AtDTDA: (8) 230 Heaven Preserve King's

[Mark Kohut]

And the p-wiki says Wagner is alluded to/invoked.....so my major bit of feedback
  is to ask: part of the non-real overlay of 'fiction' theme of ATD?.......'like the "daylit fiction"....
   
  most simplistically, not a positive?......

robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
  Thanks for the response. Compliments are all very well and good, but 
dialog is what I really want and need.

There's obviously a number of nods to various forms of Genre Fiction: 
Boy's Adventure, the beginnings of Science Fiction, Horror. These 
various threads of narrative discourse reach an apogee of sorts with 
Harry Potter, a rather self-consciously demonic series of novels for 
children. Once the kids grow up, a lot will be asking questions as 
regards the contents of all those grimoires stocking the library shelves 
at Hogwarts. Eventually they'll be asking questions about Sigils and 
various Wizards and such. From my little perch in a bookstore, I see 
a wide variety of types checking out our metaphysical/magic section, 
usually hormonally overwrought adolecents checking out astrology 
books, but we're also attracting Viking Hordes of the Tatted and 
Pierced, the ones with desolate coifs reaching for Anton LeVay, the 
quicker-witted among then having somewhat more direct persuits, 
like Runes or Tarot. Every now and then there's a white haired lady. 
I usually have the most entertaining and educational conversations 
with them.I haven't really persued Harry Potter related themes in 
AtD, at least not yet. But note the confluence of the Mystery, 
Science Fiction and Horror in the Harry Potter series and in 
Against the Day as well. Note that, for the book industry, Harry 
Potter is the Big One, folks started signing up for the final book 
in the series just as soon as they possibly could. My little blurb 
for Against the Day in our "Personal Favorites" display ends 
with "Harry Potter for Adults."While that applies everywhere in 
the novel---magic themes are all over this 
book---the section we are traveling through right now captures 
that dank Edwardian atmosphere that pervades the Harry Potter 
movies, as if it's just one long rainy day and there's nothing better 
to do than to check out the restricted portions of the library. The 
Grand Cohen, just about as many steps ahead of the rest of 
these rotters as Sherlock Holmes would be, with political 
mechinations behind each of his magickal workings, noting 
the positions of magickal persons within a great center of 
academic and magickal enterprise---what I find so close to 
Rowling's series here has as much to do with atmospherics 
of these scenes as the contents.

But yes. I do recall those later scenes.

Heaven Preserve King's


Tore:
Robin asked:

>In all honesty, is there anything more "Harry Potter" in this book than:
>
> "Whom do we have at Cambridge [etc.]

In all honesty, I think there is. One of the Potterisms occurs just four 
pages later, where Lew follows Neville (recall, BTW, that Neville Longbottom 
is one of Harry's best friends) and Nigel into a hidden alley in London:

"Lew followed them through a narrow passageway next to the shop, leading 
back to a mews entirely invisible from the street, whose clamor back here 
had become abruptly inaudible, as if a heavy door had closed." (AtD, 234)

Is this Diagon Alley? a-and is that Hagrid standing right over there, in the 
shadow?

Then, of course, there's the fun with fezzes on p. 832, where Bevis and 
Cyprian switch fezzes (to no avail: they still won't fit the heads of these 
hapless infidels): "The fez knows," said Danilo. "You cannot fool the fez" - 
just as you cannot fool the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter novels.

Finally (?), Yashmeen at one point wishes for a particular magical item to 
supplement her Snazzbury's Silent Frock:

"What I really need is a cloak of invisibility to go with it," she supposed. 
(AtD, 716)

- Give Harry a peck on the cheek, and he just might lend his to you...


 
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