Revisiting Harry Potter

December 7, 2010

All these long long long years, I have never managed to reread a book from cover to cover. Yesterday was the day this changed. Watching the first part of the last instalment of Harry Potter last week brought back sweet memories of the Harry Potter craze that had gripped me ages ago. And so, I rummaged through my ever growing collection of books and found The Deathly Hallows nicely tucked away in a corner in my overfull cupboard. Leafing through the book was like stepping back into time, to the moment when I picked up the first book from a store on J. M. Road. I remember asking (pleading I would say) my mother to buy it for me in 2003. Well, she did buy it for me. And the rest of the series as well. Although now these books have been circulating and I haven’t been able to locate all of them. Thankfully, the last still remains with me.

So, on Sunday morning I picked it up and relived the first ever fantasy series I have read. Over the years, I got acquainted with other (and perhaps better fantasy writers) but reading Rowling again after all these years, made me realize that Harry Potter would always remain one of my favourite characters no matter what. Carroll, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Le Guin, Robert Jordan, Christopher Paolini, James Barclay … have spun beautiful stories. But Potter was the one I met first and although his charm had dimmed over the years when I met more memorable characters and encountered more magical worlds, rereading Rowling made me fall in love with Rowling’s world once again.

The film: I find the first part of The Deathly Hallows to be better than the previous movies. The others whizzed by trying to relate the tale as quickly as possible. But this one moves at a slower pace allowing the viewers to savor each moment.

It felt good to walk into Harry’s world once again although it’s with sadness that I wait for the last installment to be released. All good things come to an end. But the stories live on...

The Hobbit

Proceeding with my own quest in exploring fantasy literature for a feasible topic to work on, I joined Bilbo Baggins on his quest for the dwarves’ lost treasure. I had read the The Lord of the Rings trilogy partially. That means I have read about one half of the three volumes taken together and didn’t quite finish it. So, I already had an insight into Middle Earth.

Bilbo Baggins, an unlikely hero of this tale is reluctant to accompany the dwarves but the plot has to proceed with him rather than without him and so, begins the journey. Tolkien’s writing is lucid enough but, at times, I do feel he could have cut down on things. But then when you are creating a whole new world, I guess that’s bound to be difficult, almost impossible. So, I hung on to the book and closed it with a satisfied smile in the end.

The narrator talking to the reader all throughout the book is common in children’s literature, I guess. Lewis Carroll did it and so did C S Lewis. But that doesn’t lessen its appeal in any sense to adults. (whatever or whoever they may be.) Tolkien’s simple, lucid style which never deteriorates into moralizing teaches a lot of lessons while pretending not to teach at all.

The world he creates begins with Bag end where the Hobbit lives comfortably in a hole in the ground. Then we travel to the mighty Misty Mountains, then through Mirkwood and, finally, to the Lonely Mountains. The journey itself is filled with adventures and what follows in the end is merely an additional adventure. Nonetheless, it’s a journey that will stay imprinted in your mind for times to come. It began in 1937 and it still continues…

The Word for the World is Forest

Published in 1972 as a novella/extended short story, it unfolds on a planet situated 27 years away from Earth/Terra. Part of Le Guin’s Hainish novels, I find it an interesting take on the tendency of ecological destruction that seems ingrained in many of us present day Terrans. After having destroyed the ecology of their own planet with only some wild rats left as the sole animals and all forests destroyed, the Terrans are colonizing what they call New Tahiti but which the natives of the planet call Athshe which means forest and, hence, the title (which wasn’t actually the author’s idea it seems. Who knows?)

I like the contrasting ecological depictions in her fantasy and SF works. In her Fantasy works, we find a society harmonized with nature. The fantastic world values the nature and its magic to a certain extent. It doesn’t seek to dominate it. (There may be other pressing concerns in their lives I guess.) The economy of nature foregrounds the events, may it be the Uplands depicted in Gifts or the Marsh People of Gavir’s village found in Powers. In Earthsea, the dependence on nature is much more apparent.

