I used to be a snob about the Harry Potter books. Meg devours them. She talked me into reading the first two, but I got sick of #3 after 90 pages of [in bumbling British accent] “Harry remembered his first year at Hogwarts when the blah blah blah blah blah…” and gave up on the series. “I’ll go see the movies,” I said.
Loved the Azkaban movie, thought Goblet was good, and Phoenix even better. (I still think a perfect Harry Potter movie would be directed by John Hughes, and it’d just be two hours of Harry, Hermione, Ron and the gang stuck in detention and talking about sex.
Ron: She’s a tease.
Hermione: I’m sure. Why don’t you just forget it.
Ron: Oh, you’re a tease and you know it. All girls are teases.
Harry: She’s only a tease if what she does gets you hot.
Hermione: I don’t do anything.
Luna: That’s why you’re a tease.
Ha! Anyways, I finally pulled the corncob out of my ass and read book #6 this week. And I loved it. I let go of my snobbery and loved it. Can’t wait to read #7 this weekend.
For other great posts on Harry and the gang, check out Maureen’s thoughts about it being a post 9-11 fairy tale, and Eddie Campbell’s thoughts and links.
Oh, and if you care what Michiko thinks…
I, too, gave up on book #3–bored to tears. But lots of folks I’ve talked to say that’s where the series really kicks it up a notch. Now I feel like I’m missing out on some part of our Planetary Cultural Heritage.
I can only vouch for #6 — but i’ve heard that if you can tear through 3, you’re in for a ride…
Do go back and read #4 and #5. Makes excellent bedtime reading.
I’m obviously going to have to hibernate starting Saturday to avoid spoilers, for reasons I explain here (middle item):
http://www.hooversbiz.com/2007/07/17/quick-hits/
Yeah, I don’t know how it’s going to be possible to NOT hear about the ending. It was bad enough with the sopranos…
Yeah, you really need to go back and read books 3-5, as they’re the best ones!
How the hell can the book for Azkaban bore you to tears? It’s the best one — it’s the first shift of the series from being cutesy kids fare to something darker, and introduces much of the series’ backstory (with Sirius, James, Lupin, and Wormtail). The movie for Azkaban is the best of the films, but still rather off in some ways. And they’ve been downhill since then — the complexity of Goblet doesn’t translate to screen very well, and I haven’t seen the film for Order of the Phoenix yet, but everyone I know says it’s rather scattershot.
Read all of the books, okay? (For the record, they go in this order of preference for me: Azkaban, Half Blood Prince, Goblet of Fire, and then the other three in an undifferentiated pile.)