Category / Harry Potter

by Edward Champion

Are You Sitting Down? More Importantly, Are You Prepared to Yawn?

If you are an author hoping to inject a forced significance into the characters within your oeuvre, then J.K. Rowling is your role model. There is no doubt in my mind that this was designed not so much as a gambit for the fan fiction enthusiasts, but as a sexual orientation to launch a thousand grad student essays. Now that we know that Dumbledore is gay — and we must assume this to be true because the author says so! — one wonders why insinuations weren’t there in the text all along. After all, if Rowling “always saw Dumbledore as gay,” would this not have provided an extra subtext to the Harry Potter universe for Rowling to play around with? Or is this merely a retroactive attempt to move a few more units?

I’m wondering if other YA authors will follow in Rowling’s footsteps. Will Daniel Handler declare Klaus Baudelaire a BDSM enthusiast? The time has come for more startling announcements. Because as jaw-dropping bombs released to the public go, Dumbledore’s secret life is terribly anticlimactic.

by Edward Champion

Bloomsbury Needs Magic

The Sunday Herald opines that UK publisher Bloomsbury isn’t doing so hot without Harry Potter. Anticipated profits from 2006 have crashed “from £20 million to about £5m.” The possible news seems to have influenced stock prices, with shares falling to a three-year low of 190p. And these results could have serious ramifications upon immediate Bloomsbury business. Is Bloomsbury relatively helpless without Potter?

It certainly hasn’t been slim pickins or an apocalyptic ride to the ground for Rowling. The Herald suggests that J.K. Rowling “is tipped to become the first billionaire writer as a result of film and other deals.”

by Edward Champion

Harry Potter 7: It’s Not Easy Being Green

For those interested, the new Harry Potter book will be 784 pages. The first print run is set at a mind-boggling 12 million. The paper used will contain “a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste fiber.” While this eco-friendly output is good, as Chelsea Green’s Margo Baldwin observed last year, many small publishers have been putting out books with a higher PCW fiber count. And I can’t help but wonder whether any of these 12 million copies will be remaindered. And if they do not sell, will they be pulped? And is this mass pulping really beneficial for the environment?

by Edward Champion

Harry Potter and the Order of the TSA?

The BBC reports that J.K. Rowling was stopped at an airport because she would not part from her manuscript. Airport security wanted to check in her manuscript. Rowling relented and was eventually allowed on board the plane back to the UK with her notes bound with rubber bands.

It’s good to know that the TSA are using their energies to go after the real terrorists: bestselling authors who carry such dangerous items as manuscripts. Let us consider first that the paper is flammable. And it is just possible that an al-Qaeda operative, one who has spent several years in the mountains perfecting his throwing skills, might steal one page of the MS and fold it into a paper airplane. The paper airplane, carefully targeted at a flight attendant’s eyes, would subsequently blind the attendant, creating distress among the plane’s staff, and causing the pilot to unlock the cabin door to investigate this ruckus. The plane would then be successfully overtaken by the operatives.

One can never be too careful in this age of terror. I am grateful that the TSA has left no stone unturned, save for the rubber bands, which might put out a flight attendant’s eye just as adeptly as a paper airplane.

by Edward Champion

Slow News Day

J.K. Rowling has made her first visit to the U.S. in six years. It is rumored that she may visit again sometime in the next six years. But for now, let us avoid conjecture. The facts are this: Ms. Rowling ordered a ticket (or perhaps somebody else did). She boarded a plane. She may have had an in-flight meal. Let us hope it was a good one. Upon arriving in New York, she disembarked from the plane, went through customs, and found herself on the mainland, where she proudly announced to all interested parties that she was, in fact, in the United States again.

“It’s been six years,” said Rowling at a press conference. “I hope to come here again.”

Other British authors rumored to visit the States in the near future: Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, David Mitchell and Sarah Waters. It is believed that the majority of these authors will set foot in the United States within the next six years — perhaps earlier.

But, for now, we can celebrate J.K. Rowling’s feet touching American soil and mine this amazing event for news because the publishing industry is operating on summer hours and Richard Ford has yet to be unmuzzled.