apologies for cross-posting: "scholarly" writings on HP

[Andrew Albert J. Ty]

Hi everyone,

I haven't really participated much--this may be my first post
actually--because I've yet to read GOF. Still, after watching the film, I
became such a fan that I decided to read the books and am now thoroughly
enjoying myself. I don't have time to give a more extensive background of
myself, though I'd like to do so soon because there are some interesting
questions I want to raise with regards to that.

What I would like to do with this post is to point members to Lee Siegel's
review-essay of the first three books, which may be found at
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/magazines/tnr/112299/siegel112299.html. I need
to reread it again, but I'd like to ask the other members if they know of
other similar essays, especially those that have to do with the film (I
teach film theory for a living). Stuff on the books, like the Siegel, are
very much welcome, too, but please feel free to warn me since, as I've said,
I haven't read GOF yet.

Thanks,
Andrew

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"A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he
is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes
are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one
pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we
perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps
piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel
would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.
But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with
such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm
irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while
the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call
progress." - Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History"