In her SF works, as the novels proceed, so does the technology move apace with time. The ansible arrives in New Tahiti and with it comes a change in the policy of the mindless ecological destruction that the current regime in New Tahiti had let loose. The colonization of Athshe brings to mind the colonization of Australia way back when. Australia, an island cut off from the invading colonisers of Europe for so long, had flourished with most species endemic to that piece of land alone. Marsupials did not originate in Australia but flourished there more than anywhere else.

However, with the colonizers arrived their own animals which wreaked havoc on the delicate ecological balance of that island. The hunter-gatherer stage was an important event in the so called progress of human civilization but hunting was for satisfying hunger not for recreation. Over time and with more ‘progress’, hunting metamorphosed from an activity for survival to a sport for recreation. The colonizers brought their own game from their native lands into Australia since such game was lacking there. With new plant and animal species introduced into a land where they were immune to the native diseases, these flourished, slowly devouring the natives. (Australia is just an example, it happened elsewhere as well.)

Moving from the hunter gatherer economy into an agricultural economy, we were no longer dependent directly on forests for our survival. Quite the contrary, I guess. We hunted animals in the forests where they thrived and as a consequence didn’t harm the forests but with agriculture that dependence dissolved. Even today, we have tribals subsisting in the hunter gatherer stage where studies have shown that they follow a system of restraints which ensures that the forests are replenished through various restrictions that the hunters impose upon hunting and gathering activities.

Coming to our own recent history on earth, the colonizers were simply invading New Lands and bringing civilization to the uncivilized in their eyes. On Athshe, it was a whole planet getting a crash course in civilization. Le Guin gives a new meaning to racism, where on Athshe all Terrans (irrespective of race) come together to wipe out another species. In spite of scientific proof that these native inhabitants are humans, the Terrans(at least the majority) refuse to acknowledge it treating them as animals. (But they don’t mind raping animals.) The size and the fur add to their outlook of creechies being animals.

Athshe was being depleted of its forests for the lumber which was needed on Terra. Doesn’t this deforestation bring back memories of the large scale deforestation undertaken by the colonizers in the colonies? It was the colonized timber that built their invading ships.

It is the blinding sense of their own superiority that leads to the Terran downfall. You cannot really expect animals to revolt now, can you? Here is where the history of Athshe diverges from that of Earth in the last century. The Athsheians successfully revolted and led civilization back into spaceships bound for home, never to return for a long time to come. They did leave knowledge of violence on the peaceful planet. It was an irrevocable knowledge which Selver regretted to have acquired. He was the one who dreamt of war and it ate into him bit by bit. But the Athsheians are left alone to their own way of life more or less.

The colonies on earth weren’t so successful. Even after the colonizers withdrew, they left behind their mindset. In settler colonies, the natives were more or less destroyed. The Aborigines of Australia, the Indians of North America…

Athshe seems to be the fulfilment of a history that could have been ours.

Gifts - The First Novel in The Annals of the Western Shore Trilogy

It was in August last year that I read this book for the first time. Ursula K Le Guin is an author I had wanted to read ever since I did a course in Science Fiction and Fantasy in my Post Grad class more than a year ago. Books by not so popular authors are hard to find in India. (Not so popular in India I mean!) The book that was mentioned in class was The Left Hand of Darkness (chiefly for the gender issues that it deals with) and of course her Earthsea Trilogy which later became 5 books.

Browsing in Landmark , one of the only two bookstores in Pune where I have found Le Guin books, I happened to find Gifts in the Children’s books section. I hadn’t really looked up Le Guin earlier, so I didn’t know anything about her books except a couple of titles by her. But then I have always believed that when you are meant to read a book ,you will find it when the time is right. Plus I avoid looking up about authors and their works before reading the book itself to avoid any prejudice that I might develop. So I picked up Gifts and began reading it immediately. Fantasy was a genre I hadn’t delved into deeply for some reason. Harry Potter was the farthest I had got in school and now when I look back at those days I wonder why it took me so long to plunge in to the world of fantasy. Now, after six months of living in that world, it seems like I always belonged there.

