About rereading Harry Potter...

So I know I didn't really blog Harry Potter when I reread the books this summer.  Part of it was that I was moving during most of the reading process.  Part of it was that I was reading just to read--not necessarily looking for things to analyze.  I did find one or two things along the way, and I did give some final thoughts, here (toward the end).  But all in all, not a concentrated effort in blogging or analysis.  I even got rather tired of the books--about the time Sirius showed up and started acting like an overgrown adolescent--but somehow I couldn't stop reading until Voldemort was dead.  I think the more I read the books, the less I like the supporting characters.

But now that I've finished, and I'm rereading Drums of Autumn (the Outlander book with the title I get wrong more times than not), I find myself going through the day thinking, "Hmmm, I'll just go home and read about Hermione impersonating Bellatrix Lestrange..." or "Yeah, Harry's cleaning up Sirius's place... oh, wait..."  It's like the meme that you can't move on to the next book because you're still living in the previous book's world.

I was also thinking about what readers of this blog--you, my friends--seem to be most interested in.  And I think it's the personality type reading theory (which I must have mentioned in more than the two posts linked... no? well...)  Now, each of the Harry Potter books is very different, and the first three engage the reader in very different ways than the last 4.  Book 4 is a transitional book in more than one way, and also has the most symmetry in its structure, being a mystery of sorts.  It is the most pleasing to me in terms of its construction.  But Book 5 is my favorite of all, I think.  So I wonder...  Might the Harry Potter series be a good place to start with consideration of personality types and reading preferences?  Does anyone out there have a favorite Harry Potter book?  If so, let me know (and remind me of your personality type (Literacy-chic:  Book 5, INFP).

Plagiarism: A sonnet

I had a dream that was not all a dream:
We were as clouds that veil the midnight moon
And goodly states and kingdoms had we seen;
And the world was ever with us--late and soon.
There is sweet music here that softer falls
upon the straits--on the French coast the light
changes, surprises--and God made it all!
Dim now, through misty panes and thick green light.
If but some vengeful god would call to me
for every tatter in its mortal dress
from ranches of isolation and busy griefs,
and make a welcome of indifference...
Or how can a poet's reach exceed her grasp
in an age of scum, spooned off the richer past?

Un-sonnet-ed

I almost like #3 better like this:

The clouds hang low.
There's moisture in the air.
I wake an hour earlier today.
I'll do the same tomorrow, if I can bear the weight
of the new routine.
My daughters play and bicker as they brush their teeth.
My son is off to catch the bus.
He doesn't drive.
A mortal sin for teenagers.
The one thing I want most is coffee.
Lucky I've got someone making it so perfectly--sticky and sweet.
The morning is a knot of hair and limbs and shoes and socks and bread for sandwiches.
Until it's only me, driving.
The coffee's gone.
And what I've got is a poem.
Disjointed like the day ahead.

Sonnet #3

The clouds hang low.  There's moisture in the air.
I wake an hour earlier today.
I'll do the same tomorrow, if I can bear
the weight of the new routine.  My daughters play
and bicker as they brush their teeth.  My son
is off to catch the bus.  He doesn't drive.
A mortal sin for teenagers.  The one
thing I want most is coffee.  Lucky I've
got someone making it so perfectly--
sticky and sweet.  The morning is a knot
of hair and limbs and shoes and socks and bread
for sandwiches.  Until it's only me,
driving.  The coffee's gone.  And what I've got
is a poem. 

                   Disjointed like the day ahead.

Another day, another sonnet... (Sonnet #2)

Like eyes they stare at me--twin monitors;

the airconditioner humming in my head

and all around the building's droning roar

echoes the respiration of the dead.

Through halls the people go and come and go

treading the clock, waiting the endless wait.

And if they talked of Michaelangelo

or Eliot, or Tennyson, or Yeats...

But no.  Days have no structure; software is a bore

and boredom is a solitary place.

I am lonely here without you--and so the lure

of words and pictures draws me into space

more real, somehow, than the chair in which I sit

regaling the keyboard with my shallow wit.

