The Supplemental Stuff

Ooohh...I think I am struck now by the need to buy this book.
I always was very fond of the fact that Rowling used so much sybolism and old folk culture in the books.

*headdesk*
"symbolism"...oops.

Welcome to the group, timchell! I think we may wind up forming a side group dedicated to griping about the lack of an edit feature in LJ comments. ;-)

Tas, I can definitely see you lusting after that book given our recent conversations! Personally, I'm such a fiction lover that I'm afraid the book would only hold interest for me if the author actually TELLS the myths rather than just using a lecture mode.

How bout you spend the $11 and then let me know how that goes? LOL!

Thanks for the welcome! I felt sorta like an intruder once I realized this comm. was basically created between some friends. :D

And yes, there needs to be an edit feature very badly. I feel like such an idiot when I spell things wrong, but I just never realize it until -after- I hit that little post button.

No, no, no! Don't feel like an intruder at all. This was an open group from day one. We actually posted links to it around other boards. It just so happened that we managed to drag our friends and their friends in first. ;-) But all along our hope was that we'd be able to get some outside perspective, we just didn't expect to have so much luck!

my sister has that book. ( she taught harry potter to her 7th grade class a few years ago ) the book is awesome but its not really "up to date" the only thing it says about book 5, 6, and 7 are the projected dates of publication (which were SO OFF ha) it does give cool background info and explains like cool things and how they are related to what was actually going on.

While walking around Barnes and Noble for hours on Friday, I say many-a-book like the one you mentioned. Some were talking about "God through Harry Potter" or something to that effect. Amused me. And I know of this Seattle man who was giving a lecture on symbolism in HP on Saturday at UW. I didn't go, too caught up in reading.

How interesting! About a year ago, I attended a series of presentations put on by an Episcopal church in the Boston area. They have these series about three times a year--they call it Theology on Tap, and it's always held at a local bar. (The idea being "Drink deeply of the Spirit, of fellowship. . .and of your pint." At least that's what's on the tee shirts.) The very first one I attended was called The Gospel According to Harry Potter. The guy who gave the lecture was a scholar from Oxford who had written a paper on HP that analyzed representations of good and evil in the books. It was really, really interesting--gave me a neat perspective when I picked them up to reread them last fall.

There's also a book called The Gospel According to Harry Potter, but it was a disappointment. Instead of talking about themes and characters, the author would pick out random statements and sentences that reflected the view she wanted to advance.