its own without a long list of quotations or heavy borrowing on another book.
His book is a parody, which means by necessity he relies heavily on other works. He does so not to puff himself up, but to show how ridiculous it is to do so: Don Quijote is no Amadis of Gaul, that’s for sure.
I missed these gems on my first read-through of the novel, which was in Spanish, in Spain, but alas, an abridged version. (I was okay with that at the time since it was for a class and there simply was not time to read the whole thing, which is part of the reason I’m coming back to the book now. Not to mention that it’s much easier to understand the jokes in my native tongue.)
Amadis of Gaul is the most famous book of chivalry, and was the most popular in the late 1500s when Cervantes was writing his masterpiece. Quijote often quotes Amadis, as well as other famous knights. So I picked the following sonnet to share (from the Signet Classic 1964 translation by Walter Starkie).
Amadís de Gaula to Don Quijote:
You who my sorrows once did imitate,
When I was scorned and hied me all forlorn,
To Peña Pobre’s beetling crags to mourn,
My joy transformed to penance by my fate;
You who of old your pitiless thirst did sate
With saltish tears that flow from both your eyes;
You who all tins and platters did despise,
And on earth what the earth gave you ate,
Live on secure that for eternity,
At least as long as o’er this earthly sphere
Fair-haired Apollo goads his steeds of day,
Your name for valor shall exalted be,
Your fatherland above all lands appear,
Your learned author, unique, men will say.
Taken in perspective, the above sonnet is hilarious, in my opinion, especially the last line. Cervantes may have been a bit bitter about his less-than-ideal life circumstances (he was always poor and suffered an injury that left his left hand lame), but he’s not being all that stuck up here. Certainly he’s elevating himself, but all of Don Quijote is one big joke, so it makes sense that he’s elevating himself partly in jest, as Don Quijote is elevated and “exalted for valor” in jest.
These sonnets add to the overall mood of satire and parody in the book, as well as pointing out how silly they are, not only in this book, but in any book. Amadis de Gaul, an “actual” knight who went on real adventures and fought real evils would never write this kind of thing to a raving lunatic who ran around with a barber’s wash basin on his head. But that’s why it’s funny.
Cervantes does skip the list of quoted authors and philosophers, but I think the sonnets from characters in Amadis de Gaul to characters in Don Quijote more than make up for its lack.
So now a challenge for you writers out there: Write a sonnet (or any kind of poem) from the characters in another book to the characters in one you’ve written or are writing. If you’re not writing a book, just pick two books and write a sonnet from one character in one book to a character in a different book. Leave your poems in the comments or link to your own blog. I’ll share mine next week!
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information or to see a list of books I’m reading, go here. I’m a little behind in hours this week, but not too much, and I’ve still got lots of time to catch up (I should have 11 so far to reach my goal of 50).
- Hours read as of 1/16: 9.25
- Funds raised as of 1/16: $47
About a month ago, after I finally got around to seeing the latest Harry Potter movie, I decided to re-read the books. I hadn’t read most of them since high school, and the last one since early in my college career, and none of them right after the other.
I also convinced my husband to watch all the movies, through the sixth, with me. Watching the movies again after so recently reading the books (I finished Goblet of Fire yesterday) brought some interesting tidbits to light.
The fourth Harry Potter movie is really the first one where major subplots have to be cut out because of the book’s length, but even in the first three the directors made some interesting choices in presenting the story. Aside from paring down the details to the absolutely essential, though, the thing that stood out to me the most is that in almost every action scene, the movies one-up the books.
Having dropped a screen writing class halfway through the first day during my senior year in college (they really expected me to sit through a four-hour class for a measly three credits?!), I’m no expert on screen writing or movies. But I have to ask one question: Why? What is the benefit of ramping up the tension in a movie, especially when other details or scenes are cut to make room for the additional action?
I’m guessing those who wrote the scripts will say it makes the movies more exciting. In any movie adaptation, things must be cut from the book. Regardless of how faithful an adaptation is (and I would say the first three Harry Potter movies are quite faithful as far as adaptations go), it will never be an exact visual replica of the book, because there simply isn’t the space or time to allow it. That being said, why cut more than is necessary to make room for more action, especially in books that are not inherently action-adventure?
If you haven’t seen the movies or read the books, you may wind up a bit confused as I’m leaving out most of the plots, sorry!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The first two-thirds of this movie follow the book closely. Things diverge slightly when Harry, Ron and Hermione chase Quirrel into the guarded chamber that hides the sorcerer’s stone. The movie takes a few of the enchantments that guard the stone and makes them more exciting, while it cuts out others completely.
- The first enchantment, the Devil’s Snare, has Ron screaming, panicking and almost dying in the movie (after Hermione tells Harry and Ron they need to relax in order to get past it). In the book Hermione saves them all by exposing the plant to light.
- The second enchantment, the room with the keys, has Harry chasing a winged key while the rest of the keys attack him. In the book, there is no attack. The challenge is to find the right key amid thousands of them, which the kids do by using logic, not speed or strength.
- The fourth enchantment, in which Hermione has to solve a riddle concerning vials of potion that will either kill them, do nothing, send them back to the Chess chamber or send them forward into the chamber containing the sorcerer’s stone. This enchantment was cut entirely from the movie, probably because it’s all intellectual, without any action.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Two scenes stick out to me in this movie, though there were others that has more tension than their printed equivalents.
- When Harry and Ron follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest, Mr. Weasley’s old Ford Anglia saves them from being eaten by Aragog’s children. In the movie, this scene is longer and involves a spider clinging on to the car, among other chase antics, that were not present in the book.