And maybe some sonnets will appear... (Sonnet #1)

Day one at the elementary
and I send two into the fray and pass
into my static daytime reverie
of screens and desks and carpeting and glass.
...When I release you to sleep's little death
I find my own oblivion in night
and neither follow you, nor waste a breath
in consternation.  But I face, in light
the headlines.  Strange scenarios.  And live
the agony of separation new--
as after incubation, I would give
you to the light, not dreaming, as you grew
that my being would be hollow and unset--
until at evening's onset, we are met.

Perhaps not my best sonnet, and a little stilted.  But it's always nice to actually write one again.  If I can do it, I would like to write one to post here every now and then.  We'll see how that goes...

The Ethos, Logos, and Pathos of Choosing Notable Moments

“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don’s wife, or an outlaw’s lady?” 

“I was born for you,” I said simply, and held out my arms to him. 

“Ye know,” he observed, letting go at last, “you’ve never said it.” 

“Neither have you.” 

“I have. The day after we came. I said I wanted you more than anything.” 

“ And I said that loving and wanting weren’t necessarily the same thing,” I countered.

He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, Sassenach.” He smoothed the hair from my face and kissed my brow. “I wanted ye from the first I saw ye—but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

The sun sank below the line of black pines, and the first stars of the evening came out. It was mid-November, and the evening air was cold, though the days still kept fine. Standing on the opposite side of the fence, Jamie bent his head, putting his forehead against mine.
“You first.” 

“No, you.” 

“Why?” 

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what, my Sassenach?” The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light. 

“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.” 

He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. “It’s nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne.” He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart. 

“I love you.”

As part of the ongoing read-along of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels, a promotion on the Diana Gabaldon (official) Facebook page to re-invigorate the already vigorous fan-base in anticipation of the March release of Written in My Own Heart's Blood, "Ashley," the Random House communications person posted the above passage from Outlander, to the admiration of many swooning fans.  I mentioned this initiative in my last blog post, and while I think it's interesting, I take issue with the method.  Why, you ask?  Well, I would not read the books based on the above passage.  Even seeing it out of context makes me cringe more than a little.  It was probably at this point in the novel (or a little before) when I started entertaining significant suspicions about the genre--would I have to go into the ROMANCE NOVEL section in order to buy the next installment??  That I am a book snob (though an odd one) is not a surprise if you have read this blog before.

What we have here is not what I would call a "notable moment."  Perhaps it's a swoon-worthy moment or some such, but it does not pull thoughts in my mind.  It is perhaps a matter for Aristotelian rhetorical terms--this passage is making an appeal by way of pathos, eliciting emotion from the reader.  And while it is effective in context, it just registers as, well, sappy out of context.  There are undoubtedly appeals by means of pathos throughout the Outlander series--and perhaps especially in Book 1.  But though some readers might engage with this element, they are not the substance of the works.  And, frankly, this marketing ploy is losing me--to the extent that it ever had me.

"Ashley" should, perhaps, take a cue from Diana Gabaldon herself, who personally posts (if the internet is to be trusted) "Daily Lines" from her novels, most notably from the upcoming novel, on Facebook and (occasionally) on her blog.  Very rarely, first of all, do these "Daily Lines" tell a whole story. They are evocative, and they leave more unsaid than they do said in most cases. This is particularly important because Gabaldon is posting lines from a previously unpublished, soon-to-be-published manuscript.  She only posts scenes that whet the appetite--none that satisfy--which means that the reader, who has already read some substantial bits from the novel by this time, does not have the sense that she now knows what will happen in the book.

That strategy fits with Gabaldon's purpose of posting from the upcoming novel.  Her publicity agents are not following the same strategy.  Rather, assuming that the reader of the Facebook is already a fan, the agent is posting more complete scenes, like the one above.  The scenes are rather to evoke the nostalgia that fans--many of whom reread the books frequently--have for the characters' romance.  This works for certain fans, as the hundreds of comments and thousands of "likes" on Facebook indicate.  However, it does not work for all readers, and should someone who has not read the books happen upon these excerpts, it is possible that the quotes and excerpts, taken as they are out of context, will either give a false impression, will "satisfy" because the scene involves closure, or will turn the reader off because of the sickly sweet sentiments.  The novels are love stories, no doubt--but they are more complex and grittier than that.  I would like to see some of the gritty. 

