The Art of Dribbling

Audio Book Review: Unseen Academicals

 

Going out for lunch yesterday with my aunt and uncle who were visiting, I came across this candle holder.

It led my thoughts back to the Discworld novel Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett, which I recently listened to as audio book. I find it a bit hard to write proper reviews of books I have only audio memories of, i.e. without being able to go back to the text and check details and quotes etc. But I thought I’d write down a few impressions anyway.

The main story in the book – I suppose – is about the Unseen University forming a football team. But, as two quotes from the book say (I found these on the internet):

The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

You're saying that football is not about football?
It's the sharing, she said. It's being part of the crowd. It's chanting together. It's all of it. the whole thing.

And this goes for the book as well. It’s about football but it’s also not about football but about sharing and being part of the crowd.

One new Discworld character in this novel is Mr Nutt, who is a candle dribbler at the Unseen University. Because at a Wizards’ University, you cannot leave an important thing like candle dribbling up to chance and wind. It is a job that takes some skill!

So that’s why Mr Nutt came to mind for me when I saw that candle holder.

Mr Nutt of course also gets involved in the football theme and team. And in the midst of it all, he makes some discoveries about himself and goes through a sort of identity crisis; as do some of the other characters, although in different ways. References to Freudian psychology will probably amuse anyone interested in that sort of thing (at least they amused me). In the book, hypnosis of origin from Überwald is used to bring out hidden secrets.

Überwald in the Discworld effectively comprises two utterly distinct societies; the dwarfs, who exist below in their cavernous cities and tunnels, and everybody else, who live above. By tradition, the laws of the surface people do not apply underground, and vice versa.
(Wikipedia article on Discworld Geography)

Actually, my Quotation of the Week in yesterday’s blog post (about mistaking oneself for somebody else) might be said to fit in quite well with Mr Nutt. Although…

No, I’m not going to reveal the details.
You’d better read the book to find out!

As usual, even though Unseen Academicals is No 37 in the Discworld series (and by now I have read them all), I don’t think this one requires you to have read any of the previous ones to be able to get some enjoyment out of it. All that is required is that you’re prepared for a fantasy world which is like and unlike our own world at the same time.

To finish off with, here’s the definition of:

Dribble (v.tr.)
1. To let flow or fall in drops or an unsteady stream.
2. Sports a. To move (a ball or puck) by repeated light bounces or kicks, as in basketball or soccer.

Book Review: Slow Man

Slow Man is a novel from 2005 by J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.

For the first twelve chapters, it appears to be a pretty straightforward story. The main character, Paul Reyment, a man ”on the threshold of comfortable old age” as the text on the back cover says, is the victim of a traffic accident, which results in the amputation of one of his legs. Besides the common problems of old age, he now also has to deal with becoming an invalid, dependent on other people for help with the most trivial things. He has to hire a nurse to take care of him, and he goes through a few before he finds one with whom he feels comfortable. When he does find her, he soon finds himself developing feelings for her that go beyond the patient-nurse relationship. He lets daydreams run away with him; extending his affection to her children, but ignoring (among other things) the fact that there is also a husband in the background whom he has never met.

The story so far is interesting in itself, and well-written enough to keep the reader's interest up.

Then one day Paul ”takes the plunge”, bringing his feelings for Marijana out into the open... And from that point on, we are no longer in a straightforward story at all; because suddenly, on Paul's doorstep, out of nowhere, Elizabeth Costello arrives, and starts to interfere.

Slow Man is the first book I ever read by Coetzee. I was not aware, when entering chapter 13, that Elizabeth Costello is also the title of a separate novel preceding this one, from 2003. I found that out later, when reading up on the author a bit. I'm not sure it matters much, however, because it is pretty obvious from the context of Slow Man alone, that Elizabeth Costello (in this book) appears as the ”alter ego” of the Author.

This is how she presents herself:

'I was going to say I was from the State Library,' she says. 'I was going to introduce myself as one of the Library's volonteers, come to assess the scale of your donation, the physical scale I mean, the dimensions, so that we can plan ahead. Later it would have come out who I actually am.'
'You are not from the library?'
'No. That would have been a fib.'

(Paul has a collection of old photographs which he has decided to bequeath to the State Library after his death.)

