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...
