Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - memories, reevaluations, and musings

Last week, I began a great adventure.

I cracked open my beaten, old hardcover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and began to reread the series that changed the way I look at storytelling. I've read the books many times before, but I haven't embarked on a full series reread for two or three years. I've decided to track my progression on this blog, writing about each of the books as I finish them - not so much reviews, but closer to a collection of memories, reevaluations, and musings. I considered doing this after watching the final film (which was virtually perfect with its sensitively adapted version of the complicated second half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), but fellow blogger William Buhagiar had already done that with each of the films (you can read his great retrospective from the beginning here). I found that, after walking out of that theater, I was hungry to experience Harry Potter again. And what better way to do so than to reread the books?

When I received Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as a gift, I picked it up, read the first chapter, and promptly put it down. "Not my thing," I'd decided. I was big into Goosebumps then, committing myself to only read books written by R. L. Stine (or authors clearly trying to cash in on the success of books, such as M. T. Coffin's Spinetinglers and Betsy Hanes' Bone Chillers) so a book that started out with a grumpy old man being pissed off about things seeming out of sort wasn't something to which I thought I could devote my precious reading time. Time passed, and I stopped reading with the frequency that I'd been. Goosebumps was over, I felt older, and I wanted to find a new story that would make me care again. That Harry Potter book was sitting around unread, and I'm not sure what made me pick it up again, but I did... and this time I pushed myself past the first chapter. I finished the whole book, deciding that I had been an idiot (or, as the Hogwarts kids might've said, a git; British slang was a new treasure to me) for not realizing the excellence that awaited me even sooner. The night I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, my junior high school was having a book fair, and I bought Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets there.

My hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

It isn't the paperback that I initially read, as I was afraid that would

fall apart after another reread. Since then, this book has been reread

many times and is, indeed, falling apart itself. Time for a new set?

That was over ten years ago, and I'm as satisfied after reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as I was then. While it isn't as complex as the later volumes, which are positively laced with obscure hints of things to come (further evidence that J. K. Rowling is the modern master of foreshadowing), Sorcerer's Stone stands apart as a glowing example of everything that children's literature should aspire to be. The question that I asked myself while reading this time is why this stands so far above the rest. In this first book, the writing, while mostly extraordinary, has its soft spots. Harry's speech that convinces Ron and Hermione that they have to take action to protect the stone is a bit flabby (pg. 270), and Rowling's writing is "oddly, and almost sweetly, insecure" in her use of adverbs as Stephen King noted in his excellent review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (read here). It's worth noting that Rowling's mortal writerly sin in this book (and, in fact, the whole series) isn't her use of adverbs in general. One reviewer called her lazy for her use of the adverb "deathly" in the title of the finale of this great series (read here), and that's a bit silly - it's tantamount to dismissing an entire part of speech as useless in writing. King is right, however, about her use of adverbs to modify dialogue being a symptom of insecurity. When someone speaks quickly, angrily, sleepily, and shortly as they do with great frequency in this volume and later volumes (in fact, open any of the larger Harry Potter books to any page of dialogue and you'll more than likely find a few of these offending adverbs), it's a symptom of the writer believing that their writing surrounding the dialogue isn't strong enough to convey the message they're attempting to convey. This flaw, comes off, as King said, as "almost sweet..." because the writing is so absurdly strong.

In fact, the flaws of this books don't manage to reduce the pleasure of the overall reading experience. In fact, Rowling's imperfections as a writer make the outright excellence of this book all the more phenomenal. Her world building is as strong as that of any fantasy writer I know. Tolkien fans might take issue with that, as that brilliant man developed entire languages and cultures in The Lord of the Rings (not to mention The Hobbit and, of course, The Silmarillion), but Rowling never attempts to do any of that. Her world building is one of simple fun, awe, and love. We discover the wizarding world as Harry Potter does, and as each page turns, another mystery unfolds, immersing the reader in this incredible piecework of a world.

This is the gorgeous 10th Anniversary Edition of Harry Potter

and the Sorcerer's Stone, which I hope to add to my collection.

The themes that will come into play in the later books, most especially 'Love is the strongest magic of all' and "To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure" (pg. 297), are present in this book, elegantly woven through the chapters. In a lesser writer's hands, these messages might have come off as heavy-handed, but Rowling is unrivaled at her skill of doling out bits of backstory, theme, and character development at the moment they're absolutely needed. I suspect that Harry Potter might be as excellent as it is, not only because those themes are at work in the story, but because those themes seem to be ideals to which J. K. Rowling lives.

Now, because I made a promise to a lady, it might be a week or two before I take on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I've promised to read The Hunger Games trilogy in full, and I'm actually quite excited for it. After those are finished... I'm taking the next step in the great Harry Potter adventure.

REVIEW: Archvillain by Barry Lyga

Archvillain

by Barry Lyga

Picture this. I’m at a horse show. Watching my equestrian girlfriend kick ass. Well, not literal ass, but kick ass at riding horses. While I’m cheering, whooping, etcetera, my phone is a-buzz in my pocket. I hit ignore. It continues. I hit ignore again. More vibrations. Frustration.

After the results are announced (SPOILERS: she kicked ass), I checked out my phone. Voicemails aplenty. My friend Caitlin was at a YA convention, and she met one of my favorite authors, Barry Lyga. She’d been calling me so that I could talk to him while he was signing books. Whoops.