It is made clear that Elizabeth Costello is the Elizabeth Costello, renowned writer; and she goes on to quote the initial paragraph from the first chapter of the book we are in...

The continued dialogue between Paul and Elizabeth does not only bring to the surface all the moral and practical problems that Paul has been suppressing or ignoring in his daydreams; it also brings to the surface the Author's struggle with the independence of her own creation. The interaction between them is far from simple. For example, Paul, who at first just ”occurred to” Elizabeth - ”a man with a bad leg and an unsuitable passion”, turns out to have a past, which she knows nothing about – it is he who has to tell her about it, not the other way round.

Enough revealed. This is a book which manages to do at least three things simultaneously: Tell a good story. Raise questions about some serious moral issues. Analyse the relationship between the writer (any writer) and his/her work of fiction. All done with an admirable mix of humour and compassion!

Book Review: His Dark Materials

Back in August, Rae had a book review about Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials - a very blunt review that I have to say I enjoyed more than I did the books. I wrote in a comment to her post back then, that I had listened to the first two books in the series (in Swedish), but did not really take to them, so I wasn't sure I was ever going to get round to reading the third and last one. In spite of that, I just recently have.

What got me there was that in between, a month or so ago, I happened to pick up the film based on the first book (because they sold it at a very cheap price at the supermarket). To my confusion I found that for a change I liked the film better than the book. But it was so long ago now that I listened to the book, so I couldn't quite put my finger on why!

Okay, that was enough challenge... I find it hard to seriously criticise a series of books like this one without actually having finished it. Just theoretically, there might be some redeeming factor in the third volume that would "explain everything"...

There wasn't.

The only relief I found in the third book was that it made me remember enough about what I did not like about the first one. So the good news at the end - for me - was that at least I won't have to go back and reread that again, to decide why I liked the film better. I might however possibly one day be curious enough to watch the other two films, just to see if they will manage to continue making the screen version more easily digestible than the books...

The difference is, I think, that the film still leaves some room for interpretation. (Usually it is the other way round, isn't it.) The books do not, because when you call the Church the Church, and the Bible the Bible, and have them appear equally corrupt in every parallell world in the whole universe, then that really does not leave much opening for the reader's own interpretation. Pullman's quite outspoken purpose in these books is to get rid of  The Authority; but in doing so, he as Author really takes its place. He claims to want to tear down the Kingdom of Heaven and replace it with a Republic. In my opinion he does not succeed with the latter, because he does not really trust his readers to be able to make up their own minds.

In the last book, Pullman literally closes every window that was possibly left open earlier in the story. He begins his story in the first book in a world which is very much a parallell to ours except that people wear their souls on the outside (as daemons in animal shape). Confusingly, places and religion and a lot of other things have exactly the same names as in our own world. He then goes on to also involve our own world, which however is really neither better nor worse; we just can't see our inner animals. He then proceeds in the last book to open up window after window to a lot of different worlds; but we get to see very little of any of them except two: One with animals on wheels (does that ring a bell?), and a very depressing world where all dead people (and other creatures) go, apparently without the company of their souls (daemons). Where the souls go, I don't think we're told (or else I managed to sleep through that bit). The only window left open at the end is to continue to let the depressed and apathic shadows of the dead dissolve and unite with nature (in the world with animals on wheels).

Apparently the love between main characters Will (from Oxford in our world) and Lyra (from Oxford in parallell world) is supposed to illustrate a great miracle of awareness, and sort of the opposite of  what happened to Adam and Eve in "the Fall". But like Adam and Eve, Will and Lyra too are expelled from Paradise, and (unlike Adam and Eve) not even allowed to continue to be together, in any world. Each must go back to their own world,  because neither of them can live in any other than their own. Moreover, every window between worlds must be closed, or the great awareness will leak out of the whole universe. A parallell lesson learned by Lyra is that made up stories are no good; salvation lies in Reality. On top of that she loses her initial intuition when it comes to reading the instrument called alithiometer. What she already knew how to do, she will now have to spend the rest of her life learning.

One question rises above a lot of others in my mind: Why does Pullman bother to write fantasy at all? What is the point in opening up windows to other worlds only to close them again? The conclusion at the end seems just to be: "I told you a story to teach you not to put your faith in stories, because stories don't tell the truth".

