[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: No. 35

Sun May 11 19:44:24 UTC 2003

  -----Message d'origine-----
  De : serenadust [mailto:jmmears at comcast.net]
  Envoyé : dimanche 11 mai 2003 19:30
  À : HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com
  Objet : [HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: No. 35

  --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Cristina Rebelo Angelo"
  <cristina_angelo at y...> wrote:
  > I beg to disagree, as portuguese. Harry Potter is not brit, he was
  born in
  > Portugal (JKR said she'd had the idea for the books in
  Portugal!!!), and
  > according to our laws, anyone born in portuguese soil is
  > portuguese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  >
  > And since JKR interviews can be considered canon, this is true!!!!

  Can you direct me to the interview where JKR said she'd had the idea
  for the books in Portugal?  I know that she lived there for a while
  during her brief first marriage, but in the "Harry Potter & Me" TV
  special, she described having her first inspiration for Harry and
  his story on a British train.  She said that the train had been
  delayed for several hours, she had nothing to write with, and so she
  just sat and came up with his whole character and story line while
  on the train.

  I thought I'd read most of her interviews, but I've never seen onew
  where she said she had the idea for Harry while in Portugal.

  Jo Serenadust

  [Cristina Rebelo Angelo]

  You're right, about the idea. And I've even found the transcript of the
interview you mention! I knew she had started writing PS in Portugal, and
had left to England with a lot of it written (and logically with most of the
series plot in her head), but indeed the idea is brit-born.

  Anyway, I'm really not going to campaign for this idea of Harry being
portuguese (was actually very much surprised when I read in a post that
Hermione had been supposed to be port!)...

  I actually think he has no nationality...
  http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrshow.shtml

  JKR tells of idea for Harry. On a train.

  The journey began back in 1990. She was going from Manchester to London,
thinking of nothing to do with writing and out of nowhere she suddenly saw
Harry, "This scrawny little boy." "I got so excited when I thought of it."
She had no pen or nothing on her and for four hours she had all the ideas
bubbling in her head.

  Narrative from the first book by Stephen Fry. Official BBC tapes on Harry
Potter that was broadcast on BBC Radio last Christmas, 2000.

  She got off train as though she'd just met someone wonderful. As though
she'd just seen the man of her dreams and fallen in love. She got back to
her flat in Clapham Junction and started writing and she's been doing it
ever since.

  She finds Kings Cross very romantic. Her parents met there. Her dad was in
Navy. Her mum was a Wren. She wanted Harry to go to Hogwarts by train. She's
always had a thing about trains. "Like all HP books, it's reality with a
twist." "Those with knowledge and power could go through barrier to platform
9 ¾." She didn't want the platform to be done through a time warp or some
kind of other method. It had to be natural to the Wizards and Witches. She
wrote platform 9 ¾ when she was in Manchester and wrongly visualised the
platforms of Euston and Kings Cross. It was Five years from train journey to
finishing Philosopher's Stone.

  http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/magazine/Rowling2.htm (this one didn't
dowload right, I copied from the code)

  And they all know the Rowling story. She was born in 1965 in Chipping
Sodbury, South Gloucestershirean appropriate birthplace for someone
who loves strange, but believable, names. Writing from the age of six and
with two unpublished novels in the drawer, she was stuck on a train in 1990
when Harry walked into her mind, fully formed. She spent the next five years
constructing the plots of seven books, one for every year of his secondary
school life.<BR>
  Rowling says she started writing the first book, Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone, in Portugal, where she was teaching English and had
married journalist Jorge Arantes. The marriage lasted just over a year, but
produced baby Jessica.<BR>
  Leaving Portugal, she arrived in Edinburgh in 1993 to stay with her
younger sister Di, a lawyer, with just enough money for a deposit on a flat
and some baby equipment. "I was depressed and angry. Angry that I had messed
up my life and let my daughter down." She went to visit a friend of her
sister's who had a baby boy. "His room was full of toys. Jessica's toys
fitted into a shoebox. I came home and cried my eyes out."<BR>

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3822242,00.html

  She laughs - and obligingly skims through a career that includes
comprehensive school in the Forest of Dean; Exeter University ("fantastic,
if not quite the chance to be the 'radical' I planned"); two years at
Amnesty International (researching human rights in Francophone Africa); a
TEFL course in Manchester; a teaching job in Portugal (and a marriage that
didn't work out); after which she came to Edinbugh to be near her sister,
and where she eventually did a PGCE and became a school teacher. "But I'd
always wanted to be a writer, and wherever I was, whatever job I had, I was
always, always writing like crazy, and when I came back from Portugal, I had
not only a four-month-old baby but also one third of Harry Potter. So I had
to finish it."
  **************************
  Cristina Rebelo Ângelo

  Any attached file not mentioned in the body of the message may be a virus;
if present, delete it for the sake of your computer, and inform the sender.
Thank you.

  "Quand on n'a que l'amour/ Pour tracer un chemin/ Et forcer le destin/ A
chaque carrefour
  Quand on n'a que l'amour/ Pour parler aux canons/ Et rien qu'une chanson/
Pour coinvancre un tambour
  Alors sans avoir rien/ Que la force d'aimer/ Nous aurons dans nos mains/
Amis le monde entier"
  J.Brel 1956

  ICQ 106.255.886
  HPGCv1 a31 e++ x+ -- z+++ A27 Rhp HPa S+++ Mo HaP++ HG++ RW++ AD++ RH+++
VK& NhN& SB& DM--- O++ F sfD

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]