Moments can be notable to an audience, then, for different reasons, and Gabaldon and the Random House representative are tapping into two different purposes and functions of an excerpt.   My own notable moments are personal, but meant to be public as well, as I share my deep reading in the hopes that my analysis will open something new in the novels for others.  My choice of moments is bound up with my process of reading, my academic training, and what interests me not only in the books, but in life.  That's what I mean by a reader's personal "rhetorical situation of reading":  it's where the reader is right now--mentally, in terms of interest and life experience, and, yes, emotionally--that influences what elements of a text engage, frustrate, or please him or her.  While in the moment--and certainly in the first flush of reading a new book--I might be reading for the escapism, intentionally getting caught up in the pathos, the moments that are truly notable--moments that make my mind take notice, that make me form theories and connections--are the moments that engage me by means of logos, and here I mean not just "logic" but compelling content that invites potential argument and dialogue with the text, as well as the moments in which the author, intentionally or unintentionally, imparts her own ethos, revealing something about her artistic choices.  I think it is the variety and quality of the integration of ideas, as well as the successful manipulation of emotion, that make successful novels, as the quality and variety of appeals are what guarantee that a variety of people will find the novel engaging.

Although I didn't write about many notable moments in the Harry Potter novels during my recent rereading, I actually think that J. K. Rowling's strength as a writer lies in the ability to execute many appeals simultaneously, to engage a variety of readers--which, of course, just makes sense.  But for me, during this reread, I was not attuned so much to the ideas.  I was retreading old territory, in part to see what the experience felt like for me right now.  It was sort of like a vacation--no, not to Hogwarts.  Just an adventure in novel reading.  And what stood out for me this time was the ethos--the author's exercise of control over the text.  It is something I have criticized before--truly, at times Rowling might have been reigned in by an editor, but on this reread (perhaps my third reading), I don't think she necessarily had to be reigned in much.  I find the symmetry and tying up of loose ends in The Goblet of Fire to be very pleasing.  It is a very well-executed mystery.  And while the angst of Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince were still there, what struck me more than anything was the pointlessness of the former (really? all of this effort over some words?) and the exquisite ending of the latter.  I wonder if perhaps Rowling was giving the reader a taste, in Order of how Harry would feel about the futility of striving in Deathly Hallows.  And Half-Blood Prince had at once a satisfying sense of closure--the reader knew that the novel had to end there--and the sense of a long road ahead--seemingly the opposite of closure, and yet not.  I don't think I had yet appreciated exactly that aspect of the sixth book in the series, but because of where I was--my mindset, my leisure, my particular literate moment--I was able to appreciate it.  But it was not a notable moment, because it involved the novel as a whole.

So as I work toward a consideration of the ways of reading of different personality types, and how INFPs and ENTJs, for example, engage with different elements, it is useful, I think, to consider how an individual chooses a selection from a novel to highlight, and why.  It is also useful to think of how personal circumstances, including modes of reading--rereading compared to exploratory reading, for example, or academic vs. pleasure reading--contexts, and even overall mood--change what we get out of fiction--how we filter the details and action differently.  I also think it is useful to consider ethos, logos, and pathos--the friends, and perhaps the bane, of every scholar of rhetoric, from Freshman to graduate level.  Because where I look at the passage from Outlander out of context and wrinkle my nose and say, "oh, please!" the fact is that I enjoyed it in context, in the rhetorical reading situation in which I encountered it first--and again.  It wasn't a "notable moment" to me, because why would I analyze saying or not saying "I love you"?  It's not particularly meaningful to me.  But clearly, to hundreds and thousands of readers of Gabaldon, it is meaningful.  It captures their nostalgia for the emotion evoked, and their admiration of the ideal portrayed in the scene.

Reading but not Blogging....

While I have been reading, my blogging just has not been as steady recently.  I think that's because I've been reading to read instead of reading to write.  It might also be because I haven't found as many "notable moments" to write about--or I might have had "close reading" overload.

