M****e, Or, the M-Word.

So.. I finally got goaded into giving J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series another go. I last read the first book, Sorcerer's Stone aka Philosopher's stone when I was in 8th grade.. Needless to say I was too old for it at the time and I was also being forced to read it by a teacher who bought into the media hype about it being the bestest book that was ever written.. I didn't like it and pretty studiously avoided anything connected to it from then on..

I've never even seen one of the films. That's going to change in July.. I plan to watch all 8 of them. I'll probably be doing a series of reviews of them.. since I feel I do have a rather unique perspective on them.. much like some one having never seen Star Wars.. I first started toying with the idea because of the obvious influence the books had on the last three of Stephen King's Dark Tower series which I read last year. He made a lot of references too them, and they clearly meant a lot too him.. well I wasn't particularly impressed with the ending of the Dark Tower but thought I'd take his recommendation and give Rowling another try.

My opinion has clearly changed, in the last 10 years or so I've moved away from the phase of thinking that just because something is popular than I clearly have to hate it.. well.. mostly.. I still dislike Twilight, and Justin Beiber, but thats more because he's an annoying little pratt who is worth 200 million dollars at age 15.. that's enough to piss off even the most even keeled person.

I've so fared enjoyed the first three volumes in the series.. the characters are mostly charming.. and apart from a few oddities in the books due to obvious Americanizations.. they are good fun in the vein of Ronald Dahl. I'd still not put Rowling in the same running as Tolkien or Lewis.. but I'd happily include her stories along with Flemming's Chitty Chitty bang bang and the bulk of Dahl's work.

The descriptions of food and cheer and general camaraderie are heart warming, the books nearly feel like a comfortable sweater, but unlike the Hobbit or Wind in the Willows.. it's more of a mass produced sweater rather than one your grandmother knitted for you.

But. And this is a big But. I have to call foul on the word "Muggle". It's an invented word, yes, but it fulfills the same job as a certain strain of words. Those words are typically called Derogatory, or sometimes, Racial Slurs. I'm not sure which Muggle would be.. but I'm leaning towards it being a racial slur since clearly, wizardry is genetic. It crops up in families which are not attuned to it normally.

Whats worse, is it is one which the adult's encourage the kids to use. It's the sort of thing that if it was in real life used to name a group, the ACLU would crawl them for it. Sensitivity classes would be attended, and radio announcers and comedians would lose their jobs. Can you imagine if they substituted it with any number of racially insensitive words?

Now, the wizard's don't demand the muggles wear yellow stars, but they certainly don't attend the same school. Separate but equal I suppose is ok when its Wizard's. I wonder if they would have a "muggles only" lunch counter? Or a muggles only swimming pool? The Anti-Muggle laws are very reminiscent of Jim Crow... Though as far as I can tell there have not been any Muggle Lynchings.. but the wizard's don't seem to think anything of involuntarily wiping their memories if it suits their goals.. It's maybe more similar to Apartheid, with the Minority actively persecuting the majority for having no magical aptitude.. How is it that this has never, to my knowledge, been remarked upon?

maybe I'm over thinking things a bit.. but just something about the laissez-faire usage of the word just irks me... I hope they've toned it down a bit in the films.

The gunslinger chased the man in black through the desert, and I followed.

Having just, no more than 5 minutes ago finished turning the last page of the last of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series.. I can say that I am left with only one feeling.



Meh.



I could spoil the ending, but I'm not going too. This isn't out of any particular urge not to ruin the series for anyone else.. I just don't not want others to be as annoyed as I was when they get to the ending, and then think.. Is that it? Is that how the series ends?

If it wasn't for the fact that the proposed 8th volume actually would fall between the 4th and 5th volumes.. I'd be prone to fall back on cynicism and say the ending was done specifically to set up for more sequels.. but then I think, this is Stephen King..one of the most prolific authors in the world, and maybe not the wealthiest but he isn't hurting either.. I don't really know if he comes across as the sort who would write sequels just to cash in.. like the writer of a certain boy wizard seems to be doing now that the movie money is going to be running out soon.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement.. but then I've not really liked either of the last two books in the series.. I felt that the inclusion of the writer himself was just a tad too strange. And the character of Mordred served no clear point except to up the gore factor.

Now comes the waiting, soon they will begin working on the hybrid Television/Movie adaption of the series. We will get to see how they change it, what they opt to leave out. I have no idea if Ron Howard and company will do a good job or not. I felt he was perfectly adequate for adaption of Dan Brown novels. But then I don't really hold those in much esteem to be honest. And while I am ambivalent towards the ending of the Dark Tower, the journey for the most part, until book 6 anyway, was one hell of a ride.

I look forward to one day in the future being able to sit and watch it all as one epic film. It probably won't happen. After all, I'm still waiting on a single edit of Lord of the Rings which seems destined to never appear. But I can hope.

The Dark Tower Part 2

While I've not been up to much lately, and it shows since I've not been updating anything at all.. I've just finished off "The Waste Lands" which is the third in the series of the Dark Tower. I enjoyed it more than " The Drawing of the three" but the scenes with Roland, Sussanah and Eddie were far superior to the mucking about with Jake... But I felt the same way about the previous one.. so long as they are in " Roland's world" then I seem to enjoy it.. when its in "The real world" I kind of lose interest.

The giant cyborg bear was a neat idea, I'm sorry he had to die though.. Blaine the Mono is a grand villain as well.. and shows a depth of creativity.. who exactly else other than Stephen King would ever come up with a A Psychopathic, senile Monorail with an insatiable hunger for Riddles who wishes to commit suicide and take the main characters with him?

The book ends on a cliffhanger, with the characters in the embrace of Blaine as he is speeding them towards his final destination of Topeka Kansas, how will it end? Who knows!? I will just have to keep reading and find out. Onwards to Volume IV the Wizard and Glass.. and also the short story which initially got me to buy the series in the first place " The Little sisters of Eluria" which was in the first Legends volume..

The Dark Tower

After a very productive shopping trip to a succession of Goodwill stores I had found myself in possession of the Dark Tower books 2-7 for the princely sum of about 7$. Since I'd gotten the others for such a song, I forced myself to pay nearly full price for the first one and began reading it. The only reason I bought these was because there is a Dark Tower novella included in the Robert Silverberg edited anthology "Legends" which is a treasure trove of novellas related to all the most popular Fantasy series by authors who at the time were still living. It really did cross the publisher boundary and included all the biggest names. It reads as a who's who of Fantasy authors... or rather a who's who of the Multi Tomb Epic writer anyway.


I found the first book to be quite good, it wasn't strictly speaking a Fantasy novel as King insists on calling it.. It has none of the tropes I consider imperative for a Fantasy novel to have. But it's got a very interesting concept, it's rather reminiscent of the water pools in "The Magician's Nephew". The story didn't wander over much and kept its eye on the prize, of a gunslinger hunting a man in black. It was coarse and had many things in it which I considered to be juvenile.. but since King wrote it when he was 19, I think I can give him a pass on that.

The Second book however just got weird, and the fake words and silly mispronunciations designed to make Roland seem more alien to the "real world" characters its grating and gets on one's nerves very quickly. The book is even more crass than the first one, and he had had several years to mature as a writer. I especially disliked Detta Walker's speech pattern. It was very annoying and difficult to read at times, added to Roland's Popkins and Astin's it just was too much some time. But when the book ended it really helped to firmly establish the reality of the unreality of the world of the Dark Tower which exists in all worlds but is only physically manifested in one of them. The Axis in un-reality which all reality's orbit.