June 27, 2003

Recent Reading

I read two books this week. One of them was Wigfield by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello. The other one was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Before I get into this, I ask you this: If you're terrified of reading spoilers, why are you reading reviews? Sheesh. My opinions have some support in the books, and to mention that support, I shall occasionally be referring to the contents of the books. Deal with it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling

I liked it. But I don't think it needed to be as long as it was. I could say that sight unseen, really, because 870 pages does seem a bit long for a single installment of anything. But in this case, I even know exactly what I'd cut: Cho Chang. I know a lot of people care deeply about the romantic entanglements of their protagonists, but I really felt that every Cho Chang scene was tacked on. Those scenes affected nothing else in the book. Harry goes about his business until Cho wanders onscreen, and then he's suddenly consumed with her. And then after her scene is over, he has maybe a paragraph of wrap-up, and then she's forgotten again.

Take the Valentine's Day scene. After Harry's ditched Cho to meet with Hermione, Luna, and Rita, he has a brief discussion with Hermione (about what an idiot Harry is and how he doesn't understand Cho at all), and then Cho is discarded so we can get back to the plot. You could pull all the Cho stuff bodily from the book and it wouldn't matter at all. You could also pull all the romantic stuff from the last book -- you'd lose a little of Harry's jealousy of Cedric and the prom scene, which had its "payoff" in a throwaway line in this book.

I just think that Rowling isn't doing a very good job of meshing the "Harry In Luvvvv" sequences with the "Harry trying to stay alive and also graduate" stuff which makes up the bulk of the book. And, again, the book's 870 pages. It could use some cutting. Or, if it's going to take Rowling another three years to crank out a book, she could have broke this one into two sections somehow.

I liked how Harry was a big jerk in this book, but I think he's a bigger jerk than he realizes. He's pretty snotty about Ron getting to be a prefect, which is at odds with his usual stance of "I don't want to be anyone special; stop paying attention to me." And both he and Ron are jerks to Hermione. I don't think Hermione is necessarily all that smart; she gets good grades because she studies all the time and reads ahead in the books. It's not so much native intelligence as it is determination and commitment. But Harry and Ron not only ignore the fact that she earns everything she gets, they don't take notes in class and then act like it's her fault if they get bad grades. I realize that Hermione is supposed to come off as something off an insufferable know-it-all, but I think she rocks. And Harry and Ron should treat her better, darn it.

I have to say I didn't care much about Sirius's death. Sirius may be important to Harry, but he hasn't had enough screen time to make me care a lot. It's distressingly like the previous book, where Rowling let it be known that "someone would die" and it turned out to be Cedric, who had maybe two lines.

Having said all that, I feel the need to loop back to the beginning: I did like it. But there were things I wasn't crazy about.

Wigfield, by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert

I think I liked the idea of this book more than the book itself. It's by the three people behind Strangers With Candy, and you may remember Sedaris from being really funny on late-night talk shows; and Colbert from The Daily Show. They're really funny people, you know. So a book written by them was Big News in my world.

The concept of the book is that a hack journalist (suspiciously like Colbert's character on The Daily Show) has stumbled upon a bunch of scam artists and strippers pretending to be a town so when the government blows up a dam, they'll get some money. It's a surprisingly complicated plot, considering that it's mostly an excuse for various wacky town characters to do monologues. There are pictures of the characters, who are all one of the three authors in terrifying outfits. Sedaris really seems to enjoy look hideous. Did you know that for the first season of Stragers With Candy, she brought her own fat suit? Doesn't that seem odd?

So, yeah, it was a funny book, but it didn't really knock my pants off or anything. My expectations were really, really high.

I don't know whether you're familiar with David Sedaris, Amy's brother? He's most famous for being on NPR a lot. In his latest book "Me Talk Pretty One Day" he tells the story of why Amy bought herself a fat suit. Hilarious!

Posted by: julia at June 27, 2003 05:10 AM

I really agreed with your take on the Harry Potter book. By the time Sirius died, it was almost like, 'yeah, and?'. She built up all this suspense and it ended up being someone I just didn't personally care all that much about.

Posted by: Rachel at June 27, 2003 06:25 AM

Monty --

I am sooo with you on the Cho stuff -- it felt as though Rowling thought the story wasn't long enough, and went back to pad it. I originally loved Sirius (in book 3 especially) but he was made to be such a pain in this story that it wasn't all that sad when he kicked it. But overall I liked it -- I am really glad that Ron's sister finally has a real personality.

Of course, M. Giant won't listen to me when I tell him to catch up and read it (along with the previous 2 books) and he spends a lot of time mocking me because we will have to wait another 10 years or so for the next one.

