Sometimes I find inspiration in the strangest places….and books. Here are a few on my current reading table:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
By J.K. Rowling
2005 Scholastic Books

Why is Harry Potter Important?

Someone who had never read any of the Harry Potter books asked me the question the other day. She had not read any of the series, nor had her daughter. She asked as a fellow mother and as a curious soul, so I answered the best I could:

To begin with, Ms. Rowling gets it. The “it” I am referring to is actually a number of “its” including: the adolescent/teenage mind and heart, the duel within us all between good and evil, the difficult choices life brings us, and the rich drama of everyday life, even though that life is in a magical realm. Having a parallel world within our normal world is brilliant, because Ms. Rowling does not have to bluntly point out to us issues in this world that should be of concern. We get to step back and take a look from a perspective outside of our own, and that is rather comforting, in a way. Our daily news is scary, man! And the stuff in Harry Potter books is scary too; yet since it is once removed, it all can be handled more easily in our psyches, whether we are an adult or teen or child. In the recent Potter books, we get to read how the magical world is just as paranoid as ours, and perhaps even more so because of a recent spate of terror among its inhabitants. The more colorful places in the villages are shuttered, or under extreme observation—even Hogwarts School has a variety of check points and magical blockades to go through.

The other reason to read the Potter books is to demonstrate that power, any power, has responsibility intimately bundled with it. For those of us who fantasize about having magical powers, and what that would do for us, Ms. Rowling wisely points out that magic does not solve all the problems for the characters in the book. Magic comes with responsibility, hence underage magical children cannot practice certain things without some basis of knowledge of how to use magic wisely, and safely.

In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince , Harry once again faces these responsibilities from the perspective of someone who is now armed with a wider range of powers, and struggles with the proper use of those powers. His celebrity-hood among the magical people is now well established and embellished upon because of his recent battles with Lord Voldemort, the Dark Lord. Heaped onto this unwanted celebrity status is a prophecy that is being bandied about that states, “Neither will live while the other survives…”, a prophecy everyone in his world seem to think involves Harry and Voldemort.

There are lighter moments in between the darker times: his best friend Ron finally gets something of a love life; this prompts jealously from his other friend Hermione; and then there is a new love interest for Harry. The deep and abiding friendship between his friends and Harry is tested here, yet it is the relationship between him and Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, that is an intriguing story running throughout the book.

Dumbledore has taken it upon himself to instruct Harry to meet his future destiny with more preparation. One of my favorite lines in the book has Dumbledore explaining prophecy, and how much to take it seriously: “…Harry, never forget that what the prophecy says is only significant because Voldemort has made it so. ….Voldemort singled you out as the person who would be most dangerous to him—and in doing so , he made you the person who would be most dangerous to him!”

A wise thing to remember in this world, when we are setting store on all the terror that could be ; perhaps giving those very terrors an unnecessary power over our lives.

We need to read the Harry Potter books, not only because they are perfect for our times, but they reflect the messy imperfectness of our times placed in a slightly different setting. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and even the great Dumbledore and evil Voldemort are us …just picture us all with magical wands….

A long Way Down
by Nick Hornby
2005 Riverhead Books

I was wondering how to write about the fact that a book about four lost souls who meet while each are trying to commit suicide has touched me deeply and given me a sort of warped hope for our collective future. Well, I guess I just said it, didn't I ? Yup, I ended up feeling a strange kind of hopefulness for humanity by reading about four exceedingly flawed persons.

The persons in question have each climbed to a fifteen story tower block in London on New Year's eve., hoping to end it all by jumping off. Various reasons for their own determined demise are told in four first person narratives: Maureen is a single mother of a severely disabled son for nineteen long, drab years; Martin is a washed up TV talk show host who has lost a wife and kids and any sense of dignity by sleeping with a fifteen year old—the latest in a number of self-degrading actions; JJ has barely survived the breakup of his beloved rock band; and Jess is a mouthy, dark, funny, troublesome teenager who is mostly very, very lost.

When they happen to meet on said tower block, a last minute decision is made—a sort of a pact— that they would see life through to Valentine's day. This unlikely community then begins to unravel the forces of their various lives which brought them to the literal brink.

Mr. Hornby speaks from each person's voice so meticulously, I could hear them in my head as they told me about the unfolding series of events. I came to care about each of them, no matter how annoying or whiney they became, or angry or lame, because there were thoughts that stirred within them that had seen the light of day within my own mind—a rather terrifying personal admission, to be sure. But who among us has had a life that we would consider perfect, from start to now? A distinct minority, that's who, so get over it. Most of us have pondered the Great Beyond at one point or another, most of us have pondered whether this world is actually worth the living in it.

There are no tidy answers in this book—I like that kind of honesty. The ending kept me thinking about endings and beginnings; but like the rest of the book my hope came in the survival of a human characteristic that will perhaps keep us all alive: We humans have a choice in the matter of living our every day—a choice in how we live, what rules we abide by, what consequences we want to stir up with our actions. That life is ultimately a choice provides the warped hope I mentioned earlier. The four people in the book are at the seeming bottom of their lives, and yet there is still a long way down to go.

Blink; The Power of Thinking without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell
Little Brown and Company, 2005

Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about those choices that seem to be made in the blink of an eye.

Why are some people great decision makers while others are terrible at the job?

Why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others, but work out to be the correct ones?

A psychologist examines these snap decisions and choices. You will never think about thinking in the same way again.

Here Speeching America : A very Strange Guide to English as it is Garbled Around the World
By Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras
Villard Books, 2004

Attention all you armchair travelers and those about to embark on journeys around the world: The rest of the world speeches American very bad.

That fact is hilariously illustrated by the way English is translated on shop signs, travel brochures and even t-shirt slogans. Every time I turn to a page in this book, I try to read aloud some of the translations, and end up in a tearful puddle of laughing fits.

Example from a Japanese magazine:

Mr. Bike: Magazine for Windy People

And then there's this golfing tips headline from a Bangkok newspaper:

Why the Right Dimples on Your Balls Can Help.

Hey, I didn't make that up!

From a sign at a Buddhist temple:

Foot Wearing Prohibited.

Ouch. You get the drift. Read this and weep (with mirth).

Home   About Elke   Letters from God   Aura Portraits   Services   Activities   Blog   Reviews   Privacy   Links   Contact

Copyright © Elke Siller Macartney. All rights reserved.
Designed www.suestudios.com