British Boarding School Books By "Old Boys": Read by Rowling?

[Arachne Webbstir]

No: HPFGUIDX 61171

Since Joanne Rowling never attended boarding school herself, some of her 
sesearch for HP must have included books, especially those about school life 
for boys.  Here are some of the most famous that I suspect she read, all 
based on real school experiences of "Old Boys", as former students are 
called.

STALKY & CO. by Rudyard Kipling is collection of stories inspired by 
author's young bespectacled self (called "Beetle") and his two closest 
friends and allies.  Independently of Amanda Cockrell's essay in book THE 
IVORY TOWER AND HARRY POTTER, I noticed resemblance between episode of 
petrifiied Mrs. Norris in CHAMBER OF SECRETS and STALKY & CO.'s "An Unsavory 
Interlude".

It *could* be argued that a cat (incidently, both were female) was in both 
cases the only suitable animal at hand, and therefore it could just be 
coincidence.  But after reading the whole of STALKY, you too may be 
persuaded that STALKY could be Judged Known Rowling Research Material 
(J.K.R.R.M.), like Kipling's JUNGLE BOOK ("Rikki Tikki Tavi" is thought to 
be origin of Voldemort's pet snake Nagini's name).

The difference between Stalky and Harry is that in most cases, S & Co. 
deliberately plan things to  annoy or embarrass teachers who have bothered 
them (review of some in "The Impressionists"); Harry and pals are mostly 
accused unjustly of doing things they didn't--or at least, not with the 
intentions others assign to them.

STALKY story "In Ambush" says, "Unluckily, all Mr. Prout's imagination 
leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed 
cherubim most sourly".  Perhaps Snape and Filch do so also, assigning to 
students  motivations they hold themselves--desires for revenge of perceived 
deliberate humilitations, or as King puts it, "sheer calculated insolence".

In the pages of STALKY AND CO. may be found answer to long-debated questions 
on reasons for resentments and rivalry between Snape, Draco and Harry.  By 
sheer repetition, some fans "answers" have achieved an aura of truth, 
although I feel such "reasons" are far from Rowlings intentions for her 
series, judging from her other known influences.

Beetle sums it up simply ("In Ambush"):  "The Hefflelinga means well. BUT he 
is an ass.  AND we show him that we think he's an ass.  An' SO Heffy don't 
love us. 'Told me last night after prayers that he was *in loco parentis*, 
Beetle grunted.
     "The deuce he did! cried Stalky.  'That means he's maturin' something 
unusual damn mean. 'Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred lines 
for dancin' the cachuca in Number Ten dormitory.  Loco parentis, by gum?  
But what's the odds, as long as you're 'appy?  We're all right."
     They were, and their very rightness puzzled Prout, King, and the 
Sargeant."

In story, "A Little Prep", there's a Flint whose Head of the Games, and took 
7 1/2 years to graduate from a six year school, rather like flunking Marcus 
Flint, Slytherin Quidditch captain in HP (but Kipling's Flint seems a rather 
nice chap).

The older "regular" editions of STALKY & CO. include stories mentioned 
above.  More recent Oxford World's Classics edition is titled THE COMPLETE 
STALKY & CO. and includes five additional stories, plus poems I don't recall 
from earlier collection.  One titled "The Centaurs" might have reminded 
Rowling of mythological Chiron's role as teacher of "great heroes of his 
age" (such as Jason, Achille, Aeneas and Hercules).  Kipling uses Chiron as 
an image of the boy's school headmaster, both real and fictional one.

COMPLETE edition also has "Explanitory notes" in the back, with translation 
of Latin quoted, especially useful in understanding "extra" story REGULUS, 
set largely in class taught by Housemaster King, one of Stalky and friends 
most fervent enemies.  King's sarcastic remarks bear a resemblence to 
Snape's.

Toward end of SLAVES OF THE LAMP, Part 1, boys comment "King is a gibbering 
maniac...King's frothing at the mouth."  Reacting to boy's  remarks meant to 
be overheard by him, King, in "black robe tore past like a thunder-storm.  
You may find other Snape-like references in STALKY.

The Latin master King and the science teacher (whose chemistry class is 
called "stinks", still a term used in British schools) often "spar" or ague 
about which of their fields, Humanities or Sciences, is more
important.  Scientific "little Hartop", is a "gentle little soul", and also 
President of school's Nature Club, "an institution Stalky held in contempt", 
for its interest in things like "first-flowerings" and "early butterflies".

Apparently, "real men" are not fond of such "frilly" things, including 
parasol-decorated drinks at Rosemerta's (see  bar scene in which Humphrey 
Bogart-like tough guy Russell Crowe orders one to taunt a friend early in 
movie PROOF OF LIFE; I saw it for Latin American--not Aussie--scenery).

Waving around a "bug-hunting" net on a stick is rather like the wand-waving 
Snape calls "foolish".
Chanting Latin sounds rather like magical Incantations.  Perhaps Rowling may 
have swapped King's and little Hartop's subjects to create Snape and 
Flitwick.