Posted by: Trash at June 27, 2003 07:07 AM

I dunno. Isn't that a lot like real puppy love when one is in school? There you are one minute arguing with your best friend about the school play or softball team, and WHAM! your crush walks by and everything else fades off screen. I agree that we aren't seeing a whole lot of Cho that justifies her inclusion in the story, but she may become more fully delineated in later books, and again, not REALLY knowing your crush is also part of puppy love to me -- one can fantasize about the imagined figure of the beloved because so much is unknown, not the real one who has smelly feet and a crazy brother-in-law.

For me the real slammer in the books was the scene in St.Mungo's with Neville's mother handing him her "gift." Boy, that got me. I am ready to cry again just thinking about it. So sad. Mothers are so important in this book -- I just realized -- Mrs. Weasley, the late Mrs. Potter. I wonder why we are not seeing more of Hermione's mom, btw.

Posted by: Jenny at June 27, 2003 07:27 AM

Might I say before I begin that I totally agree with you on spoiler stuff?

Anyway, I also totally agree with you on the Cho/love lives thing. It's the worst aspect of the last two books so far, and could have been cut even more in Goblet. I don't think we are going to get to know Cho better- she's a Crush Object. At least we didn't have to hear so much about Ron and Hermione's love lives in addition to Harry's in this one. Or have to suffer through a mandatory ball that forces 14-year-olds to dig up dates. I guess JKR had too much actual plot to put in and spared us that.

However, much as I might not like the love aspect in HP (which is weird since I love that kind of thing in every other book in the universe), I think it's something JKR has to put in. What 15-year-old out there wasn't totally obsessed with a crush at some point? It's practically unnatural for someone to hit 17 and not have the hormones raging. If she doesn't want characters to stay 11 forever, she has to deal with it. I don't really have much of a better suggestion for her as to how to handle it (hell, Hogwarts kids have delayed adolescence- kids these days are having crushes at what, 12 now?), but I don't think she can realistically eliminate that from the characters.

Posted by: Jennifer at June 27, 2003 12:19 PM

The sirius stuff didn't get me either. But i agree that the guys should treat hermione better, like come on stop be such a jerk, she saves your ass all the time!

Posted by: lee at June 27, 2003 01:20 PM

I totally agree with you about Cho Chang - everything that happened with her was always soon after forgotten. Harry would be mad at her because she was mad at him - he wondered how she could be mad at him, of all people. Yet once he wasn't around her, he fogot about her and never tried to make up. The Cho relationship could have been written much better - I'm sure J.K. Rowling could have, being the great writer that she it, come up with something better.

However, that is where my agreeance with ALL of you, writer and reviewers, ends. (with the exception of the person talking about Neville and his mum at the hospital - I cried when I first read that. So sad!!) Unlike all of you, I began to cry when Sirius died - it really affected me. I almost threw my book in the river. I know he had become a reckless person who regarded Harry more as James than as a godson. (I was at a public place when I started crying - people started to stare at me like I was a lunatic, and I felt really mortified!) But it was because of everything happening around him - the only reason he tried to hang on was because of Harry. I believe that if he hadn't died, and after everyone knew about L.V. returning, then Dumbledore could have helped him return to his normal self. He obviously needed help - but I know that he could have gotten better. But Harry loved him deeply and couldn't have been more affected than if Ron had died. Sure, he death was quick and over with in about a page and a half. But that's how death usually is - quick, sudden. Especially with Voldemort and his death eaters.

I also disagree about the length of the book - I run a small Harry Potter website, and am in contact with about 30-40 fans. Every single one has more or less said that if the 6th book is shorter in length than the fifth, they will be thoroughly dissapointed. I felt that if the book had been endless, I would have stuck my nose into it for the rest of time. I'll think I've come across a heaven for the living if the next book turns out to be 1,000 pages or more - and all of the fans I know agree. (including about 20 of my school friends, who aren't on my website.) J.K. Rowling never has written too little or too much -and never gets into too little or too much detail. I also feel that the fifth book is the BEST one so far - unlike many of the idiotic morons who wouldn't know a good book if it they were whacked on the head with it.

Posted by: Avery at June 29, 2003 02:27 PM

i tried my damnest not to find outbefore i read the book who died but i found it here. *shurg* not mad, however. i dont remember much of the last two books, so starting a new book i wasn't sure where i really was.

