[the_old_crowd] Re: Whatever happened to nostalgia?

[Mike & Susan Gray]

Kneasy muttered,

> Getting close to that stage with HP. It no longer engages, 
> the characters seem less real than before, and I don't care 
> what happens to any of them.
> Now that's something I never believed that I'd say.
> Unfortunately it's true.

Oddly enough, I've just discovered a really good way to improve the books:
ignore them for a couple years. 

I just started re-reading the last three. I'd tried a couple times over the
last few years, but it just didn't work - not even before Accio, to be
honest. (That is, I read and enjoyed the new one and looked up patches in
the old ones, but I couldn't get up enough interest to push past chapter
two.) 

Anyway, I was talking about HP with someone at the U. last week and
discovered that I couldn't remember whether it was Sirius or Lupin that
bought the farm in OoP. And the really cool thing was that even more than
feeling embarassed, I was suddenly, ravenously, overcome by the Lust of
Reading. I didn't want to start OoP right off - I wanted to take it sloooow,
so I turned down the lights, put on some soft music and began to carress the
pages of GoF.

Haven't had so much fun reading in a long time. So leave 'em alone, and
they'll come home, waving their tales behind 'em.

Worked for me anyway. YMMV It obviously depends on what you want the things
to *do* for you.

Baaaaaaa,

Mike