Lumos

A Review of A Casual Vacancy

     Of course all the reactions that are in all the other reviews of this book happened for me.  I was delighted that JK Rowling Was going to be publishing another book.  I was sad and unbelieving and hopeful and worried when I heard that it would not be part of the Harry Potter universe.  I am after all a functioning, adult woman, who just happens to also be a major Potterhead.
     I actually didn't start out loving Harry Potter.  That seems unreal to me now, but I remember thinking that the characters were stereotyped and the story itself was unoriginal and merely a rewriting of old stories.  Then I fell in love and never looked back.  So I trusted Rowling, and when I started the new book, I was willing to keep going even though I did not really like the Casual Vacancy.  I still didn't like it by 100 pages in and I was having a hard time keeping the characters straight.  The book has no clear central character and the view point changes from one section to another and back again so you never get to know enough about one group of people in the first introduction to have them firmly in your mind the next time they appear.  It was a confusing feeling like the first week in a new town when you always wonder, "have I met this person before, should I recognize some details or is this all new?"
     I spoke to other people who were reading the book and found that we shared some of the same feelings and had some interest in the same characters, but agreed that they were not exactly people you would "like" or want to know in real life.  But "Real Life" is what this book is all about.  I found myself recognizing situations and people in a way that was a bit uncomfortable and gritty.  I flinched at some of the brutal detail and the language, but after 23 years teaching children and meeting their families, especially those in Severely Handicapped classes, none of the brutality sounded unreal or exaggerated.  JK Rowling's new book is not a magical escape but rather a confrontation with the part of town a lot of people prefer to avoid.
     By the time I finished the final chapter, and turned the back cover, and glanced once more at the author blurb, the final line of the back flap stood up and slapped me awake.  "She supports a wide range of causes and is the founder of Lumos, which works to transform the lives of disadvantaged children."

    Then I saw it, and I realized this book is very similar to Harry Potter after all.
     There is even a faint reference to Harry Potter in one line on page 81, " . . . once, (she dreamed of it, still), a child who had been locked in a cupboard for five days by his psychotic stepfather."

     So this book is, like Harry Potter, about fear and prejudice against those who are different, and about children who are unwanted, or even if wanted, neglected through ignorance and desperation.  There is much about Harry and Krystal Weedon that is similar, but then with Harry there was an owl, and a magic school and a quiddich team and friends with powers and hope.  There were teachers who saw potential and nurtured it.  For Krystal there is no magic owl, and the rowing team breaks up when the book begins with the one adult who saw her potential, dropping dead. Her peer friends were also 16 year old powerless foster kids. Life without the magic,

 but still trying to show that disadvantaged children are

really there, and we all need to stop looking away.
Let there be light.  Lumos.

Pottermore, More Writing,

Ok, I love that I got in to Pottermore as a Beta Tester, but I have to admit that the truth is that as exciting as it is to find new people on twitter who are all going as sleepless as I am, and all as excited as I am, and all trying to find the clues even after they get in, and hating waiting for the "Game ON'  --  I would rather be anxiously waiting for a new Potter Book.  I am curious about Pottermore, but I want more Potter, much more!

Come on JK Rowling, you can do it.  Write a series about the past at Hogwarts, tell us about the years when Tom was a student, and Hagrid, and Dumbledore taught transfiguration. Or the years when Harry's parents and Snape and Serius and Lupine and on and on.  Or go into the future and give us the world you hinted at in the end of book 7.

Pick up your magic quill and set the tip onto parchment and begin.

Please.

But!!!

How can I tell you to write when my keyboard has bee used exclusively for refreshing the pottermore page and tweeting?  I have a commitment to finish another book in August.  Not a Duffy Barkley book this time, but a book about two girls traveling on the Oregon trail, 150 years apart but sometimes able to see each other's journals in the lapdesk that they both own.  It is a magical box made by the Pharaoh's carpenter.

Why do I need to write it this month?  Because I am signed up to write it during the month of August for CampNaNoWriMo.  A month to write 50,000 words.  Yep, that NaNoWriMo site is where all my novels are conceived.

Let me share the prologue about the box.  From a book tentatively titled, Double Time on the Oregon Trail.  Here you go.

Prologue:  In the ancient days, of the proud kings of Egypt, dwelt one of the truly great minds of all times.  This fine mind was in the body of a common artisan, a craftsman, who slaved to produce the beautiful wooden work which was demanded by the nobles of the Egyptian court.  As he carved, and fitted, wooden chairs, and boxes, and tables, and intricate relief figures of all types, he had many quiet hours in which to reflect upon his thoughts.  This man lived in a world where everything was kept in its separate place.  Each person had their separate role, slave or noble, soldier or teacher.  Each part of life had its own God or Goddess, the sun, the earth, the seasons, even the land of the dead.  His niche in life was to create wooden art, on order.  It was not to think.  But still he thought.