Posted by: bethie at June 29, 2003 08:47 PM



	« When I Was A Baker \| Main \| On the Blunt Edge of Technology » June 27, 2003 Recent Reading I read two books this week. One of them was Wigfield by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello. The other one was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Before I get into this, I ask you this: If you're terrified of reading spoilers, why are you reading reviews? Sheesh. My opinions have some support in the books, and to mention that support, I shall occasionally be referring to the contents of the books. Deal with it. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling I liked it. But I don't think it needed to be as long as it was. I could say that sight unseen, really, because 870 pages does seem a bit long for a single installment of anything. But in this case, I even know exactly what I'd cut: Cho Chang. I know a lot of people care deeply about the romantic entanglements of their protagonists, but I really felt that every Cho Chang scene was tacked on. Those scenes affected nothing else in the book. Harry goes about his business until Cho wanders onscreen, and then he's suddenly consumed with her. And then after her scene is over, he has maybe a paragraph of wrap-up, and then she's forgotten again. Take the Valentine's Day scene. After Harry's ditched Cho to meet with Hermione, Luna, and Rita, he has a brief discussion with Hermione (about what an idiot Harry is and how he doesn't understand Cho at all), and then Cho is discarded so we can get back to the plot. You could pull all the Cho stuff bodily from the book and it wouldn't matter at all. You could also pull all the romantic stuff from the last book -- you'd lose a little of Harry's jealousy of Cedric and the prom scene, which had its "payoff" in a throwaway line in this book. I just think that Rowling isn't doing a very good job of meshing the "Harry In Luvvvv" sequences with the "Harry trying to stay alive and also graduate" stuff which makes up the bulk of the book. And, again, the book's 870 pages. It could use some cutting. Or, if it's going to take Rowling another three years to crank out a book, she could have broke this one into two sections somehow. I liked how Harry was a big jerk in this book, but I think he's a bigger jerk than he realizes. He's pretty snotty about Ron getting to be a prefect, which is at odds with his usual stance of "I don't want to be anyone special; stop paying attention to me." And both he and Ron are jerks to Hermione. I don't think Hermione is necessarily all that smart; she gets good grades because she studies all the time and reads ahead in the books. It's not so much native intelligence as it is determination and commitment. But Harry and Ron not only ignore the fact that she earns everything she gets, they don't take notes in class and then act like it's her fault if they get bad grades. I realize that Hermione is supposed to come off as something off an insufferable know-it-all, but I think she rocks. And Harry and Ron should treat her better, darn it. I have to say I didn't care much about Sirius's death. Sirius may be important to Harry, but he hasn't had enough screen time to make me care a lot. It's distressingly like the previous book, where Rowling let it be known that "someone would die" and it turned out to be Cedric, who had maybe two lines. Having said all that, I feel the need to loop back to the beginning: I did like it. But there were things I wasn't crazy about. Wigfield, by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert I think I liked the idea of this book more than the book itself. It's by the three people behind Strangers With Candy, and you may remember Sedaris from being really funny on late-night talk shows; and Colbert from The Daily Show. They're really funny people, you know. So a book written by them was Big News in my world. The concept of the book is that a hack journalist (suspiciously like Colbert's character on The Daily Show) has stumbled upon a bunch of scam artists and strippers pretending to be a town so when the government blows up a dam, they'll get some money. It's a surprisingly complicated plot, considering that it's mostly an excuse for various wacky town characters to do monologues. There are pictures of the characters, who are all one of the three authors in terrifying outfits. Sedaris really seems to enjoy look hideous. Did you know that for the first season of Stragers With Candy, she brought her own fat suit? Doesn't that seem odd? So, yeah, it was a funny book, but it didn't really knock my pants off or anything. My expectations were really, really high.
	« When I Was A Baker \| Main \| On the Blunt Edge of Technology »
	Comments I don't know whether you're familiar with David Sedaris, Amy's brother? He's most famous for being on NPR a lot. In his latest book "Me Talk Pretty One Day" he tells the story of why Amy bought herself a fat suit. Hilarious! Posted by: julia at June 27, 2003 05:10 AM I really agreed with your take on the Harry Potter book. By the time Sirius died, it was almost like, 'yeah, and?'