[HPforGrownups] Re: The Hidden Key to Harry Potter

[RhianynTheCat at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 60322

In a message dated 6/13/2003 6:29:04 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
pennylin at swbell.net writes:



> Harry is on a journey of self-exploration, making choices about who he is 
> and what to do and how to react in situations (particularly crisis 
> situations).   It is change, the consequences of our choices, that interests Granger the 
> most though.

Rhianyn stretches luxuriously, but refrains from sharpening her claws as she 
does so:

Yes, well, aren't _most_ religions about themes like this?  As a practicing 
pagan and a bit of a scholar (if I do unattractively say it myself) on the 
Celtic Old Religion I can easily draw parallels between my religion and the 
Potterverse as well.  But then, so much of Christianity is drawn from far earlier 
relgions anyway.  IMO the reason so many relgions have such common themes is 
that mankind, for all its different cultures, is always seeking to address and 
understand those very things.  So, of course, any work of fiction that addresses 
those great commonalties is going to appeal to a very wide cross section of 
readers.  Trying to co-opt a writer and her works for one religion is as 
pointless, I say, as trying to ban her books for the identical reason.

I once went to a writers conference as a rather younger kitling.  I was, in 
fact, the youngest there and quite impressed with myself for being accepted and 
quite intent on impressing the august god-like personages who were 
instructors there.  In fact I was so very overwhelmed to be in a group headed by Richard 
Ford who was my literary hero of the moment, that I spend untold hours on the 
manuscript we were to critique in that session.  I was determined to draw 
every possible nuance and connotation from that manuscript.  All I really 
remember of it now was that it centered (I thought) on a man and his pet bull.  I 
went off on an impressive bull chase that made this bull the symbol of all things 
male, the mans wife's unhappiness about the bull was her way of trying to 
castrate the man and on and on and on ad nauseum.  I held forth for some time and 
eventually sat back quite pleased with the stunned looks of revelation around 
the table.  And into the reverent silence spoke the author of the piece (not 
Mr Ford thankfully) who said "Wow, that bull was a cow until the third draft".

To paraphrase Mr. Faulkner, I believe, sometimes a bull is just a bull (or 
maybe a cow).  And most times wondering what the writer's "agenda" is is not 
nearly as important as concentrating on what you, as an individual, get from a 
story.  

I adored C.S. Lewis' Narnia as a child and still do.  I was not then nor am I 
now a Christian.  I would bet that Mr. Lewis would have been no less 
gratified by the great joy he brought/brings to me as a pagan than he would have been 
were I Christian.   A great storyteller is, above all else, just that, a 
storyteller.  A preacher is an entirely different thing all together.

:::Curls fluffy black tail about herself just _so_ and returns to napping by 
the fire::::
    ^   ^
 =( * .*)=


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