A Review: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone, by J K Rowling

The Harry Potter series in recent decades has been a literary phenomenon and a landmark in fantasy writing over the ages.  My first Harry Potter was the second one, Chamber of Secrets, but as predicted, I could not make sense of what had then I read since I hadn’t read the first. A colleague of my mother was a Harry Potter buff, and lent me the first one. Like every other excited teenager, I too was hooked, got my books early, devoured them like religion and obsessed over the stories and characters. I grew up with the books, and read them over and over, often in competition with my cousins.  I also eagerly awaited the movies that came out, and slowly, my heart shattered. The Harry Potter  I had envisioned , and the way some of those stories were told had done little justice to reading the master pieces themselves, and, sadly, over time, I stopped obsessing over them as much as I used to. In fact, my reading methods changed. I no longer was as absorbed in the books I read, and ceased to retain a perfect memory of what I read.

I continued to read though, a tad impatiently, until a fellow bookworm friend asked me to revisit the books I used to read when younger, and maybe notice if I read them with different eyes.

I took up on that suggestion, and Harry Potter was the first series I challenged.  They had been a big part of me growing up. So re-reading it after a long time was also a nostalgia trip. I may receive brickbats from other Potter aficionados for my perspective on things, but in my defence, hey, after five years of separation, I am trying to get my religion back here!

In the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, we are introduced to the Dursleys, a seemingly picture perfect respectable upper middle class thatcherite family with a skeleton in their closet; their cousins, the Potters, a family as out of the ordinary as can be. Ominous occurrences, such as owls in daytime, people in cloaks, and shooting stars are a prelude to the surprising arrival of baby Harry Potter on the Dursleys’ doorstep. Harry, the tiny skeletal boy, the skeleton in the Dursley closet, grows up in a closet as the family’s punch bag, until the days leading up to his eleventh birthday, where the extraordinary pursues Harry and plagues the Dursleys to the point of denial. Answers arrive in the shape of Hargid, a huge friendly giant with a letter of acceptance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hagrid also reveals to him his true identity and calling, not only as a wizard, but as The Boy Who Lived, the only survivor of a fatal encounter as a baby, with Voldemort, a murderous malignant tumour on the magical landscape, a notorious, seemingly unsurpassable practitioner of dark magic, which has made him famous throughout the magical world.

Harry is fascinated by the magical world he belongs to and dealing with his new found identity (but not fame).

He enters Hogwarts, gets sorted into his house, Gryffindor (for the brave only), makes new best friends, Ron( his bro) and Hermione (the sensible ), encounters and learns things strange, interesting and fascinating, discovers a prodigal passion for Quidditch, runs into a pile of mischief like a good eleven year old, (one does wonder, if given the excessive punishment he received at the Dursleys’ , Harry has become rather subconsciously thick skinned, and knows he would be treated far better at Hogwarts, prompting his proactive risk taking?) and becomes the target of a professor,Severus Snape’s dislike. This dislike, taken along by a series of events whose dots he and his two friends manage to connect, uncovers a conspiracy to steal the famed Philosopher’s Stone. 

Given the dismissive response they receive from the professors, they take it upon themselves to save the stone, embarking in an overnight adventure that tests their mettle. And the surprise that meets Harry in the final stage, an unexpected face off with an enemy one could not imagine, and a memorable battle to save the stone, the day, and by extension, the world.

Harry wakes up in the hospital wing, well rested and recovering, to a pile of sweets and an indulgent headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, who has the answers and concludes their adventure.  Harry, Ron and Hermione reunite for a memorable term end feast, where, as the high point, their crazy adventure wins points for their house, Gryffindor, and wins them the House Cup.

The book ends on a note of euphoria, as the academic term ends, and the students have to head back home. Hagrid(is he Rowling’s take on Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant and Santa?) presents him one of his treasures, an album with pictures of his late parents. The story ends on a happy, hopeful note, with promise of something exciting to come.