. She built up all this suspense and it ended up being someone I just didn't personally care all that much about. Posted by: Rachel at June 27, 2003 06:25 AM Monty -- I am sooo with you on the Cho stuff -- it felt as though Rowling thought the story wasn't long enough, and went back to pad it. I originally loved Sirius (in book 3 especially) but he was made to be such a pain in this story that it wasn't all that sad when he kicked it. But overall I liked it -- I am really glad that Ron's sister finally has a real personality. Of course, M. Giant won't listen to me when I tell him to catch up and read it (along with the previous 2 books) and he spends a lot of time mocking me because we will have to wait another 10 years or so for the next one. Posted by: Trash at June 27, 2003 07:07 AM I dunno. Isn't that a lot like real puppy love when one is in school? There you are one minute arguing with your best friend about the school play or softball team, and WHAM! your crush walks by and everything else fades off screen. I agree that we aren't seeing a whole lot of Cho that justifies her inclusion in the story, but she may become more fully delineated in later books, and again, not REALLY knowing your crush is also part of puppy love to me -- one can fantasize about the imagined figure of the beloved because so much is unknown, not the real one who has smelly feet and a crazy brother-in-law. For me the real slammer in the books was the scene in St.Mungo's with Neville's mother handing him her "gift." Boy, that got me. I am ready to cry again just thinking about it. So sad. Mothers are so important in this book -- I just realized -- Mrs. Weasley, the late Mrs. Potter. I wonder why we are not seeing more of Hermione's mom, btw. Posted by: Jenny at June 27, 2003 07:27 AM Might I say before I begin that I totally agree with you on spoiler stuff? Anyway, I also totally agree with you on the Cho/love lives thing. It's the worst aspect of the last two books so far, and could have been cut even more in Goblet. I don't think we are going to get to know Cho better- she's a Crush Object. At least we didn't have to hear so much about Ron and Hermione's love lives in addition to Harry's in this one. Or have to suffer through a mandatory ball that forces 14-year-olds to dig up dates. I guess JKR had too much actual plot to put in and spared us that. However, much as I might not like the love aspect in HP (which is weird since I love that kind of thing in every other book in the universe), I think it's something JKR has to put in. What 15-year-old out there wasn't totally obsessed with a crush at some point? It's practically unnatural for someone to hit 17 and not have the hormones raging. If she doesn't want characters to stay 11 forever, she has to deal with it. I don't really have much of a better suggestion for her as to how to handle it (hell, Hogwarts kids have delayed adolescence- kids these days are having crushes at what, 12 now?), but I don't think she can realistically eliminate that from the characters. Posted by: Jennifer at June 27, 2003 12:19 PM The sirius stuff didn't get me either. But i agree that the guys should treat hermione better, like come on stop be such a jerk, she saves your ass all the time! Posted by: lee at June 27, 2003 01:20 PM interesting Posted by: haha at June 27, 2003 10:11 PM interesting Posted by: haha at June 27, 2003 10:11 PM I totally agree with you about Cho Chang - everything that happened with her was always soon after forgotten. Harry would be mad at her because she was mad at him - he wondered how she could be mad at him, of all people. Yet once he wasn't around her, he fogot about her and never tried to make up. The Cho relationship could have been written much better - I'm sure J.K. Rowling could have, being the great writer that she it, come up with something better. However, that is where my agreeance with ALL of you, writer and reviewers, ends. (with the exception of the person talking about Neville and his mum at the hospital - I cried when I first read that. So sad!!) Unlike all of you, I began to cry when Sirius died - it really affected me. I almost threw my book in the river. I know he had become a reckless person who regarded Harry more as James than as a godson. (I was at a public place when I started crying - people started to stare at me like I was a lunatic, and I felt really mortified!) But it was because of everything happening around him - the only reason he tried to hang on was because of Harry. I believe that if he hadn't died, and after everyone knew about L.V. returning, then Dumbledore could have helped him return to his normal self. He obviously needed help - but I know that he could have gotten better. But Harry loved him deeply and couldn't have been more affected than if Ron had died. Sure, he death was quick and over with in about a page and a half. But that's how death usually is - quick, sudden. Especially with Voldemort and his death eaters. I also disagree about the length of the book - I run a small Harry Potter website, and am in contact with about 30-40 fans. Every single one has more or less said that if the 6th book is shorter in length than the fifth, they will be thoroughly dissapointed. I felt that if the book had been endless, I would have stuck my nose into it for the rest of time. I'll think I've come across a heaven for the living if the next book turns out to be 1,000 pages or more - and all of the fans I know agree. (including about 20 of my school friends, who aren't on my website.) J.K. Rowling never has written too little or too much -and never gets into too little or too much detail. I also feel that the fifth book is the BEST one so far - unlike many of the idiotic morons who wouldn't know a good book if it they were whacked on the head with it. Posted by: Avery at June 29, 2003 02:27 PM i tried my damnest not to find outbefore i read the book who died but i found it here. shurg not mad, however. i dont remember much of the last two books, so starting a new book i wasn't sure where i really was. Posted by: bethie at June 29, 2003 08:47 PM Syndicate this site (XML)

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