Miles Gift ATDTDA (1) pg 23/24

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
[...]
> Nothing in what I've read about her suggests that she's a fan of
> Pynchon, though, of course, she may have read him.  You're right,
> there's absolutely no way of knowing whether or not she's read
> Pynchon, though between the fact that all her favorite authors seem to
> be British, and the fact that she studied French in college, it seems
> to me to be a reasonable assumption.  Anyone who's read and been
> enthralled by Pynchon's work has a tendency to say so.
>
> My 16-year old daughter is an obsessed fan of Rowling, but admits that
> her writing style is nothing special.  I agree that she's created a new
> generation of readers, for which we should all thank her.
>
> Laura

And quite a few non-English speaking kids too impatient to wait for
a translation of the latest Potter start reading the book in the
original language. My daughter read all of HP6 in English when she
had just turned twelve. I was(/am) so proud of her.

Anyway, I thought I spotted a reference to W.A.S.T.E. when I was
reading HP4:


Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 23:49:04 +0200
From: Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask@[omitted]>
To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
Subject: little something

Here's little something that kinda stuck out earlier today (when
I was trying to catch up with my 8-year-old daughter who all by
sudden started to devour the Finnish translations last month):
-------------------------------------------------------------
Inside were about fifty badges, all of different colours, but
all bearing the same letters: S.P.E.W. "'Spew'?" said Harry,
picking up a badge and looking at it. "What's this about?"
"Not *spew*", said Hermione impatiently. "It's S-P-E-W,
stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

J.K. Rowling: _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_.
Bloomsbury pbk, p. 198.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Heikki