Certainly the book has its light parts, but it also broaches things that most children that age start to think about. The non-obsessive detachment that Harry has, in spite of his issue-filled backdrop, and by simply being a normal eleven year old kid, and even viewing himself in that light, allows us to connect with him. His excitement at the magical world opening up in front of him, and the many sides, good, bad and ugly, washing over him, allows the audience to bathe in that sensation too. The way he has been written into this book, is that certain aspects of his life are revealed, and enough breathing space has been given in the character’s headspace, for readers to imagine his experiences, and draw up their own version of him. Harry may have begun as an Oliver Twist type deprived orphan, but he embraces his destiny, tries to rise to the challenge as much as an eleven year old in a magical new world can. This becomes a  symbol and a role model for his readers. This would probably explain how emotionally difficult it was for a lot of Harry Potter lovers to reconcile with the on-screen portrayal of the character, and the narration of the story. I suppose seeing Harry and his world tangibly contribute to the gap between the books and the films.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a fairy tale. It is a fairy tale, written with the whimsical quality needed to capture an eleven year old reader. The best thing about Rowling’s writing is that she does not underestimate the children who would read her book, and has therefore, imparted a certain strong writing quality to the book. 

As an adult, the feeling the book left me with, was a happy one; a book with a child protagonist I would love, the right dose of whimsical, magical and adventurous, a motley bunch of complete characters, and a treat to the imagination, and to good literature. A yummy book indeed! 

Writing online

Lately, it seems I haven't been doing too much writing, which is not good. I have restarted reading, and discovered the online writing forum, Wattpad. I've been reading a lot of stuff that has been put up, which is sadly, the usual "OMG that is ssoooooo haaaawwwwwwt! (drrroooooolllll) " type. What I admired about these people is that they love writing , and have put in some effort into narrating stories. But last night, when I encountered the nth story with the same storyline, I'd really had enough.

SO that brings me to my new mission. To write something a little sensible , and put it up on a regular basis, since I felt I had no right to criticize people who write, when I don't do much writing myself.
This blog itself has been an effort like that, for me to get back into writing .

As being the situation with most writers being voracious readers, I want to review the books I read on a regular basis to begin with, and turn that into a series for my blog, and tackle my tendency to procrastinate , killing two birds with one stone. Most of the books I review would be published ones, and if by chance I encounter some good writing and storytelling on Wattpad, I will review that too.

A Review: Ice Station Zebra by Alistair Maclean

My father , a thorough bookworm, has a sort of bias at home regarding buying books. He would rather spend money buying books that would last, be re-read, or referred to, or classics that are otherwise unavailable, and the others, were to be picked up at a library, or borrowed, due to their being one-time reads. In retrospect, the sight of our overflowing bookshelves leads me to believe he had a point.

The return home after submitting my thesis put me in a holiday mood, and I ended up rummaging inside the overflowing bookshelves at home, trying to find a read that would be fast enough, and engaging enough to take me through a lazy day. I came across a copy of the Alistair MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra, which I had read once before, and remembering the good feeling I had that last time I read it, decided on it this time too. I wondered whether I would read the same book very differently a few years later, from the time I read it first, and to test this theory, picked it up again.

My first encounter with Alistair MacLean was through cinema, not books, specifically the Carl Foreman movie, The Guns of Navarone (which made me a huge fan of Gregory Peck, and World War II stories). I had picked up Ice Station Zebra in an airport, and it did not disappoint. It had the Alistair MacLean signature pace, and was a great read.

On a Scottish coast, in the Cold War era, we encounter the United States submarine, the Dolphin, a state-of-the-art submarine, that is ready to leave shore in the morning, heading to the Arctic circle when the crew are greeted with a surprise new addition, a Dr Carpenter, who insists on joining them , and with authority over the crew, citing orders from NATO, via telegram.The mission that the Dolphin has been deployed on, is to rescue the stranded British researchers on a meteorological station , the Drift Ice Station Zebra, on a drifting chunk of ice in the Arctic Circle, following a terrible fire accident there, that leaves few survivors, and little hope of survival, given the harsh conditions towards the North Pole. Dr Carpenter's presence and his insistence to join the crew turns a typical rescue mission into a matter of political urgency.

