critical-reading-of-harry-potter

[critical-reading-of-harry-potter]

patches liveblogs the sorceror's stone

a table of contents

Chapter 1 | 2 |

[critical-reading-of-harry-potter]

chapter 2

really setting up how much the dursleys suck in this chapter

it's kind of cartoonish how awful they are, but that's fairly standard for novels aimed at this grade level

interesting to keep an eye on how rowling uses appearance as a shorthand for moral worth (much ink has already been spilled about this but whatever im here to spill some more)

obviously dudley and mr dursley are ugly and fat and cruel, and mrs dursley is shrill and nosy and also cruel

piers polkiss ("a scrawny boy with a face like a rat"(23)) is interesting though, because by his description he arguably has a similar build to harry (who is "small and skinny for his age" with "a thin face" and "knobbly knees" (20))-- harry's description is neutral, but there's nothing neutral about calling piers scrawny and ratlike

many thoughts about harry's unruly hair that grows all over the place (21) and how even parts of himself that he's born with and has no control over go completely against the dursley's standards of normality

it's very poignant

losing my mind at some of harry's magical mishaps

he made a sweater shrink from human-boy-sized to doll-sized?? and mrs dursley thought it shrank in the wash???

although i guess if it was like an american girl doll this makes a bit more sense

i was picturing a finger puppet

having a friend working in animal care really makes the reptile house scene hit different

i know rowling's setting the scene and not trying to be particularly realistic but come on. that boa constrictor definitely has keepers who care so so much about it, harry is certainly not the only person who's ever shown it kindness

on the other hand. genuinely heartbreaking that the first time we get to see harry having a genuine friendly connection with another sentient creature is when he commiserates with a snake

you know. considering where that power comes from.

many thoughts about parselmouths but i shall save them for book 2

but man rowling really has it out for snakes :(

also why does the snake say "amigo" it's literally never been to brazil, it was "born" (hatched?) in england

chapter 1

[critical-reading-of-harry-potter]

patches liveblogs the sorcerer's stone

chapter 1

mr dursley sees a bunch of people in the street in cloaks and his first thought isn't that there's a con happening. oh how the times have changed since 1997 (i assume. i wasn't there)

there's a post going around somewhere about how owls would be terrible messenger animals, actually

alright ill give rowling this, the prose is pretty engaging

"[Mr. Dursley] hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imaging things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination" (5 [see 1]) got a genuine laugh out of me

lots of emphasis on how the dursleys are Normal, Which Means Boring (basically the entire first sequence with the dursleys), and therefore anything they think is Weird is (implicitly) Good

dumbledore being introduced with "nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive" (8) where "everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome" (9) sets him up immediately as someone we should like and trust. this is pretty obvious but also neatly done

when dumbledore uses the deluminator to make the street so dark that none of the muggles can see anything-- it's a lovely poetic image, but isn't there like light pollution? and stars?

fine i guess it could be cloudy

ok genuinely, why are wizards so afraid of muggles finding out about them? (in-universe -- i get The Masquerade is a whole thing and is kinda built into the story so i wont question it too much)

like i get 500 years ago or whatever with the witch trials

but like these days nobody would (be able to) persecute them and also i dont think most people would care that much?

so is it just tradition? or is there something im missing

ive always been so on board with dumbledore's insistence on using voldemort's name. name the thing you're afraid of so you can face your fear

mcgonagall describing dumbledore as "noble" because he refuses to go to the dark side use the dark arts (11) like?? girl that's just what being Good is, you choose. every. day. to do good instead of evil. that's all that sets those things apart.

hmmmm actually. this may be relevant to how rowling conceptualizes good and evil as inherent qualities...

wow dumbledore getting a LOT of use out of lemon drops as a tactic for evasion

hagrid's described as "almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide" (14) -- but (iirc) never as fat. interesting considering the constant emphasis on dudley and vernon dursley's fatness

dumbledore has a scar over his left knee that's a perfect map of the london underground (15)?? this is so funny why does he say this, it literally never comes up again im,,,

hagrid vs dumbledore vs mcgonagall's reactions to leaving harry at privet drive (15-16) sets up their relationships with him nicely: dumbledore and mcgonagall more reserved but still a bit misty-eyed, hagrid openly crying and pronouncing his care for harry

i read hagrid's behavior here as straight-up caring for harry and not trying to hide itwhere mcgonagall and dumbledore are trying to maintain a facade of distance. but that's not how the scene is framed

even this early on, hagrid's being set up as rough, uneducated, wild (literally; see p. 14; also see his directly transcribed accent, where most other characters speak in proper english), in contrast with mcgonagall's strict proper tough love and dumbledore's eccentric whimsy as a cover for deeper care

