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| Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter
- Introduction
- Voices from the Press
- Success of the book in numbers
- Characters
- The Author
- Success???
- Intro
Who
knows Harry Potter???
2. Voices from the Press
The Financial Times
“Rowling is an exciting new talent, and her book is an
excellent reading-pleasure; without end fantastic and
funny.”
The Magazin
“The books of the 34 years old J. K. Rowling are
written for 9-11 years old childs, but they are better than 92% of the adult
literature.”
The Times
“ Such a marriage of good writing, inventiveness and
cheer child-appeal has not been since Ronald Dahl, perhaps even since Tolkien,
Lewis and Ronsome. J. K. Rowling has woken a
whole generation to reading.”
- Success of the book in
numbers
Joanne K. Rowling, the
author, is 34 years old now, got a little daughter, Jesi, 6 years. And
she’s one of the most successful female writers in the
world.
Until now, there were published 3 volumes:
- Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s stone
- Harry Potter and the
chamber of secrets
- Harry Potter and the
prisoner of Azkaban
They are about 28
million times sold in the world, about 1 million in Germany. ( E.g. Michael
Reich-Ranizki 500.000)
They are translated in about 30 languages.
So, these three books of her are holding places 7, 2, 3 in
the New-York-Times best seller list, in German Spiegel-list they hold places
1, 3, 6 right
now.
Well, who is this amazing Harry Potter, who brought so much
success into Rowlings’ live?
- Characters
Harry
- Carrying
glasses
- Unkempt hair, doing
what they want but not laying flat at the head
- Not very big for his
age
- Normal at
school
- Not very
special...
- Got there a scar on
his forehead
Step-parents told him, this is
from a car-crash, when he was aged 1 year, and where his parents
died.
Harry’s parents
- Lilli and James
Potter
- Met at Hogwarts, kind
of school
- Were very talented in
magic
Indeed his parents have died, but this was not a
car-crash...
They were killed, by Lord
Voldemort
- Ones a good wizard,
but power turned him to the dark side of magic; he became evil
- He came there for the
Potters, killed his parents and he also tried to kill Harry, but somehow he
failed, and from that “try” Harry got this
scar.
After that Voldemort disappeared and
has not been seen since that night...
- Only called
“You-know-who”, cause all the wizards and witches are so afraid of
him
After that “accident” Harry was brought to the
Dursley’s;
- His mothers sister
Aunt Petunia and her husband Uncle Vernon
- Very unpleasant people
- Try to be very normal,
so that the people don’t speak over them, especially there
neighbours
- They did not tell
Harry anything about his forebears
- They don’t want
to have anything to do with this crazy wizard-world
- They are so-called
“Muggles”
- Harry got to live in
an cupboard under the stairs, wears the old clothes of Dudley, who is very fat
and gets everything he wants from his parents
- Dudleys favourite
sport is to punish Harry; but he could not very often get him...
- Not very pleasant
live
At Harry’s 11th Birthday Hagrid came
into his life
- Hard-drinking near
giant man
- Around 30-40 years
old
- Gamekeeper at
Hogwarts
- Has been there
himself, but got expelled in his third year
- Gave him a letter,
that he got a place there
So, Harry went to Hogwarts
- Kind of
“boarding school”, where you stay the whole year (learn, eat, sleep,
...)
- There are 4 houses:
Griffindor
Hufflepuff
Ravenclaw
Slytherin
- Because there are many
students, I think about 400-500
- 7 years
- very old building,
about 1000 years old
getting there, of course, some friends.
Two very specials are
Ron Wesley
- got 5 brothers and a
little sister, Giny, who are all at Hogwarts
- Family not
rich
- So he got everything
second-hand, e.g. Scabbers, the fat, grey rat (always sleeping)
- Red-haired
- Stands always by
Harry
Hermione Granger
- Reads very
much
- Very good at
school
- Smart Muggle-born
know-it-all
- Her family are
Muggles
- Always the best
student of the year
- The
Author
So, this woman writing such
amazing books, who is she?
Her story sounds a bit like a PR-fairytale.
She was 31, she was divorced, got a little baby there, lost
her job as a teacher; her mother died with multiple scleroses, she have had
depressions. She says, it is not overdone to say that this book saved her
life.
She says, the first thought of Harry came into her head
while she was sitting in a train, driving from London to Manchester. The train
got stuck and so she had many time to think.
That was the beginning.
After that, it took her five years to think the hole wizard
world up.
By the way, the story is planned for 7 books, one for every
year of Harry at Hogwarts.
Before Harry, she’d never published a book. She says,
there have been two books for adults nearly ready, but she hasn’t
published, because they were really shit.
Rowling insists that she never consciously set out to write
for children, but that working on Harry Potter taught her how easily she could
tap into her childhood memories.
“I really can, with no difficulty at all, think myself
back to 11 years old. You are very powerless, and kids have this whole
underworld that to adults is always going to be
impenetrable.
- Success??
- Nobody can really
explain
- With the logic of the
market it never could have taken place:
- Books between 350 and 400
pages
- Antiquated Hardware like
owls, broomsticks and potions
- Uncool topics like
friendship, trust and readiness to make
sacrifices
Not very up to
date!!
- It’s like a
revolt of the kids against the marketing-strategies and occupational therapies
from the adult-world
You can not really plan
kids!!!
- Hogwarts is a kind of
apart from real world. Like a world to escape from the real world with all this
problems like divorced parents, punishment, nobody caring of them, computers,
multimedia, crime,...
- This is something we
lost in our minds:
Children need this
“parallel-escape-worlds”
- One of the interesting
things about Hogwarts in the Potter Books is that it contains no technology at
all. Light is provided by torches and heat by massive fireplaces. Who needs
electricity when you have many of wizards and magic wands? Who, for the matter,
requires mail pickup and delivery when a squadron of trained owls flies messages
to and from the school? Technology is for Muggles, who rely on contraptions
because they can not imagine the conveniences of magic.
- A devote Potter-fans
have learned is that knowing magic is not the same thing as using
it;
Harry has to handle his problems the
other way, he solves them with courage, cleverness and deep attachment to his
friends.
- Rowling says, it is
not really believable just to rob a ring, and all problems are gone.
- She says furthermore,
that it is really important that a fantasy-World has to be exactly-ruled and
that everybody can understand that rules. In her opinion, tension and drama can
only be built by passing the borders.
- Harry is growing,
getting one year older in every book.
So,
he’s not staying 11 years old every time like it takes place in many other
books for children; so it doesn’t offer this lie of everlasting childhood,
like e. g. in Peter Pan.
- There are many really
funny things in the book, e. g. that people don’t stay there in their
photos but moving and disappearing or the “Bertie Bott’ Every
Flavour Beans”, which offer every flavour, ranging from chocolate and
peppermint to earwax and bogey or Quiddditsch
So, to come to a closure:
I can not really explain the success of this
book.
Nobody can. Only reading it helps, because then you can
understand...
It’s not just like reading this book.
When you start reading, there happens something that is not
happening in many books: you are no longer outside or in front of the
book.
It’s like you are at Hogwarts, and when you turn your
head, you can see the corridors of the building and you can feel the
magic...
No matter what age you are...
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