[HPforGrownups] Audiobooks, movies and fanfiction

[Monika Huebner]

No: HPFGUIDX 16501

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Haggridd [mailto:jkusalavagemd at yahoo.com]
> Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Canon, fanfic and other interpretations

> I know that the Jim Dale readings influenced me strongly, and I had 
> read the books prior to listening to them.  Can anybody compare Jim 
> Dale and Steven Fry?  Would it be worth trying to obtain the Fry 
> readings after having heard the Jim Dale recordings?

I only know the Jim Dale readings from the different samples on the
web, but I nevertheless decided last year that I would buy the British
Fry Readings. I think it was (at least for me) the right decision.  I love
the way he does most characters, and I think he has a very expressive
voice. His readings are a bit less than a radio show than Jim Dale's,
but he *does* give the characters different voices. He's better with the
adults than with the children, and I love his Snape, Dumbledore and
Hagrid. I don't like his Sirius, though. Maybe because he is my favorite
character and already had a very distinct voice in my head before I
listened to the audio versions. I just think he makes him sound too old,
almost like Hagrid. As for influencing my mental image of the characters,
I'd say no, he didn't influence me too much. It's the same thing as with
movies. I am a big fan of Michael Crichton, and my favorite book has 
always been Jurassic Park. I like the movie a lot, too, but it doesn't
influence my vision of the characters when I read the book again. The
medium is too different. And I don't think that the HP movie will alter
my mental image of those characters, it will just play on a different level.

I have just listened to the second part of the German audio edition of
GoF, Rufus Beck does a very good job, too, but I think he overdoes
the voices. He gives them all sorts of regional German and foreign
accents. I like it less than the Stephen Fry readings, but I wouldn't
say it wasn't as well done. It is just entirely different. It doesn't confuse
me, though, even if it is yet another interpretation of the same characters.

I read a lot of fan fiction, too, and it doesn't change my image of the
characters in the canon, either. I can still distinguish between Heidi's
or Cassie's Draco and the Draco in the canon (whom I still don't like
at all), I see it as a kind of parallel universes. We don't know what will
will happen to the characters in the canon because the series isn't
finished yet, but it is fun to read about all the speculations. BTW, if
everyone had the very same perception of the characters as they are
drawn in the books, we wouldn't be here to discuss them, because
there wouldn't be any room for discussions at all. We all see them 
rather differently in our heads, even though we have all read the
same books. I know that my image of Sirius seems to differ a lot from
that of other people, and I am still convinced that my image is entirely
based on what we are told about him in the canon. But other people
see him entirely differently, and this is the fun about these discussions.
We have different interpretations of nearly everything that happens
in the books and that is what keeps this group going.

Monika
who is still about 400 messages behind and hopes to be able to catch
up over the next few days...

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Book and movie reviews in English and German:
http://sites.inka.de/darwin/indexalt.html