I dropped off while trying to "catch up" and retroactively blog Diana Gabaldon's Voyager after tearing through the book itself.  It really is a very robust novel, and draws on each and every thread that I had identified in the previous two books.   That's great, right?  It represents a certain coherence in the writing that signals an author who knows her plan and sticks to it, which is great for a reader because it imparts a sense of continuity, even for readers who do not notice every thread.  For a reader/critic/writer and blogger who does notice many of the threads--with eager interest, I might add--and who has no particular thesis--or else several theses that could emerge as several chapters of a book on the novels, well, to keep up with every thread is sort of exhausting!!  And that's where I found myself.  So having blogged most of Voyager, I sort of... dropped it.  I've made my peace with that, I think.

In the meantime, I have read a lot and blogged some of it--Neil Gaiman's American Gods (which defies my analysis at the present, being a weird book), The Hunger Games (the blogging of which is still incomplete, as I have not yet written about literacy in the trilogy), Regina Doman's Rapunzel Let Down (which I wrestled with and might have beaten to death), and the Harry Potter series, which I did not blog extensively about because not many moments jumped out at me begging for analysis.

In the meantime, I have moved to a new and larger dwelling, wrestled with my ongoing professional angst, and learned and taught a new software program (InDesign, which nearly beat me in the end....)  I have also revised my 2011 NaNoWriMo "novel" (which I will think of as a novel rather than a "novel" only if it is published) and submitted it to a contest--we'll see how that works out.  I also backed out of a conference presentation that I was to give on blogging "notable moments" as a means of combatting "shallow reading," and started thinking about how personality types influence reading preferences and personal engagement with texts.  And an article abstract about the "subversive rhetoric of time travel" in Gabaldon's novels was, sadly, rejected.

Since I haven't been blogging about Gabaldon's novels, Random House decided that this was a perfect opportunity to sponsor a "read-along" of the whole series in preparation for the release of book 8, Written in My Own Heart's Blood, in March.  By "read-along," they basically mean "get-the-fans-excited-by-posting-passages-from-each-consecutive-book-on-Facebook-until-March"--which, strangely enough, intersects with my "notable moment" project rather nicely.

All this is to say that while I have given up on blogging Voyager, probably for good, I am currently rereading book #4, The Drums of Autumn.  And maybe a thing or two will jump out and beg for analysis....  At any rate, I'm getting back into that world for a while, so you can find me there, perhaps reading a little less for escapism this time around?  We'll see...

Snape's Marriage: A Notable Moment in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Now, don't get excited.  Those of you who are here expecting a fan fic, you can hit the "back" button now.  It's nothing of the sort.  Rather, I was just starting my re-read of The Half-Blood Prince, having wrapped up The Order of the Phoenix last night and remarking to myself that there didn't seem to be much--nay, anything--to analyze in Book 5, when I came to the end of chapter two, and Snape's Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy.

Snape's Unbreakable Vow is an interesting and clever device.  He is able, with his status as a double agent, to keep his vows to both Dumbledore and the Death Eaters, even as he seems to be committing the ultimate act of betrayal against Dumbledore.  But it strikes me as interesting in another way, too.  Deprived of the one woman he was ever in love with--seemingly the only woman to who he ever felt attraction--the Unbreakable Vow that he takes in his book-framed bachelor pad (which might in fact have been his family home, nestled in an industrial area, presumably in London), is the only formal vow he takes, bound to a woman, the mother of a boy to whom he is devoted, presided over by a female Death Eater, who has been inscribed by the Dark Lord.  Although Ron's later knowledge of the spell suggests that it is not necessarily dark magic in the sense of Unforgivable Curses or some of the more sinister hexes, like Septumsempra, it has all of the weight of a dark sacrament--in fact, of a marriage.

Beyond the rare interaction between Snape and a female character, the actual process is striking:

• Snape and Narcissa join hands (albeit right hands)
• A witness, who also acts as an agent to bind the two, is necessary
• As Narcissa asks a series of three (3) questions, Snape answers "I will"
• Three "tongues of flame" shoot from the wand of the witness to bind Snape and Narcissa

Leaving aside any possible phallic implications of tongues and flames and snakes and ropes shooting from wands (and there are some, I believe, though perhaps not here), many elements point to a sort of marriage.  First, the very idea of a vow, and one that is unbreakable.  Rowling may or may not have any real connection with the Catholic Church, though I swear the Weasleys are Irish Catholic, and there is some talk of her being a Chestertonian (though not a personal devotee of Chesterton, I can't vouch for the significance of that), but she has Catholic moments, and this seems like one.  The Anglican Church is sacramental as well; however, this is an unbreakable union, and unless I am very much mistaken, only priesthood and marriage in the Catholic church are an unbreakable joining by way of a vow.