     One day he received a beautiful piece of scented cedar wood.  He thought about how the cedar tree is part of many worlds.  He thought of its solid trunk standing strong in his world.  He thought of its roots reaching thirstily for nourishment into the underworld. He thought of its delicate twigs, anything but steady as they danced on the breezes in their reach through the heavens.  As he thought, he carved and polished and found himself crafting an amazingly plain, cedar lined, box with its slanted black ebony top sliding on and off the base along two perfectly grooved tracks.  He rubbed the box to a smoothness which pleased his fingers and a sheen which soothed his eyes.  He loved the box with is delicate perfume more than any other piece he had ever worked on.  Yet he knew that its simplicity would not attract any admiring glances from the nobles who fed and housed him.  So he set this one piece of all that he had ever crafted aside for himself.

     Over time his thoughts often turned toward his idea of unity between many parts of life.  While carving the stylized forms of many gods, he longed for One God.  While dreaming of the past or wondering about the future, there were moments when his mind jumped with the idea that all times were connected, somehow.  While carving falcons, or hounds, papyrus or Pharaohs, he struggled with the idea that all life is one.

     Sometimes, some little item would seem to speak to him out of its own special power and he would hold it close for awhile, then tuck it away in his box.  A special, Nile smoothed stone, a feather gleaming with a purple sheen, a piece of papyrus paper with hieroglyphs he had never learned to read but could almost understand.

     Sometimes his woodwork went to temples or to the tombs of kings, but the box never left his possession.  The kings he served struggled to find ways to preserve their bodies so that they might live forever and this humble woodworker with the scent of cedar in his skin, for all his grand thoughts never guessed that his simple box would travel farther and hold more of life, than all of his other works put together.

 

Pottermore, more or less. I Got IN!

I am 48 years old, and as matronly and flaming haired and hot-tempered as Mrs. Weasley.  Far too old to be staying up, hanging on twitter and clicking the refresh button with the kids.  But that is exactly what I was doing last night, or rather, early this morning.

I went to the drive-in movie, where a double feature of Pirates of the Caribbean and African Cats was playing for $10 a carload - But I had to leave after the first movie in order to be home by midnight.  My husband and sons love Harry potter too, but it was just me, obsessing on getting the magical quill to write my name in the book.

Then I logged on to the computer, assuming the new clue would load at midnight, I worried that the registrations would be used up long before it was today in California.  I had already missed my chance to get in on day 1, when the clue was knowing how many types of owls were on sale in book 1.

I had my copy of the Sorcerer's Stone beside me.  Knowing that each of the seven days clues would come from the correspondingly numbered book, was a detail we'd been given.

I logged in a separate page and entered the first part of the web address, which we'd also been given, so that I could simply add the numbers from the clue and hit search.  Then at 11:59 I tried to entered, only to find the message, "Day 1's clues are no longer available."  I hit refresh for the first of many times.  That stubborn message didn't change!  The date did, but it brought no clue with it.

Finally, I opened another window and logged in to twitter and searched #pottermore.  A rapidly changing conversation greeted me, as people all over the world, far ahead of me in sleep deprivation, asked the same questions and tried the spell, "Accio Clue"

I found myself intrigued by these fellow book nerds and added several to follow.  And I kept hitting the refresh button.  We chatted about Potter memories and made jokes and dreaded the sleep deprived day to follow, but every time I told myself to go to bed, I stayed.  After All, I probably never would have dared to write my Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog and Duffy Barkley:  Seek Well if I had not fallen in love with Harry's world first.  He is big on my list of life events.

So, I waited and refreshed, and then at 2:00 Pacific time, the screen changed and the clue was revealed to be, the number of the chapter when Harry learns from McGonagal, that  the Quidditch match has been cancelled, times 42.  I added 588 to the web address and it wouldn't budge, then my son strolled through and suggested I try it in a different window.  It went to a Warner Bros. page, mostly black with music playing and it stayed there. I knew my answer  was right, I waited for the screen to load, but how could I find a quill with a black screen?

Back to Twitter to see that some people had already found it, give up waiting, hit refresh several times and pictures load, among the pictures, the quill was obvious, click on it!

Permission granted to register, fill in the details, get a choice of one of 4 usernames and wait for the email!  It does not come, finally say good-night to twitter, crawl in to bed at 3 and wake up three hours later.  The email is in my inbox!  Click the link, and verify - but am I in?  Yes!  Can I play??  No, now awaiting another email.  Still waiting.

Hopefully I get in before the general admission in October, but while I'm waiting maybe I should throw in some laundry, and stock up on food and get some exercise.  Last chance to live my life before immersion.