The Boy Who Lived

I’ve gone to bed between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. for the last four nights, exhausted, wanting to sleep, but not letting myself go to bed. It’s all because I decided to reread all the Harry Potters. I sort of underestimated their allure. I think that the first time around–for books 5, 6, and 7, at least–I waited in a bookstore until they went on sale at midnight and then stayed up all night reading. I might have read the sixth one cover to cover in a 12- or 13-hour fugue state.

But I thought, hey, I already know how it ends! No worries this time about whether Snape’s good or evil, no waiting for Sirius and Dumbledore to come back from the dead, no nerves or adrenalin or compulsive page-turning. This time I’ll just enjoy the details, calmly analyze how J.K. Rolwing weaves the story so beautifully, and focus on how all the books interconnect. This time I’ll be so low-key about them.

Nope. Totally obsessed. Couldn’t put them down. I did laugh aloud plenty at some of my old favorite jokes–Fred and George Weasley’s jingle about “You-No-Poo, the constipation sensation that’s sweeping the nation,” for instance, and I caught a few I didn’t remember–an excellent Uranus joke in Professor Tralawney’s class, for instance.  I did catch more groundwork laid in early books for the later plot twists, and I dissected the authorial choices a little more cool-headedly. But mostly I just adored them and wanted them to go on and on and on. I cannot overstate my enthusiam for Harry Potter.

I just got Bleak House in the mail yesterday. My, um, well, I suppose stepmother-in-law recommended it as her favorite Dickens, but she did not mention that it was over a thousand pages. When I picked up the envelope, I thought Better World Books accidentally sent me two books. I think I’ll read Franzen’s Freedom first.  Compared to Bleak House, it’s a novella.