HP places

[Amy Z]

I drifted back OT with my reply to Al's main-list reply to my 
OT-chatter post about my main-list post.  So here is the OT bit.

Al wrote:

> Little Whinging, reminds me deeply of the Surrey village where I 
> live ... in fact, I have a hard time trying to conceive of the 
> Dursley sequences of all four books being set in my area ... it just 
> seems very right.  I've often felt that when we *imagine* where the 
> books are set, we imagine what we know.  Therefore some of you might 
> have different ideas of how certain locations will look, which are 
> likely to be more accurate depending on your experience of British 
> suburbia (I live there).  I now cannot form a mental picture of 
> Harry's primary school, as mentioned in the early parts of P/SS 
> without thinking of mine, which was a small redbrick Victorian 
> place.  I have the same problem with the Dursleys' house ... I find 
> myself imagining it happening in my house, on that same floor plan, 
> Harry kept in *that* cupboard, Weasleys arriving through *that* 
> fireplace, etc, etc.  Does this happen to anybody else?

Yes, but since I am *not* familiar with British suburbia, it looks an 
awful lot like Connecticut (northeastern U.S.) suburbia:  the 
middle-class variety, not the Fairfield County upper-class variety.  
Harry's school I never really imagined, though oddly enough I do 
have a spot for it based on my hometown (and even more oddly, it's 
plunked on top of a reservoir--as if I just vaguely waved and said 
"put it about half a mile from the house" and it landed there).  The 
Dursleys' house is my childhood home, with a cupboard installed under 
the stairs (despite the fact that that would cause problems for the 
basement stairs, which currently use that space) and a fireplace where 
the fridge is right now--except when the books mention the fridge, in 
which case it reappears--and a TV in the kitchen, which my parents 
would have allowed over their dead bodies.  Harry's room is mine, 
which doesn't work because mine was the largest bedroom.  The Burrow 
follows the same floor plan, except it has more stories.  I suppose 
the entire phenomenon attests to the fundamental lack of imagination 
in the human mind.  Or at least mine.

Back to the main list.

Amy