- Harry’s final fight against the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets was much longer and more drawn out than in the book.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This is the book/movie in which the omissions made in favor of more action do the most harm, in my opinion. A large chunk of the back story about Sirius, Lupin, Peter and Snape is completely left out in favor of more fighting and action sequences. The back story becomes important later on, especially in the development of Snape’s character. And you can’t really argue that Snape is unimportant. (Full disclosure: Snape is my favorite character!) So rather than allow time for Sirius and Lupin to elaborate on the back story, the following scenes were infused with more action:
- Harry riding Buckbeak the Hippogriff. In the book his flight is quite short and uncomfortable. In the movie it is long and glorious.
- The bogart scene with Professor Lupin. In the book, Lupin does not allow Harry a chance at the bogart because he fears Lord Voldemort would appear. In the movie Harry does face the bogart, and a dementor appears, and Lupin must save Harry.
- The entire sequence in the Shrieking Shack with Snape interrupting and Peter trying to get away. The movie elongated those action sequences, which in the book were quite straightforward.
- The scene where Lupin turns into a werewolf. In the book he simple runs into the forest, allowing Peter to escape. In the movie he and Sirius engage in battle and then, of course, he goes after Hermione and Harry.
Why these small details matter
While re-reading the books, I was struck with how tightly and beautifully plotted they are. J.K. Rowling’s prose may not hold up to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien, but her plots are among the best. Perhaps they are cliche to a certain degree, but you can’t exactly say Lord of the Rings uses a new concept, either. The movies, of course, rely on the books’ plots to stand up. But in chopping away small (and large) details in the name of greater action, I think some of the beauty of the books is lost.
Harry Potter, in my opinion, is not an action-adventure story. The books are more about solving puzzles and mysteries than fighting evil. Even in later books, the object is to figure out Voldemort’s secrets, then find the Horcruxes. Ultimately the goal is to defeat him, and that of course involves a fight. But what goes into the fight is a long process of figuring out how to defeat him. In the books, each scene advances the plot or helps us better understand a character better.
But in the movies, the added action is gratuitous. It does not advance the plot or tell us more about the characters and therefore, in my opinion, detracts from the story.
For example, the reveal that Sirius is on Harry’s side and Ron’s pet rat was the one who betrayed the Potters is far more rewarding in the book version of Prisoner of Azkaban because as we read, we try to solve the puzzle. First, why is Sirius after Harry? Second, how could Peter Pettigrew be in the castle when he’s dead? The pieces don’t add up until the reveal at the end, and we are rewarded with the full back story and are able to appreciate the characters all the more.
By turning the movies into more action-oriented stories, I feel we lose a large part of what makes these books great, and what makes the characters truly compelling.
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information or to see a list of books I’m reading, go here. Although Harry Potter is not on that reading list, I am not yet far enough into any of those books to write about them.
- Hours read as of 1/9: 2.5
- Funds raised as of 1/9: $20.50
I love my library. I love reading. This is going to be the best fundraiser, ever.
It works like this: Between January 8 and February 19, I read as much as I can (I’m shooting for 50 hours). You sponsor me by pledging to donate a certain amount of money for each hour I read. The more I read, the more money the library gets. More information at the official website here.
To make it even better, I’m going to read metafiction. Metafiction that I get out of the library. And once I read it, I’m going to blog about it, right here!
Here’s my reading list, although the order may change, depending on availability of individual titles. I also can’t guarantee I’ll get through all of these during the Read-a-Thon as some of them are pretty lengthy, but I am sure going to try!
- Don Quixote* by Cervantes (in English this time!)
- House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
- The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Leila Marouane
- Timequake* by Kurt Vonnegut (abridged audio book)**
- Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley (comic book)
If you like my blog, if you like me, if you like metafiction, if you like books and/or if you like libraries, please consider sponsoring me, or supporting this effort by reading my Read-a-Thon related entries (they will be tagged with clpreadathon11) and commenting on them.
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is one of the oldest public library system in the United States, but its facing some major financial issues. We have to make sure our state government knows how much the library means to us and how it important it is to our community — and that is only one of the reasons I’m participating in the Read-a-Thon and blogging about the books I read. CLP is working on a major initiative to find a sustainable source of funding, and public support is one branch of that.
I, for one, am proud to support and use my library! (And so are the 2.6 million other people who visited the library in 2008.)
If you’d like to donate, please leave a comment or send an email to narrativeintheblog@gmail.com. I can’t take electronic submissions, so at the end of February I’ll give you my address so you can send me a check (made out to the library, of course!).
I’ve done the math for you already:
- $.10 x 50 hrs. = $5
- $.25 x 50 hrs. = $12.50
- $.50 x 50 hrs. = $25
- $1.00 x 50 hrs. = $50
- $2.00 x 50 hrs. = $100
Between a few friends and my family, I’ve already got three pledges for a total of $80 (assuming I meet my 50 hour goal). Not a bad start! If you’d rather make a one-time donation, you can do that, too. You can also set a donation limit if you’re making an hourly pledge (so if you would like to pledge $1/hour but can only donate up to $50, you can set your limit at $50).
*I own these two, so I won’t be getting them out of the library. The other three will be library books.
**I hate abridged books, I really do. I’m making an exception on this one because it was FREE and it’s getting pretty hard to find audio books on TAPE. And listening to audio books on tape in my old school (read: lame) car is the only way I stay sane while delivering newspapers as part of my duty as assistant editor of The Northside Chronicle.