Sorry Philip. I don't find yours all that convincing either...

A Childhood Favourite: The Borrowers

Rae had a blogpost the other day about Childhood Literary Loves, especially series of children's books. It turns out I share several of Rae's favourites; but one other that came to mind for me, was Mary Norton's The Borrowers. I actually reread those books earlier this year (some time in the spring) and intended to write a blogpost about them back then, but never got round to it. Doing it now instead!

To start with the reason why I reread The Borrowers, that was because last year for Christmas my brother gave me mp3-copies of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy, about a little people called Nomes. Listening to those books, it struck me that hey, he borrowed rather heavily (though amusingly) from The Borrowers...!

Then it struck me that I never actually read The Borrowers in English; only in Swedish. I still have my Swedish copies of the first four books. Checking with my internet bookshop, I found that there was a The Complete Borrowers pocket edition available which also included a fifth book, written twenty years later than the others; which probably explains why I had never even heard of that one. So I ordered the Complete edition, and read the whole story for the first time in English. As so often when reading in the original language something I've only read in translation before, that included some new discoveries. On top of a good story, I noticed she also uses the language beautifully, with lots of details (and quite a few words new to me); and also some puns that don't translate into Swedish at all... Like the Borrowers using the name "human beans" for "human beings"!

Borrowers, in case you don't know, are a little people, more or less on the verge of becoming extinct, so there aren't many of them about any more. They live under the floor or behind the walls in big people's houses, preferably close to the kitchen or dining room, because they live on what the human beans leave lying around. That's why a lot of small items around the house just keep mysteriously disappearing - like needles and safety pins and handkerchiefs and balls of yarn and things like that, which you can never find when you need them. Even the Borrowers' names seem (in our ears) borrowed. When the story begins, there is just one family of Borrowers left in a big old house - 14 year old Arrietty with her parents Pod and Homily; with surname Clock, because the entrance to their home is behind a clock.

The greatest fear of a Borrower is to "be seen" by a human bean. One day, this happens to Arrietty - she is seen by a human boy coming to stay with his old relative. Not only that - she makes friends with the boy; a friendship which for a while has its advantages, but in the end... Well, let's just say it leads on to new adventures for the little family, because the first book (first published in 1952) was followed by three more (published between 1955-1961), entitled The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat and The Borrowers Aloft - and much later (in 1982) The Borrowers Avenged.

From the titles alone you can draw the conclusion that the family did not stay forever in the house where we found them in the first book. (Neither do Terry Pratchett's Nomes, and that's where it becomes really obvious that he borrowed from the Borrowers; because his little people also leave their Indoors life to go Afield, and then Aloft; although you might say they go about it in more modern fashion than Mary Norton's characters...)

One of Mary Norton's skills in her story-telling lies in her ability to really imagine what it must be like to be the size of her borrowers - especially when they move outdoors.

Arrietty filled the tin-lid quite easily by tipping a large pointed fox-glove leaf towards it so the rain ran off and down the point. All about her was the steady sound of rain, and the lighted candle within the boot made the dusk seem darker: there was a smell of wildness, of space, of leaves and grasses and as she turned away with the filled tin-lid, another smell - winy, fragrant, spicy. Arrietty took note of it to remember it for the morning - it was the smell of wild strawberries.

(The Borrowers Afield)

Book Review: Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Again, a book I read - or rather, listened to, as audio book - in Swedish translation; which makes it hard for me to give direct quotes from it. But it's worthy of a short review anyway.

One day, a girl of about five or six years of age appears from "nowhere" in Rain Valley at the edge of a deep forest, together with a wolf cub. She can't speak and so can give no clue as to her identity or her past. She also seems terrified of human contact and lets no one close. Ellie, chief of police in the small town, asks her sister Dr. Julia Cates for help. Julia is a well-known child psychiatrist, but a scandal has recently ruined her career and made her a media target. She agrees to take on the case. However, when word spreads of Julia working with the “wild child”, the interest of the media is once again aroused. The authorities want to lock the girl away in an institution. But Julia is not only making progress with the child, whom she now calls Alice (after Alice in Wonderland). She is also developing a strong personal bond with the girl.