The three questions are conspicuious, as are the three "tongues of flame," which every person who has wished to defend Rowling's novel by way of Biblical references has no doubt cited as a reference to Pentacost, and the loosening of the tongues of the disciples.  Interestingly, these flametongues bind two who are unable to speak of the dreadful plan/order/secret that necessitates Snape's vow to protect Draco, and to finish his assigned task if he is unable to do so.  Rather than a loosening of tongues, they underscore the secretive nature of the proceedings.  Does this contradiction, then, of the Pentacostal imagery make this an anti-sacrament?  Perhaps.  But the vow still remains unbreakable as far as we know, so those flaming tongues might have done something, even in the unholy atmosphere of secrecy and dark wizardry.

And since I have used the word flaming, and it is too good a segue to pass up, let's talk about to whom Snape is making the vow, and to whom he is likely to be foresworn.  And I mean Dumbledore.  Because he has sworn to Dumbledore as well as Narcissa, though presumably Dumbledore would not bind him with a vow that, if broken, would claim Snape's life.  Although the other possibility here is that he is not so much vowing to Narcissa, but to her son, Draco.  There are critics and readers enough who would capitalize on Rowling's ludicrous assertion that Dumbledore is gay and read homoerotic subtexts throughout the series (or write fan fics; whatever).  However, I am disinclined to see any homoeroticism in the attitudes of Snape to Draco, or Dumbledore to Harry.  I'm going to stick to teacher and student for the moment, so I will make no assertions about the relationship between James and Sirius, or Voldemort and whomever.  There is a kind of sex-segregation at Hogwarts that mimics the traditional male-centered atmosphere of Oxford and Cambridge, where a professor of mine when I was undergraduate said the old male professors told her that Restoration Drama was not necessarily an appropriate subject for a young woman.  McGonnegal and Madame Pomfrey, Professor Grubby-Plank, Professor Sprout, and Sibyll Trelawney are all there, and even one of the original founders (Ravenclaw) was female, as is the Ravenclaw ghost;  however, the action centers around the males, and largely around male relationships.  And that's okay.

So does Snape marry himself to Narcissa in making the vow?  Is he wedded to Dumbledore?  To Draco?  Well, yes, in fact.  The beauty of his vow is that it doesn't actually require the contradictions of betrayal, though the act he must perform is loathsome to him, and it is not one that I can endorse, even as an act of mercy, as the novels would have the reader accept it to be.  I don't blame Snape; nevertheless, I do not see it as a moral, or even an amoral act.  I venture to suggest that neither Snape nor Dumbledore sees it that way, either, so perhaps the morality of the act is not the question as much as whether Snape is to blame.  

In dismissing the potential implications of Snape being "wed" to Draco or Dumbledore by his vow with this woman, I want to point to something about Hogwarts instead.  I have not yet mentioned the word "vocation," but teaching is, in fact, a vocation for each of the teachers in the same way it was meant to be at Oxford and Cambridge.  J. R. R. Tolkien was in the minority being married and a professor, and his relationship with his wife was, if memory served, strained by his separation from her in favor of male companionship.  It was a source of disagreement between the Inklings that, while Tolkien's wife was banned from meetings, Joy Gresham was not.  Hogwarts seems to require a similar dedication from their teachers, who after all, live on premises during the school year.  There is no evidence in the books to suggest that any of the Hogwarts teachers are married.  They are married to their vocation (and, indeed, marriage is understood as a choice of vocation, as well as priesthood and religious life).  The school is like a spouse, and the students, their intellectual if not physical heirs.  The distant "parent" role emerges as well in the role of Head of House, of which Snape, in fact, is one.

Having failed, then, to make one marriage, Snape makes a different kind of marriage--a different vocational choice.  And he devotes himself to it wholeheartedly, though it does not help him to lose the bitterness which colors his tragic backstory.  Probably my favorite character, Snape, and a very notable moment, which ties the novel together and revelas something about the nature of a teacher, perhaps, to start off his story (or at least the one named for him).