We’ll be talking Beedle the Bard starting Thursday and in the days to follow. Thursday is very quickly changing from “The Day Travis Will Read and Comment on the Entire Book” to “The Day Travis Needs to Finish His Second Master’s Thesis.” At the very least, I’ll put up open-discussion posts on the 5 Beedle stories so you can all get started on the conversation. I plan to pick up the book in the morning and return to it throughout the day as I need breaks from my thesis.
So be here on Thursday for the best Beedle discussion anywhere! (I’ll also be stopping frequently at Hogwarts Professor to see what excellent insights Mr. Granger has on the Tales.)
[My thesis, by the way, is on Harry Potter in the classroom. If I can't find a good publication avenue for it in a few months, I might post it in its entirety here. It'll add some fuel to the fire of our education discussion, to be sure.]
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It will be a slow posting day at Hogwarts Professor, I’m afraid, tomorrow and the rest of this month! Tomorrow is a major Feast day of the Church (Entry of the Theotokos) and my book is due by the New Year with deadlines almost daily. I may not even read Beedle — and Dumbledore’s notes which promise to be the substance of discussion, I’m sure — until next week. It’s bad enough that I canceled a speaking date at a bookstore tonight so I could keep my focus…
Maybe I can find a guest host? Any volunteers?
I may not get to Beedle until late Thursday. Will be making shut in visits most of the day. So, I probably won’t have much to say on it until Friday at earliest.
John, the Orthodoxwiki says the Entry of the Theotokos is celebrated on November 21st. Is this one of the movable feasts? Just curious.
Not that I don’t believe you’re extremely busy.
Tomorrow is 21 November on the Church calendar, RevGeorge. The only thing movable here is the Gregorian naturalist calendar that departed from the sublime standard of time reckoning with both sun and moon to a strictly solar and mathematical model. Orthodox Christians as a rule, the tiny group of diaspora and convert churches in the US excepted, faithfully observe the calendar of feasts and fasts created by the Alexandrian astronomers and approved at the earliest Church councils.
Ah, I had forgotten about that. Don’t worry, though. Even with the Gregorian calendar the Western Church is still off kilter with the world since our new year started last Sunday with Advent.
Anyway, as St. Paul said, all these feasts & festivals are a matter of Christian freedom. I was just confused because the Orthodoxwiki didn’t mention anything about the calendar issue.
Back to the topic, revGeorge, when you get to Bedle the Bard, which story are you most looking forward to reading?
I’m most interested in Dumbledore’s introduction and notes, especially the notes on ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers” because of that story’s place in canon. I worry that Travis is going to want to pull his book back from the publisher for revisions after we actually have the fairy tales in hand (though it’s hard for me to imagine his improving this book much; it’s a wow).
I plan on reading the Tale of the 3 Brothers first, of course! I think it most pertinent, as you said, to the story. To speak allegorically, Voldemort, Dumbledore, & Harry are the three brothers. Or at least their story echoes the story of the three brothers. It will be most interesting to see what Dumbledore, re: JKR, has to give us in the commentary. I wonder if she will see the parallels between the 3 brothers & her three main characters.
As for Travis, he’ll just get to start a little more quickly on the revised edition of his book.
Or I’ll write an essay for the collection I’m editing for Zossima
Snape and Dumbledore are the Resurrection Stone figures, I think, revGeorge. Both pine for a lost love and regret a fateful decidion resulting in the loss of a loved one, but Snape’s Heathcliffesque “always” is the more dramatic and life altering of the pair.
We have this story already, as you say, and it will be the commentary that will be fascinating. The allegory works not only with the characters but with the faculties of soul. I’ve heard a new book claims they are alchemical ciphers for the Holy Trinity but it seems a stretch (Dumbledore approves of leaving two of the three behind?).
Beyond the allegory or before it, it will be good to think about ‘The Three Brothers’ in Potter in literary context. Rowling has pointed to the Pardoner’s Tale, but there are multiple Grimms Tales about Brothers (twins, a trio, four brothers, and twelve…), there is a notable Gothic Romance called ‘The Three Brothers (1803), and, yes, there is the greatest novel ever written, The Brothers Karamazov, which features three brothers as soul triptych.
I’m neck deep in the Gothic now and one of its first practitioners and apologists (who else?), S. T. Coleridge [did you know Mary Shelley heard Coleridge read 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' in her home as a child and that Frankenstein is in many ways her re-telling of this tale with references to 'Christabel' as well?]. I think the Gothic elements and intentions of these faux fairy tales will have to be brought out as well.
