Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Taking the Potter Plunge
I promise the title of today's entry isn't anything filthy! For years (a decade?) I've avoided the Harry Potter books. Yes, I was too cool for them. I lumped them in with The Bridges of Madison County, The Da Vinci Code, and the movies Forest Gump, Pretty Woman, and Jerry Maguire: Super popular crap that the public embraced in an overwhelming way that put me off of it without knowing much about it.
(I eventually saw Forest Gump a few years ago and thought it was "super retarded," to use the technical term. "Oh! Tom Hanks talks funny! He meets celebrities!" Boring. Plus his "Jenny" dies of what is most likely AIDS, but neither Forest nor her son get it. Okay, sure. Only bad people like drug addicts get that disease. Whatever.)
So the Forest Gump Experience (good indie band name, if you need one!) just reinforced my wish to have nothing to do with Pottermania. C'mon. Adults reading a kids book? Grow up.
That was, until last night. I finished a book and was looking around the house for something else to read. (Hey, I'm bachelor man during the week, there are only so many summer reruns to watch, and I avoid "reality" television, so what can I do?) I saw the first four books of the Harry Potter series sitting on the shelf. They belong to my wife. I took down the first one and read the back cover. I turned to the copyright page and noticed that this was the 31st printing of the book (It's probably up over 50 printings of the first book by now).
Alone in the house, and feeling like I was doing something vaguely shameful, I began reading. I got to page 100 before I went to sleep.
Now, I'm not proclaiming my love for the book yet, so don't overreact. I've seen the movies, but can't remember much of anything about them except what the actors playing the characters look like, so for better or worse, I saw the movie characters as I was reading.
The writing doesn't suck. The author has a good ear for dialog, and there a little bits of humor in it. There, that's all I'll admit for now.
(I eventually saw Forest Gump a few years ago and thought it was "super retarded," to use the technical term. "Oh! Tom Hanks talks funny! He meets celebrities!" Boring. Plus his "Jenny" dies of what is most likely AIDS, but neither Forest nor her son get it. Okay, sure. Only bad people like drug addicts get that disease. Whatever.)
So the Forest Gump Experience (good indie band name, if you need one!) just reinforced my wish to have nothing to do with Pottermania. C'mon. Adults reading a kids book? Grow up.
That was, until last night. I finished a book and was looking around the house for something else to read. (Hey, I'm bachelor man during the week, there are only so many summer reruns to watch, and I avoid "reality" television, so what can I do?) I saw the first four books of the Harry Potter series sitting on the shelf. They belong to my wife. I took down the first one and read the back cover. I turned to the copyright page and noticed that this was the 31st printing of the book (It's probably up over 50 printings of the first book by now).
Alone in the house, and feeling like I was doing something vaguely shameful, I began reading. I got to page 100 before I went to sleep.
Now, I'm not proclaiming my love for the book yet, so don't overreact. I've seen the movies, but can't remember much of anything about them except what the actors playing the characters look like, so for better or worse, I saw the movie characters as I was reading.
The writing doesn't suck. The author has a good ear for dialog, and there a little bits of humor in it. There, that's all I'll admit for now.
# posted by smacky @ 10:14 AM 