I ended up meeting the guy later, and this time I not only got a chance to talk to him, but I got something free out of it. Yup. Free stuff. Can’t beat it. Picture this. New York Comic-Con. I’m walking. Barry Lyga is walking. Our paths cross. Music swells. Only, not really. I go, “Barry Lyga.” He thinks, “Who the hell-?” I introduce myself. He’s off to be interviewed by a dude, so the conversation is quick, but hey, I walked away with the goods.

An advanced reader copy of his new book, “Archvillain.” Gotta love it.

I just finished it, and I enjoyed it. It’s a big departure from Lyga’s usual work in the YA field. This book is a Middle Grade (ages 9-12) superhero (villain?) adventure. Think Dr. Horrible meets Hey Arnold, with less moral ambiguity and no singing. The protagonist is… well, as you’d expect from a novel that follows the “villain,” kind of a jerk. He’s got a superiority complex the size of Metropolis and he treats his parents like dirt. To avoid making him a totally unlikable character, though, Lyga gives the readers little glimpses at Kyle’s soft side through his relationships with the two people (well… things) he tolerates: His rabbit Lefty and his friend/obvious crush, Mairi. Also, young readers will love Kyle’s penchant for pulling pranks on oblivious adults, but I found it to be a bit of a retread. Pranking is a major part of Lyga’s earlier novel, “Hero Type,” so it felt weird to have pranks as such an integral part of this book as well. Even Kyle’s reasons for pulling these tricks (showing people that they’re foolish) is reminiscent of the motives of the Fools from “Hero Type.”

While I mostly liked “Archvillain,” a major problem I had with it was the repetition and the sudden, somewhat dues ex machina-ey bursts of memory. Kyle forgets all about his first “encounter” with Mike and then, when it’s convenient, suddenly remembers not only seeing him down to the last detail. Then, while his dad is talking about a camera, Kyle suddenly remembers a pants prank (best kind of prank, if you ask me) that he pulled in the third grade. Kyle is supposed to be a calculating—albeit somewhat, well, bumbling—genius. Yes, a bumbling genius. It happens. There are a few times in the book where I wondered why Kyle was being so slow on the uptake, which made the moments where his intelligence was overtly obvious a bit incongruous with the rest of the narrative.

On the plus said, it reminded me of Nicktoons, back in the pre-Spongebob days where Nicktoons were actually… you know, good. It’s set in a somewhat simplified world, where the mass public operates as one unit. Other than Kyle, the entire school… town… and world accepts Mike without question as a hero. A force of good. The government runs experiments on him, but it’s all voluntary. Nothing that would hurt him. It makes for an interesting, sort of hyperreality where Kyle stands utterly alone, a genius opposing a world full of skeptical albeit well-meaning simpletons.

The book doesn’t do for Middle Grade Lit what Lyga’s previous efforts have done for YA, but I’m not sure that it aspires to. While “The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl” and “Boy Toy” both speak for the culture of being different in high school in a way that no other YA books have thus far, “Archvillain” is simply a fun story. Kyle Camden isn’t exactly relatable and it’s often hard to sympathize with him, but reading about his schemes and failures is enjoyable. Because hey, there’s nothing tastier than a healthy dose of schadenfreude, and this book offers it up in generous helpings.

I definitely recommend “Archvillain” to any 9-12 year old kids looking for an entertaining read, and I also encourage fans of Lyga’s YA lit to check this out.

3 ½ out of 5 squishies.

Click here to purchase "Archvillain."

Click here to read more about Barry Lyga.

REVIEW: The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno

The Great Perhaps

by Joe Meno

Any form of high praise you can think of, I probably think it of Joe Meno's "The Great Perhaps."

But instead of resorting to hyperbole, saying things such as "This is a modern classic" and "Drop what you're reading, pick up this book" (see what I did there?), I'll tackle this from a more personal angle. "The Great Perhaps" has everything that I look for in a book, along with things that I would have been looking for in a book had I known that I could find them. It's one of those books that shows how deeply flawed people are, never shying away from letting our protagonists (all five of them) mess up in catastrophic ways. At the same time, as flawed as these characters are, I grew to love them. Meno's writing is so nuanced, so personal, so human, that he's not only able to portray the way that these five fully fleshed-out flawed characters mish and mash together in the complicated web of their intwined lives, he's able to show the remarkable heroism in the littlest of actions.

I loved the characters. I loved the oh-so-strange style which, with any other story, might have stood out a bit. But with the alternating POV (usually one chapter per character and then over again, sometimes with a short tale of one of their ancestors to break it up), the novel remains fresh throughout. It might be the only book like this where I had absolutely no preference which character's story I was reading. Even in the best written novels with shifting POVs, I find myself picking a favorite, a character to look forward to... but not so much here. Each character is equally fascinating.

I loved it. I was moved by the characters and their twisted, sad, lovely, happy stories. I laughed, I did the thing where I have to pretend I'm having an allergic reaction so the dude across from me on the train doesn't text his girlfriend that the guy across from him is weeping, and I was stimulated. In the intellectual way. Not in my pants.

...or was it in my pants?

But really, it wasn't. This book is wonderful. Smart and literary without being pretentious or dry. Read this, read this, read this.

5 out of 5 squishies.