Classical scholar King, who reverences ancient literature and culture, is 
doomed to try to drum it into the heads of boys preparing  to enter the Army 
  One can understand how that could embitter his personality.  King's 
lauding his pet subject is rather like Snapes introduction to Potions.  One 
example is below:

"(Boy stops translating) conscious of stillness around him like the dread 
calm of the typhoon's centre.
King's opening voice was sweeter than honey.

"I am painfully aware by bitter experience that I cannot give you any idea 
of the passion, the power, the--the essential guts of the lines which you 
have so fouly outraged in our presence.  But"--the note changed, "so far as 
in me lies, I will  strive to bring home to you, Vernon, the fact that there 
exists in Latin a few pitiful rules of grammar, of syntax, nay, even of 
declension, which were not created for your incult sort--your Boeotian 
(boorish) diversion.

"You will therefore, Vernon, write out and bring me tomorrow a word for word 
English-Latin translation of the Ode, together with a list of all 
adjectives, their number, case and gender....Even now I haven't begun to 
deal with you faithfully.
  "I--I'm verysorry, sir", Vernon stammered.
   "You mistake the symptoms, Vernon. You are possibly discomfited by the 
imposition, but sorrow postulates some sort of mind, intellect, nous.  Your 
reading of 'probrosis' alone stamps you as lower than the beasts of the 
field".

Did even Neville Longbottom get such an insult?!

I have long wondered if "double-agent" Snape may be intentionally playing 
favorites or being soft on Slytherins to "spoil" them or make them weak, and 
demanding more of Gryffindor's in effort to strengthen them to battle the 
Dark Side.  This occured to me long before I saw Cockrell's comment on 
"headmasters who are secretly grooming them for a future success that they 
do not expect of their other pupils".

As I also noted before reading Cockrell's essay, most of Kipling's 
characters are preparing for careers as Army officers.  Occasionally, he 
tells in a few bald words the future of a particular boy, such as Perowne in 
THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY, shot by his own men--perhaps for sticking too 
closely to the Rule book (like Percy W.?)

Final STALKY story, THE SLAVES OF THE LAMP, Part 2, takes place when all the 
school boys are full-grown men catching up on the doings of old schoolmates, 
especially Stalky.  Story demonstrates how exploits of boyhood were 
instructive and put to use in later life.  The real-like model for Stalky 
became a General.

Perhaps Harry will also eventually relish his adult responsibilities and 
little value any titles and honors that may come his way.  In the near 
future, he may resemble another of Kipling's protagonists, the boy in KIM 
who roams India (then part of the vast British Empire) while training to be 
a spy, what to him is
playing "The Great Game".  (Is it purely a fluke that Wheel of Life drawn by 
  Kim's Tibetan master has a snake (anger), hog (ignorance) and dove (lust) 
at the heart of all non-spiritual human behavior?)

In an interview with Rowling (before first HP movie), she talked about Roald 
Dahl's book CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and movie based on it as 
example of how a book and a film can be very different, yet both still 
enjoyable.  Perhaps she also read Dahl's autobiography (mostly of his 
childhood) titled BOY.

In BOY, Dahl says his Norwegian father "maintained that there was some kind 
of magic about English schooling and that  the education it provided had 
caused the inhabitants of a small island to become a great nation and a 
great Empire and to produce the world's greatest literature.  'No child of 
mine', he k ept saying, 'is going to school anywhere else but inEngland.'  
My mother was determined to carry out the wishes of her dead husband.'

Dahl's boyhood experiences rival his fantastic books.  Did you know that his 
nose was severed in an accident, and sewn back on--only much more 
undetectably than that facial feature on Eloise Midgeon?
I wonder if practical joke played in chapter "Goat Tobacco" will have 
anything to do with Mundungus  (look up meaning of that) Fletcher  and 
Abeforth's Goat.   And has anyone connected meaning of "Fletcher" (one who 
puts feathers in arrows) with  "the Order of the Phoenix"?

Author William Golding taught boys' school after serving in military in 
WWII.  His book LORD OF THE FLIES ws shaped by his knowledge of boys' 
behavior, as observed by an adult.  FLIES includes "golden boy" named Roger 
(like Ravenclaw Quidditch captain Roger Davies?) "elected chief" by 
schoolboys stranded on island without adults.  Eventually we may find out 
whether LORD OF THE FLIES or LORD OF THE RINGS  has more in common with the 
world of HP.

Informative "Introduction" to COMPLETE STALKY & CO. cites criticism by some 
of its famous readers; obviously, they never read Golding's mid-20th Century 
view of  boys and humankind!  Riverhead Books edition of FLIES has at end, 
"Selected Highlights of Critical Analysis" which might inspire HP scholars.

More comforting may be world view of TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS (aka TOM BROWN 
AT RUGBY) by Thomas Hughes.  Try reading at least the final chapter, about 
Headmaster Arnold, beloved by Tom (both author and is character).   Although 
Arnold died before he was 50 years old, he was  influential in shaping 
British boy's schools, as many of his former pupils founded schools inspired 
by his beliefs.

Some books grounded on experiences of real girls may have also been read by 
Rowling.  Other studies of her work haven't mentioned ones I have in mind, 
perhaps as they contain no fantasy--one author isn't even British (although 
she has many generations of fans herself).  I'll leave those for another 
time!

Til later,

ARANITA WEBBSTIR

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