Gifts was my first book when I got back to fantasy and since then I haven’t stopped. Introducing the readers to the Western Shore, we are told the story of the people of the Uplands who inherit gifts in their lineage. The gifts vary in different domains and are passed on from father-son and mother-daughter. Through, Orrec Caspro, the young narrator, son of the brantor of Caspromant, Le Guin weaves a story that draws you into the lives of the people of the Uplands and their gifts. The domains are mostly in conflict and the gifts are used to protect one’s domain. Set in a natural landscape ravaged by poverty, the domains struggle to survive through stealing livestock, farming, etc. Orrec, the main character, surfaces in the next two parts of the trilogy in smaller roles.

The subtlety of her writing is what I enjoy the most. If you don’t pay close attention you often tend to miss things. After having read her Earthsea series (later on), I would say I like the change in the framework. With Earthsea, I often felt the action was lacking. It was more her way of writing that I liked in Earthsea but here it’s not just the writing, there’s much more.

With this review, I hope to begin blogging regularly on the books I read…

Nature Fights Back

15th January, 2010
Pune

A long time ago I had written about pigeons who had nested in my balcony. The doom of the chicks although not witnessed by me could as well be imagined. So, I had given up hope.

But, to my surprise, the pigeons didn't give up hope. Now, I do not really have that keen a sense to be able to distinguish one pigeon from the other and, unfortunately, I could not tag them. So they are all Blue Rock Pigeons to me. So, immediately after the chicks disappeared, the mating began. Well, I must say they didn't take any time to grieve. Or may be they did. May be this was their way of grieving. To bring back a life that was taken away. To fight for what was rightfully theirs. Or may be I am just reading too much into an aroused group of pigeons.

Nature took its course. Usually after pigeons mate, they lay eggs. So, within a month or may be more (I didn't really keep track of time) I had two more eggs in my balcony with the pigeons perched protectively over them. Unfortunately, for my Mom they chose her Money Plant for their family home. And today it lies almost at death's door. My mother may love her plants but she would never take away someone else's life purposely. The Money Plant would have to struggle for its own survival. (And the struggle continues.)

I didn't really have any hopes on this family considering the previous tragedy. Nonetheless, I kept a close watch. As nature was fulfilling its duty perfectly, the eggs hatched and we had two babies either being fed or sleeping. As time wore one, the food seemed to be doing its job pretty well. They greww plumper by the day. At the back of my head, I kept thinking it was only a matter of time before the evil Crow would put in an appearance. I am not sure if I hold any grudges against the crow, because even he has to eat somehow in order to survive. I am not sure where my sympathies lie. But then when it comes to nature, I guess you can't really take sides. So neither will I.

So, my little baby chicks who didn't really seem little anymore, soon started flapping their wings. Time does fly by too quickly and before I knew it, the chicks were learning to fly too. At first, there were baby steps. They hopped from one pot to another.

This time the parents had chosen a better spot to nest. It was in a corner. So, while the chicks were growing up, they weren't really visible. And when they started hopping about, they took shelter in between the pots at any sign of danger. I wonder if instincts really are the best teachers.

And then, one day, I found them perched on the legde above my balcony, looking down at me as if with pride at their own achievement. We humans, often, attribute human qualities to the other species. May be these chicks have no idea what pride means. Or may be they do. I wonder if I will ever know. But we better not forget their achievement in the midst of a so called philosophical question. So, there they were, looking out at the world from their rightful place.

I hoped and prayed that they would fly away soon, I had grown too attached to them to witness another tragedy. Thankfully, this time nature let them be. So, one fine day, I found one of them had flown away. How do I know if he had actually flown away? Because at night he came back! To sleep in the pot that he grew up in. The next day, both were gone for a while. And came back later. This went on for a few days until one day, when, I guess, they finally decided it was time to set out on their own.

Nature seems cruel at times. Natural disasters (in light of the Haiti earthquake) definitely validate that point. But it is the human spirit, no, not just the human spirit, but the spirit of every living being that brings about a balance. There may be cruelty in Nature but it is the very same Nature which has given us the strength to face that cruelty and still survive.

(By the way, pigeons defintely have something called 'word of mouth/beak publicity' because I am officially naming my balcony 'Pigeon Breeding Ground' considering the fact that there is another pair of pigeons out there at this very moment looking after their freshly layed eggs. )