here, hagrid's overt emotionality comes off as another effect of his wildness, whereas mcgonagall and dumbledore's stiff upper lips appear proper/educated in comparison

this is perhaps indicative of rowling's (potentially subconscious) take on emotionality/masculinity and class divides. (will have to think more about that one)

chapter 2

[1] my copy of this book is the american paperback, ISBN 0-590-35342-X

[critical-reading-of-harry-potter]

it begins

hahahaha i didn't make this blog 2 years ago or anything

sidenote: i used to love these books so much that i needed to print out a new page 1 for this one and then tape the first few pages together

i mean look at this shit, it's actually ridiculous

[critical-reading-of-harry-potter]

The Project

thanks for checking out a critical reading of harry potter by someone who for all y'all know is Just Some Guy (unless you know me irl, in which case, hi! y'all already know im a fuckin nerd)

for those of you who don't know, a critical reading doesn't mean criticizing a book; it means digging into the book's main ideas, themes, influences -- everything that makes the book tick -- and figuring out what it's trying to do, how it's trying to do it, and if it's succeeding or failing. it can also involve critiquing the author's biases (which I certainly expect to do in this reading) and examining implicit assumptions they make in the text

i'm particularly interested in Rowling's implicit themes, especially how she engages with conformity/nonconformity to social standards (more on this below), and in examining what I think the books' primary message is and whether i think Rowling succeed in imparting that message

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blog organization

to avoid spamming the main hp tags with my essays, here are the tags i'll use to organize this blog

#the stone - Sorceror's Stone

#liveblog - chapter-by-chapter live reactions and proto-analyses

Tables of Contents

Liveblogs:

Sorceror's stone

_______________

detailed project description and motivations under the cut

so patches, why tf are you doing this?

i used to love harry potter. as a kid, i built a lot of my identity around being A Reader, and not to date myself but i fell in love with reading when i read harry potter

so of course i was devastated when i grew up to be trans and Rowling grew up to be one of the worst and most influential transphobes in the world

i used to reread harry potter every year-- i've read the entire series at least 10 times, probably more. it was my go-to comfort series for basically my entire childhood. but after Rowling went off the deep end, i couldn't bring myself to read it anymore-- it just hurt too much

but I recently (edit: 2023-- no longer that recently) took a class on children's literature, and one of the books we studied was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And while I had some problems with the unit (mainly that we didn't discuss Rowling's current transphobia, and as the only trans person in the class it fell to me to raise the topic, which i wasn't really comfortable doing for obvious reasons), i did think our discussions very interesting

among other things, we talked about how Rowling was in conversation with the well-established tradition of the British boarding school novel; about how Rowling both enforces and subverts conformity to social norms (both in-universe and real-world); and wizards' treatment of muggles and nonhuman sapient species

and it got me thinking.

i know how to do literary analysis. i've been doing it for years. i hate writing proper essays (not the perfectionism), but i can put together a bullet-point list of analyses like nobody's business. and i know there was so much we weren't able to cover in class that I would be interested in thinking about more-- including the other 6 books in the series, and how Rowling develops the themes, both explicit and the implicit ones i listed above-- over the entire series

so here I am. doing a critical analysis of harry potter (books 2-7 since I've already done book 1) edit: jk im doing book 1 too bc its been like 2 years

i'll post a summary of my class's discussion and the essay I wrote about it at some point as well bc i think it's interesting and also it'll be a good refresher for me (see again: 2 year gap)

expectations

tl;dr: keep them low

idk when/how regularly i'll want to read and write up my analysis (it all really depends on my brain grabbing onto the idea, which is. always a bit of a toss-up)

i might liveblog readings and then do a roundup at the end, i might just post analysis. who knows.

point is, don't expect me to post regularly

not me taking 2 years to just get started

guidelines

please engage with my analyses!!

whether you want to expand on one of my points, disagree with something i've said, or add something entirely new-- anything you want to say is worth saying!

i find that literary analysis is much more interesting when there are multiple people challenging each other's ideas and pushing them farther

HOWEVER

if/when you engage, please try to do so thoughtfully and take other people's viewpoints (including my own) in good faith. The best rule of thumb is to always assume good intentions

If something makes you angry or uncomfortable, sit with it for a while. Interrogate why you're reacting the way you are, and if you agree with your visceral reaction. Then reply

i'm leaving anonymous asks and submissions on for now because i get that engaging with this kind of thing can be easier anonymously, and I think submitted media could be neat. But if those functions get misused, I'll be turning them off

in conclusion

thanks so much for engaging with my weird little hyperfocus passion project! i hope you enjoy