Whatever happened to nostalgia?

[Lyn J. Mangiameli]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith <arrowsmithbt at ...> wrote:
>
> Aaaah, the good old days!
> Remember them?
> The world was bright, we were young(er) and the future was replete  
> with possibilities.
> Joy was it then to be alive.
> And now?
> What happened? Are the golden lads and girls finally come to dust?
> 
snip
>
 I really don't like the direction in which HP seems to be  
> going. The last book, in conjunction with various interviews, website  
> hints and public pronouncements by Jo have put me right off - almost  
> without me appreciating the fact - until somebody unwittingly pulled  
> the trigger.
> 
 snip
> Even so, I miss the sheer unadulterated fun of the good old days.
> Even if they were only a year ago.
> 

I've had the amusing experience tonight of first reading Alan Jacobs' essay over on the 
Lexicon and now your comments. As many know, I've long derided the non-canon drivel 
JKR has chosen to impart to us in the last couple of years. But as you point out, the loss of 
fun seems to relate also to things more central to the books themselves. It was 
intersesting then to read Jacobs discuss some of his observations along this line. 

A line from his well written essay: 

"I find myself thinking especially of something I have already mentioned: the draining away 
of delight from the books, the narrowing of Harry's horizons to a point, that point being 
an ultimate encounter with Lord Voldemort." 

This line really resonated with me. It is not just Harry's horizons which have narrowed, but 
also the horizons of a subset of us fans who had found our own delight in exploring, 
explaining and attempting to predict the events of the HP universe. The scope of 
exploration and explaining have decreased, not only because of Harry's reduced horizons, 
but because JKR has taken to giving disjointed but ever so authoritative drizels of HP 
"fact." As just one of the more infamous examples, we don't come to learn of the "ships" 
through and in the context of the story line, but have them rather inelegantly pronounced 
to the annointed in a gigglefest. And I won't even get started again about that  
W.O.M.B.A.T. exam. 

I selfishly hope the last book will regenerate the sense of delight that came from reading 
the early books, but I'm afraid I'm a step beyond skeptical with respect to that. I'm afraid 
I'm like the child who has come to realize there is no Santa Claus, but still hopes it isn't 
really so.