Getting Ready
I've got Harry Potter on the brain.

First off, after rereading Book 5 and Book 6, I decided I needed more. So I read What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7. The book is full of predictions about the upcoming HP book. The writers have combed the previous books for clues, and they stake their claim in what is coming in the last book. They include fun things like the "odds" that various characters make it out of the new book alive (Draco, it doesn't look good for you). It includes extensive chapters on whether Dumbledore is alive or not, plus the whole debate about whether Snape has gone evil is included, too. The book is a fun review of all the stuff that happened in the previous books, and I enjoyed all the analysis.

By the way, this book is published by the nerds...er, ah, volunteers...at mugglenet.com The website includes several Editorials that include amazingly detailed literary analysis. If I were back in grad school, I think I'd write a paper about a new breed of literary analysis spawned by the internet. I'd call it "obsessed fandom literary analysis." If you bring a bunch of people who read a book repeatedly together on a website, they bring a lot of interesting insights to the book.

For instance, at the end of Book 6, there is that mysterious note in the locket from RAB. The folks at mugglenet.com think RAB is Sirius Black's younger brother. One bit of evidence to support this theory is that when the book is translated into different languages, the last initial changes to the first letter in the word "black" in the new language. Now that is something that only an obsessed fan would figure out!

Not that I'm an obsessed fan, but this week I've been reading something truly, truly nerdy. I've heard about fan fiction, but I've never bothered to read any before. Fan fiction is where someone uses the characters from a favorite book or movie to write a new story. Apparently there is oodles of this stuff on the internet. With my recent spat of Harry Potter-itis, I ran across an online novel called Living with Danger. In this version of the tale, HP grows up in a loving home, instead of with the Dursleys. It is kind of like "Muppet Babies", because all of the original characters show up as kids. The writing is super cheesy and amateurish and I'm embarrassed to admit I've been reading it. But hey, July is a long way off for a Harry Potter fan.
- posted by Laurie @ 8:50 PM