secret garden

[jdr0918]

No: HPFGUIDX 90024

<<<In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "smaragdina5" wrote:...In the 
play, a young boy named Colin is sort of kept hopeless and sick by 
his uncle Neville, who subconsciously doesn't want his nephew to come 
into his own and upstage him and inherit the estate. Colin becomes 
strong and confident after his friends help him to spend time in the 
garden his mother used to enjoy and cultivate...>>>

The Sergeant Majorette says

In the book, which JKR is more likely to have referred to, Colin is 
the son of a slightly hunchbacked man named Archibald whose beuatiful 
wife fell in love with him despite his handicap. A branch she was 
sitting on while she was pregnant broke; she gave birth prematurely 
and died in childbirth. Archie becomes a cranky recluse. He locks up 
the garden and hires a bunch of nurses and nannies to care for his 
supposedly delicate son. A girl Colin's age whose parents died of 
cholera in India becomes Archibald's charge. (These two kids are like 
two little Dracos butting heads.) The other "friend" is the brother 
of a chambermaid whose mother is a Molly Weasley type.

The reason the kid is kept under wraps is that he looks exactly like 
his mother, and looking at him gives his father grief and guilt.

There's a similar problem with "The Little Princess", by the same 
author. The director of "Prisoner of Azkaban" directed a version 
which, although beautifully done, completely altered the underlying 
meaning of the story.

A little off-topic, maybe, but if we are comparing HP to older 
children's classics, we have to go back to the source...

--JDR