Over at HogPro someday soon. As in “Orthodox Nativity,” God allowing.
I thought of Snape, too, John, after I had posted. I think with his inclusion we have the four main figures of the series reflected in this fairy tale. Harry even runs all of them together in his mind at various times.
Been awhile since I’ve read any Chaucer or The Brothers Karamazov. But The Brothers Karamazov is one of the most profound books ever written. One of my cats is named Dmitri. Don’t know if I’ll name any Alyosha or Ivan.
Your cat is Dmitri (good choice), my youngest boy is Zossima (best not to name anyone from the Karamazov family, even Alyosha…).
The Pardoner’s Tale is a must, if only to see the points of correspondence and departure with ‘The Three Brothers.’ Really, this is Travis’ turf, and I’m looking forward to reading his discussion here — eventually — of the story and the DDore/Rowling notes.
Here’s hoping that Potter Pundits don’t take a satirical beating. If DDore the alchemist dismisses faux historical alchemical or religious readings of the stories (and I expect there will be academic interpretations — and that they will be funny), I think we’ll have to take that as a reproof, however affectionate or pointed. Stand by!
I don’t think there will be anything like a beating on Potter Pundits. Maybe an aside or two but the real beating will probably be reserved for the Harry Haters & other “fundamentalists” who are not fundamentalists on the pc side.
Besides, still holding to the textus primus argument, I don’t think the author is the final go to guy in determining meaning, as we’ve covered so very much already. First among readers maybe but not the final determinant of the work’s meaning. Thus, whether JKR says or does not say that she meant anything as various alchemical or religious readings of the text really can’t hold up, since the text can be mined for all these meanings, as you, John, have done so well. At best, all she can come off doing is admitting that she didn’t make things clear enough.
Agreed, revGeorge, but remember Aristophanes’ ‘The Clouds,’ the picture he drew in it of Socrates, and the consequences for Socrates later. If Rowling mocks the self-importance and arrogance of critics, even those who have been in large part her apologists against the fundamentalists (sic), that dismissal is all that the great majority of fandom will remember of those slammed. Think ‘Lexicon.’
I think, though, you are right about her more likely targets (most of whom are largely forgotten; ‘Harry Potter and the Bible’ and RA’s other Potter titles are selling at the rate of a copy a month at Amazon [cf., salesrankexpress.com]). Attacks on her work from Christians may be the only subject other than copyright about which she seems thin-skinned which points to a satirical treatment, but, how, in an imagined world remarkably devoid of formal religion or scripture, will she be able to create an equivalent of Pentateuch witchcraft textproof citing Harry Haters?
how, in an imagined world remarkably devoid of formal religion or scripture, will she be able to create an equivalent of Pentateuch witchcraft textproof citing Harry Haters?
Perhaps some kind of anti-Muggle wisdom-lit saying from a respected wizard of the past? I does sound difficult to do. I guess we’ll see tomorrow if she goes that route or avoids it altogether.
I hope you don’t have any hemlock on standby, John!
Anyway, I’ve long thought much of fandom is pretty ephemeral at best. Most of fandom will not have their inner eye opened by Potter, so I doubt they will read or have read the works of those who have drunk deeply of the text. We’ll see if Ms. Rowling makes fun of fangirls. like, I don’t know, MA. It would be sad if serious commentators got slammed while the most superficial commentators & supporters received nothing but praise.
Well, it was years before the Assembly came for Socrates — and, if memory serves, they provided the hemlock.
I doubt tomorrow’s revelations will include much more than the very good news that Ms. Rowling has retained her remarkable sense of humor. Speaking behind a DDore persona as interpreter/critic/academic will give her plump, lame targets to fire on satirically in a 360 degree arc.
Should be fun! And for charity, no less.
I posted my 12 questions for Bard readers over at HogPro and JohnABaptist has graciously agreed to moderate the site tomorrow.
Back to Frankenstein!
Ah I am very interested in Dumbledore’s commentary. I don’t know what to expect: little scribbles like in Fantastic Beasts, or actual notes and explanations. And I wonder how the book will be 120 pages when the “Tale of the Three Brothers” is so short.
Travis, is your thesis going to be on Harry Potter in the classroom, or Harry Potter and the classroom, i.e. Education in the books, and how Harry learns?
Arka, little of both, actually. I’m examining the potential for the use of banned and controversial books in the classroom, and since HP is on the top of that list these days, it works both as an example of a controversial book, and one in which much about learning can be learned.
Confused? Me too.