Day 2 : Friday, June 24th, 2011
Current Book : Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, page 12
Total pages read: 321 out of 4,100 (8% completed)
Wow, this is gonna be hard... but fun. I did the math, and because of my retreat I'm going on I'm gonna need to read a little under 250 pages a day to make it. This isn't necessarily really difficult, but it does mean that if I skip reading just for a day I'll be way behind.
Anyway, the books! I finished the first book, and then read 12 pages into the second. The Sorcerer's Stone... cracked me up. There's so much foreshadowing and laying down of a perfect foundation that it's not even funny. Plus, the characters are just perfect. I'd forgotten how good of an author J.K. Rowling really is. What really made me laugh was how stupid Harry is. Just young-stupid. Think about it! He's not a freshman or anything in this book.... he's 11, so that puts him in 5th or 6th grade. And so are Ron and Hermione. I'm excited to see this arc with all of them. For Ron to come out of his shell and be comfortable with himself as an individual, for Hermione to learn to shaddup, and for Harry to become the hero we all know.
There were a couple places in the book that made me stop and think. The first was on page 128, just after everyone sings the school song (everyone sings to their own tune). "Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!" This statement is really important because music has so much meaning in today's world. And Dumbledore is brought to tears by the un-polished school song!
The next is after the troll fiasco when Hermione lies to keep the boys out of trouble. "But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them." Haha this ties back to how great of a writer Jo is, and how excited I am for the character arc of these three.
The next quote is Harry and Hermione talking before Harry's first Quidditch game.
""You've got to eat some breakfast."
"I don't want anything."
"Just a bit of toast," wheedled Hermione.
"I'm not hungry."
Harry felt terrible. In an hour's time he'd be walking onto the field." This just made me crack up because I'm pretty sure that later in the books, when it's Ron's first Quidditch game, the conversation is pretty much the same. We'll have to wait and see.
Next. "The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban." At this point in the book we don't know that Voldemort is back there, but as a re-reader I could catch this one. Hahahaha think about it! They unknowingly just pelted Voldemort in the face with a bunch of snowballs.... repeatedly. Appreciation. I wonder if Voldemort knows it was them?
After they send Norbert off to safety, the trio gets busted. "It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not to meddle in things that weren't his business from now on. He'd had it with sneaking around and spying." Haha I don't think so. There wouldn't be 6 more books if that were true! I can't imagine Jo could have written that with a straight face.
After Harry defeats Voldy/Quirrell, Dumbledore says "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows." This is so true! I was actually waiting for some sort of explanation of this in the 7th book. Think about it... this carries on for 6 more books. I wonder if there's a reason for why everything seems to leak out?
Dumbledore explains to Harry, "You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all---the trouble is, humans do have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them." It's true! Ahhhh I love Dumbledore.
And finally. Harry is about to ask Dumbledore a lot of meaningful questions, and he asks for the truth. ""The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."" Mmmmmm, that's a lot to think about. Truth has so much power, but it's often misused.
So now I'm on to the second book! It makes me laugh because the beginning is such an excuse to recap the first book. I've never noticed because I usually don't read them in this quick of succession. But I'm pumped to finish this one tomorrow because I remember it being sooo good.
Only 3,779 pages to go!
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