It is a fascinating story. How true, or believable, I cannot say. But symbolically, I believe it touches the inner child in every person who has suffered trauma and loss. It is a book about new beginnings: about slowly finding an identity and learning to trust and communicate with others again after being deeply hurt. It is of course most obvious in the little girl; but sort of parallell processes are also going on within Julia and the other grown-ups in the story.

Swedish book title: En flicka som kallas Alice.

Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I read this book in Swedish translation, which makes it hard for me to quote from, but I thought I'd write a short review anyway.

Margaret Lea works in her father's antiquarian bookshop. She has made a few attempts at writing short biographies but is not a well known author. However, one day she is contacted by a successful and mysterious bestselling novelist, Vida Winter. In the past, in every interview with a journalist, Vida Winter has told a different story about her past. There is also rumour of a thirteenth story that was never published. Now Vida says she wants Margaret to tell the truth.

Margaret goes to Ms Winter's house in Yorkshire, not knowing what to believe, and it does not get easier as the story is unfolded. It has been called a modern Gothic novel, and classics like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are often referred to within the story itself. It is a story about which not too many details should be given beforehand, or it might lose some of its power. It is the kind of story where things are revealed gradually. I was in the right mood for it when I picked it up, and it kept me under its spell from beginning to end. It is well told, and well written. If you like proper beginnings and endings to a story, you'll most likely enjoy this one.

Whether The Thirteen Tale, like the classics by the Brontë sisters, will still be read, loved and reread two hundred years from now, is probably more doubtful. Copying the classic style, the book makes highly enjoyable reading, but perhaps hardly pioneering. That, however, is for reflecting on after you've read it...

Swedish book title: Den trettonde historien.

Book Review: The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
by Michael Scott (link to Wikipedia article)

Text on the back cover:

He holds the secret that can end the world.

The truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on September 28, 1330. Nearly 700 years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty.

The legend: Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for centuries. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects; the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world.

That's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it.

Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

My review:

The reason I picked up this book was because it was suggested reading for September in Jo's Book Nook at the Leaky Lounge (Harry Potter) Forum; even though it is a post-HP book, while all the previous books have been "classics" recommended (in some context or other) by J.K. Rowling.

Having read it, my general impression is – yes, this book is definitely post Harry Potter; and feels to me like rather a bleak attempt to accomplish something similar but different enough to avoid being accused of ripoff.

One similarity is intertwining the modern world with a magic world of surviving alchemists (besides Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle, also John Dee, 16th century alchemist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I), mythical creatures, and ancient gods and goddesses. In Michael Scott's world, the alchemists and even creatures such as vampires and the Morrigan do not stay hidden in a wizarding world refusing to use modern inventions like electricity; but take full advantage of technology such as cars, jet planes, cell phones, laptop computers and the internet.

The most ancient powers, though – called Elders of the first generation - seem to prefer to enclose themselves in a Shadowrealm that (much like Rowling's Hogwarts) quickly drains the power out of any modern battery.

The basis of Scott's ideas is that before the humans (humani), the earth was inhabited and ruled by an Elder Race. "They were creatures that looked human – sometimes – but had the powers of gods. --- The first primitive humani worshipped the Elder Race as gods and demons --- The gods and goddesses of Greece and Egypt, of Sumeria and the Indus Valley, of the Toltec and the Celt, existed. They weren't different gods, however; they were simply the same Elders called by different names."

(This is really pretty much the same idea that Tolkien expresses in his Silmarillion, although Tolkien speaks in terms of Valar and Mayar and Elves etc.)

As introduction to make kids curious about old myths and history, and wanting to look things up on the Internet, I suppose Scott's Alchemyst might work. (I have no kids to try it out on.) Personally, having read the works of fantasy by authors such as Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling and Pratchett, I find Scott's Alchemyst rather boring. There is a lot of action, but no real depth to the characters, and the choice of mythical gods – or, come to think of it, so far only goddesses? – seems random. It disturbs my sense of context to have Hekate (from Greek mythology) living in the tree of Yggdrasill (from Old Norse mythology), fighting against the Morrigan (Celtic crow goddess) and Bastet (Egyptian cat goddess). I find myself getting irritated, rather than curious. If the names had been left out, I might possibly have found it intriguing to figure out the references, but with the names there, they are too obvious (and at the same time, the combinations seem wrong).

