A Harry ending

[j4]

Now that addedentry has finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I can a) talk to him about it, and b) post about it. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say except that I enjoyed it and I thought it was a satisfactory conclusion to the series, so you're getting no speculation, spoilers or slash from me.

We did go to the midnight book-launch at Borders, dressed in our Hogwarts uniforms; working in an academic department means it's easy to borrow gowns, the rest was gubbins from around the house, charity-shop pickings and (in desperation) a last-minute raid on the BHS school uniform department. ("Fancy dress, is it?" asked the checkout girl, more bored than amused.) Photos on my Flickr, photos on a colleague's Flickr. We had fun people-watching, mostly, and hopefully provided reasonable people-watching value in return. An American chap from St John's took photos of us for his blog, but I didn't write down the name of the blog and haven't managed to find it.

I got to page 18 while we were in the queue, stayed up till 3am reading, carried on reading at every available opportunity after getting up (stopping to go and see Tales From Earthsea at the North Wall Arts Centre), and finally finished the book in Borders Café on the Saturday evening.

Re-reading the entire series prior to the release of the last book, I worked out what it was that annoyed me so much about the recurring Dursley-infested opening sections...



... they read like children's misery lit (or "Painful lives" as Waterstones apparently calls that section), the dark side of glurge. If the thousands of copies of Dave Pelzer's sordid books that are rattling around in Oxfam's sorting boxes start rubbing shoulders with all the thousands of slightly soiled Potters which have probably already hit the second-hand market, the above hybrid is what might result. The worst of it is, the fanfic writers probably got there before me... and they're probably loving it.

Comments

[annajaneclare.livejournal.com]

Ewwww. I know what you mean about the woe-is-me section. There seem to be more of them on the shelves in Smiths every time I go in there and I get the feeling it's more exploitation-lit than some kind of therapy. At this rate I'll never write a bestseller - I'm not even nearly fucked-up enough.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Why did it take me so long to see the photos of the two of you looking so delightful? Alas! Sounds like your queue experience might have been even better than ours, as well as (not least because it was?) shorter.

Lovely to see you both at the weekend and I hope you both felt it was worth the trip!