British places in HP1

[Gabriel Rozenberg]

No: HPFGUIDX 31894

[-- heather (uma) wrote]

>(And why do the Dursleys live in Surrey?  Dur! Because Emma Woodhouse lived 
>in
>Surrey! Ain't literary allusions fun?)

Hmmm. A much more straightforward explanation is that Surrey is a byword for 
suburban, Thatcherite dullness. You get the idea a bit in the film (although 
it is through a rather odd US prism: British mothers tend not to wear 
aprons). Surrey is pleasant, but is a county less famous for, say,  
outstanding natural beauty than for the narrow minded aspirational self-made 
men of the Vernon Dursley mould who populate it. JKR (influenced by more 
romantic places like the Forest of Dean and Edinburgh) clearly has it in for 
people like that. The v amusing name of the village, Little Whinging, sums 
this up perfectly.

Gabriel

PS As far as is known, do Mr & Mrs Dursley have any friends?

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