1. Do you love your work?
2. Does your work love you?
3. Do you love yourself?
Thanks Jaja. :)
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The end
I finally got to read the last and in my opinion best of the seven Harry Potter books. I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t eat dinner because Harry was facing the battle at Hogwarts and I just had to know what happened.
I came out of it in a melancholy state, which, two days later, I still can’t shrug off. I don’t know. It seems sad that the series has ended. The finality has left a gaping hole that I did not realize or believe I would actually feel. I mean, so it’s a book. And it’s not as if the world didn’t know that the seventh would be the last. I guess in the end that a good thing. It makes it more believable to put a period to it (unlike the book series of my pre-teen years a.k.a Sweet Valley Twins/High/University, where school never seemed to end and only the characters’ appearances evolved depending on which artist drew the covers).
Still, you can get so attached to Harry after reading about him for so long, it’s hard to accept that the end has finally come. It’s probably the same with the other book series that I love, Anne of Green Gables (then Anne of Avonlea, and so forth), but I read those books when I was really young, when I didn’t know about attachment and goodbyes and letting go.
Haha drama.
But I’m happy too, because Harry finally got his happy ending (okay don’t you dare say I ruined the surprise because I’m probably the last person to have read this book). Yeah sure, I can detect the silliness in that statement. How can you be happy for a fictional character? But that’s the beauty of story-telling, eh? Granted, Rowling probably ripped some ideas off of other coming-of-age, follow-your-dream, good-versus-evil books, but you have to admit that this one definitely sticks, and not just because of the merchandise and marketing. Harry Potter is as real as any other kid with huge problems is. I daresay Harry is in everyone. And so is Hermione, Ron, Draco (maybe a little bit) and the new astig kid on the block, Neville. We felt the pain, longing, struggle, and now happiness.
And don’t we all dream of happiness? Of contentment? Hmm. See, this is why I think Rowling’s target market is actually my age group. People in their 20s to early 30s, torn between careers and principles and desires and responsibilities, wondering what to do and where to go. Harry was born in 1980, after all. How perfect, how relatable.
My only beef is that it tries (too) much to be contemporary. Ron says “effing” quite a lot (parents, you really shouldn’t have bought this for your kids). That made me laugh. Was it really necessary? How can you become classic and ageless if you use words popularized during the effing friendster era? Hay. Sabagay, the Elizabethan language is out of this world din naman. Wait, so if Harry was born in 1980, then the setting of the story would have been 1997. Did people say effing way back in 1997?
Anyway, so that’s it. The saga is over. No matter what critics (I was one of them) say about Harry, it has to be admitted that the book has made an indelible mark on the literature world and people in general.
Harry moved us, and that was enough to reinforce those timeless beliefs that make this world turn.
I came out of it in a melancholy state, which, two days later, I still can’t shrug off. I don’t know. It seems sad that the series has ended. The finality has left a gaping hole that I did not realize or believe I would actually feel. I mean, so it’s a book. And it’s not as if the world didn’t know that the seventh would be the last. I guess in the end that a good thing. It makes it more believable to put a period to it (unlike the book series of my pre-teen years a.k.a Sweet Valley Twins/High/University, where school never seemed to end and only the characters’ appearances evolved depending on which artist drew the covers).
Still, you can get so attached to Harry after reading about him for so long, it’s hard to accept that the end has finally come. It’s probably the same with the other book series that I love, Anne of Green Gables (then Anne of Avonlea, and so forth), but I read those books when I was really young, when I didn’t know about attachment and goodbyes and letting go.
Haha drama.
But I’m happy too, because Harry finally got his happy ending (okay don’t you dare say I ruined the surprise because I’m probably the last person to have read this book). Yeah sure, I can detect the silliness in that statement. How can you be happy for a fictional character? But that’s the beauty of story-telling, eh? Granted, Rowling probably ripped some ideas off of other coming-of-age, follow-your-dream, good-versus-evil books, but you have to admit that this one definitely sticks, and not just because of the merchandise and marketing. Harry Potter is as real as any other kid with huge problems is. I daresay Harry is in everyone. And so is Hermione, Ron, Draco (maybe a little bit) and the new astig kid on the block, Neville. We felt the pain, longing, struggle, and now happiness.
And don’t we all dream of happiness? Of contentment? Hmm. See, this is why I think Rowling’s target market is actually my age group. People in their 20s to early 30s, torn between careers and principles and desires and responsibilities, wondering what to do and where to go. Harry was born in 1980, after all. How perfect, how relatable.
My only beef is that it tries (too) much to be contemporary. Ron says “effing” quite a lot (parents, you really shouldn’t have bought this for your kids). That made me laugh. Was it really necessary? How can you become classic and ageless if you use words popularized during the effing friendster era? Hay. Sabagay, the Elizabethan language is out of this world din naman. Wait, so if Harry was born in 1980, then the setting of the story would have been 1997. Did people say effing way back in 1997?
Anyway, so that’s it. The saga is over. No matter what critics (I was one of them) say about Harry, it has to be admitted that the book has made an indelible mark on the literature world and people in general.
Harry moved us, and that was enough to reinforce those timeless beliefs that make this world turn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)