Dr Carpenter professes to being a doctor with specific training related to submarine and arctic conditions, and manages to convince the Captain, Swanson, and the crew to accept him on board, after confiding in the Captain that the Drift Ice station was in fact a top secret location for monitoring Soviet missiles, whose activities need to be protected. That the head of the Drift Ice Station Zebra, Major Halliwell, is Dr Carpenter's brother, is also revealed early on.  While the voyage is underway, we are introduced to the nuclear submarine's layout and features by the submarine's doctor, Benson. The submarine manages to pick up weak interrupted signals from the station, and dives below the Arctic Ice , in order to get closer, searching for a location with thin enough ice to break through and reach the station.

Carpenter, and two other crew members alight a few miles near the station, and braving a blizzard, reach  the station, where they are greeted with a scene of devastation.  A series of prefab huts built to house the residents and the equipment have caught fire,and the one remaining intact hut houses the seven starving, frostbitten and wounded survivors. Carpenter's brother unfortunately, was one of the eleven who perished, their bodies charred . While looking around, Carpenter finds evidence of foul play, and believes the fire to be caused due to arson and not by accident. They return to the Dolphin, which tries to get closer to the station by diving under the ice, and torpedoing its way closer, but sabotage in the torpedo area puts the submarine at risk, which is brought under control with great difficulty. The few members of the crew having Carpenter's confidence are on alert for foul play, following the alert, and they arrive at the station and pick up the survivors. The station is scrutinised again covertly, while providing relief and picking up the survivors.

After getting the survivors on board, the Dolphin and its crew are beset with a series of accidents, from engine malfunction, to physical harm. The sequence of these events and the culprits of the massacre at Ice Station Zebra are unmasked, following the revelation of Dr Carpenter being a member of MI6, the British Intelligence wing, and the eventual clever frustration of the culprits' plans (and eventually saving the skins of the US- UK bloc).

The book is a racy , fast paced read, with all the urgency of a military novel. Alistair MacLean writes crisply, and beautifully. As with all whodunits, there are a series of small clues and pick up points scattered through out the book, which the reader has to pay close attention to in order to connect things well. I ended up having to go back and forth, trying to make the cross connections. I felt that the pace of the book did not run hand in hand with the amount of information presented and digested in the plot. Many points in the book's narrative refer to the layout of the Dolphin, and also the layout of the station, which are helpfully provided diagrammatically in the first few pages, but the narrative causes us to flip pages repeatedly to recognise what the author refers to.

The book lasted a day, and left me feeling refreshed. The book caused me to think well, and kept me hanging off the suspense cliff reasonably often, and the narrative was engaging. The book is written to be read in one sitting if we are to make sense of its complexity, and in this sense,it is in the same league as Dan Brown's and John Grisham's thrillers, a book that, in spite of the dated context and story, reads like a contemporary thriller.

Considering books with wartime themes, Alistair MacLean is one of the few authors who understands and brings about the wartime scenario very well in his books. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that he has lived through the second World War. A contrast in the style, or even in the simple portrayal of tumultuous war-like times, are two books, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, and the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All three speak of a War-like situation. Dr Carpenter is a man incognito on a mission, so are Harry and his friends. Anne and her family are in hiding trying to survive the war, as are Harry's supporters .

In Ice Station Zebra, we encounter the writing of an author who has been in the thick of action, in actual battles and therefore writes from experience. The crisp effectiveness of communication, the filtering of emotional drama, the need for the right action at the right time, and the urgency and weight of these actions are well brought out in his books. From Anne Frank, we learn of the oppressive daily life led by those in hiding, and the edge they have to live on. J K Rowling tries to draw both themes close in her last book, but the impression of the reading experience, or the scenario presentation is nowhere near as intense as Alistair MacLean's, or Anne Frank's , and ultimately,one has to fall back on Rowling's own imagination. But the reviews of both Harry Potter, and Anne Frank, will be dealt with later.

All in all, a wonderful whodunit, from a master of wartime intrigue. Who can say that racy thrillers are written only in today's time?