[SPAM] Re: [SPAM] [the_old_crowd] More random jottings - on a theme

[Jim Ferer]

Amandageist: "I, for one, would enjoy seeing some discussion that
included positives as well as negatives..."

Well, Amanda, here goes for me. I've only read the book once, and
there's a lot of details I haven't absorbed and inconsistencies I
haven't caught, but the story rings completely true to me on the
emotional level; JKR understands this very well. I found the book
satisfying on the emotional level, even as I was noticing all the
stories that still need told. 

I agree with you that kids think of a whole lot else besides sex. The
modest amount of sex in DH only points out how oversexed most of what
we read in books and see on screens is. It is cultural. 

One thing that does strike me on that level is how mature some of the
kids act. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny all seem to get it far more than
most teenagers do; Ron seems more of a typical teen than the others.
My daughter is sixteen and I wonder how she would respond to what
they've been through; of course, she wasn't trained up to it from age
eleven.

The epilogue is frustrating only because it could have gone on for
another fifty, sixty, or hundred and fifty pages. It's not a
saccharine world because families can take their children to the
school train on a peaceful day. If Harry and Ron are Aurors chasing
down Death Eater pretenders (you know there'll be plenty)that doesn't
mean it isn't a peaceful world. Neither has forgotten "constant
vigilance," but it beats hell out of hiding out in the forest trying
to keep the world from being destroyed.

I won't even try to defend this book. It doesn't need it, certainly
not by me.

Jim Ferer