One idea I did like in this book was that the awakening of magic is connected to a general heightening of the senses, which is not all pleasant. (Scott is hardly the first author to have emphasized that thought, though. ) And also the thought that change, once begun, cannot be reversed. But – that's about it… I also find it a bit overexplicit, really, to have the teenage girl going through the "awakening" before her male twin...

Whether I'll read the rest of the series seems doubtful at the moment, but remains to be seen!

PS. Oh - I forgot: I did -indirectly- learn something from this book I didn't know before. Terry Pratchett didn't invent Golems... It never occurred to me to look them up before, but I did now, when they appeared in Scott's book as well. Seems they belong to Jewish legend. And there is a connection to alchemy as well.

Quotation of the Week (28/09)

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.
From The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Societyby Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This book, which I bought on Friday and also quoted from in this post (3 July 2009), turned out to be the kind that was hard to put down until I had finished it, which I did today. A book full of love and warmth but also sadness; and I learned things I never knew about the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. The whole book is written in the form of letters exchanged between several people. This gives a personal tone, and at the same time the book tells a progressive story, in which you gradually get to know the characters as well as events in their past. I think it is a book I will want to return to, and - in accordance with the quotation above - also perhaps check out some of the references to other books and authors mentioned in it...

Out of the Labyrinth of Perplexities (Udolpho V)

On page 648 out of 672 in The Mysteries of Udolpho,

"Emily was still lost in a labyrinth of perplexities"

– and so is the reader; even if some connections are by then slowly beginning to dawn upon us.

The whole book finished, just 24 pages later, I have to humbly revise my earlier impression that the author didn't quite know herself where she was going with the story. The slow beginning is deceptive; it really contains several details that turn out to be quite important later on. All the twists and turns and dead ends along the way - represented by the dark corridors and dusty chambers of the castles, as well as all the travelling abroad - are also an illustration of the winding path of the story itself, leading us round and back and forth like a labyrinth, luring us to false conclusions; sometimes false hope, and sometimes despair of ever getting out and reaching an explanation of the mysteries.

As you could see in my previous Udolpho post (The Mysterious Herione), 115 pages from the end, I still didn't feel at all sure what would prove to be important or not when we came to the conclusion of the story. I only mentioned one, but Emily really brought two major unsolved mysteries with her (in her mind) from Udolpho. Both of these were explained before the end; but one turned out to be of greater importance than the other.

Moral: Sometimes, the things we do not see can haunt us just as much as those we believe we have seen. Come to think of it, this applies to relationships as well: what we don't know can prove as important as that which we think we know…

All in all, I don't regret the journey!

PS. One complaint from my second Udolpho post still stands, although it may seem rather pettish: I still think it was a mistake by the author to suddenly introduce Emily's father's dog, "the faithful Manchon", into one single event at the Castle of Udolopho – the dog never mentioned before that, and never again afterwards! ;-)

Links to previous Udolpho posts:
Reading The Mysteries of Udolpho
The Castle, At Last! (Mysteries of Udolpho II)
Multiple Choice (Mysteries of Udolpho III)
The Mysterious Heroine (Udolpho IV)

Rereading Wuthering Heights

Portrait of Emily Brontë
by her brother Branwell Brontë

Twenty years or more have probably passed since I first read Wuthering Heights. When I reread it now I had this question in my mind throughout the book: Why do people consider this a romantic love story? There is passion, certainly, but love...? Most of the passion comes out as possessive obsession and downright cruelty.

Catherine does have deep feelings for Heathcliff, but not the romance-leading-to-marriage kind. It is the wild streak in herself that makes her understand the kind of person he is:

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visisble delight, but necessary, Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as pleasure, any more than I am always pleasure to myself - but as my own being –
(Catherine to Nelly, Ch. 8)

However, she is never deceived as to his character:

It is deplorable ignorance of his charachter, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond - a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic; he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.
(Catherine to Isabella, Ch. 10)


What intrigued me more than the main characters this time, was the narrative structure.

At the beginning, at Wutherings Heights, there is the Earnshaw family, with brother and sister, Hindley and Catherine. Into the family comes Heathcliff, an outsider who remains an outsider, even though a bond develops between him and Catherine.

At Thrushcross Grange, in the same generation, we have the Linton family, with brother and sister, Edgar and Isabella.

I won't go into all the details here; but a tangled web of marriages between the two families follows, enhanced by the tradition of naming children after close relatives, and sometimes interchanging first and last names; so that the same names recur in the next generation, but in different combinations.

An indication is given in the 3rd chapter of the book, where the narrator Lockwood stays over night at WH on his second visit there, and sleeps in a "haunted" room, where there is a ledge "covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small – Catherine Earnshaw; here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton."

A closing of a circle seems to be indicated at the end of the book; which usually also suggests some kind of moral – but I'm not so sure there really is one, in this story... (?)

There is also a rather complicated narrative perspective. The first narrator is Lockwood, who stumbles into Wuthering Heights at the beginning of the book, as a complete stranger - an outsider – and starts to unravel the mysteries of the past. But his own observations are few, and limited to a few occasions in the very last year of the story. Moreover, a shadow of doubt about Lockwood's judgement is thrown in by the real narrator (the author) in the very first chapter. Lockwood reflects, after his first visit to WH: "He /Heathcliff/ evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared to him." This indicates that Lockwood is first and foremost interested in his own entertainment.

Lockwood's main source for the background story, or the second narrator, is the servant Ellen "Nelly" Dean. She may seem to be an outsider, too, in a way, because she is "just" a servant (and Lockwood sees her as such). But Nelly cannot really be considered an objective storyteller, since she often takes an active part in the events herself.

Quite often, there is even a third filter introduced between the events and the reader, because Nelly in turn recounts what others have said, or written in letters. And the things that Nelly (perhaps?) leaves out or distorts, the reader will never know…

It struck me when I thought about this, that Lockwood could be said to represent "the reader", while Nelly represents "the author". The final interpretation of the story (any story) is, and has to be, a dialogue between author and reader - and I suspect Emily Brontë was well aware of that. (It is Lockwood – "the reader" - who gets the last word, by the way.)

Cathedral of the Sea

I have finally finished Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones, which I have been reading "by ear" - a box of 19 CD's (in Swedish), borrowed from the library. It took me six weeks to get through them. I found the book historically informative: it is an epic novel set in 14th century Barcelona and includes topics like the building of a cathedral, slavery, serfdom, anti-Semitism, the Spanish Inquisition, prostitution, the growth of sea trade and insurance companies, and more. But somehow I found it hard to really connect to the characters. It is a "heavy" story, not the most easily digested kind. The main character is Arnau Estanyol, son of a fugitive serf, seeking freedom in Barcelona. How to define freedom is a recurrent theme.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Tales of Beedle the Bard played an important role in the last of the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, The Deathly Hallows, where the title was presented as being a storybook well known to children in the Wizarding world.

After the publication of The Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling produced seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Six she gave to people who had been helping her in different ways with the Harry Potter series. The seventh was offered for auction and bought for £1.95 million by Amazon.com, the highest price ever at an auction for a modern literary manuscript. The money was donated to The Children's Voice charity campaign.

I found out just before Christmas 2008 that the book had now also been published for the general public, the proceeds going to the Children's High Level Group. Since I've been a Harry Potter fan ever since I first started reading the books in 2001, of course I bought it as a Christmas gift for myself!

My first impression of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was that they reminded me a lot "in general" of old folk tales, like the ones I used to read in my childhood in an old book at my grandfather's house - an old (Swedish) reader printed in 1910 that my grandfather (born in 1904) used in school. There weren't all that many children's book in their house, so I used to return to that old reader every now and then. I still have it, and I sometimes still return to it in search of certain old stories, fables and myths.

I think Rowling has caught the style of old fairy tales very well, but also as ususal managed to add her own twist. Just a bit school-mistressy perhaps that she thinks she needs to point that out herself in the Introduction... ;)

In Muggle fairy tales, magic tends to lie at the root of the hero or heroine's troubles - the wicked witch has poisoned the apple, or put the princess into a hundred year's sleep, or turned the prince into a hideous beast. In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, on the other hand, we meet heroes and heroines who can perform magic themselves, and yet find it just as hard to solve their problems as we do.
J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Introduction

I enjoyed the stories though, including Professor Dumbledore's Notes, which follows each of the five stories. I'm glad it was decided the book should be made available for all readers!

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