Harry Potter: Books 1-3

I am going to break Harry Potter into manageable chunks, and cover books and films together unless there's a major difference between the two. So here are some thoughts on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The US title for the first book drives me crazy. The Philosopher's Stone was something people actually believed might exist in the late medieval and early modern period - a stone that would turn lead to gold and produce the elixir of life.

Let's get some of the major Latin references out of the way first:

Albus = Latin for 'white'

Remus = one of the two brothers who founded Rome, who were suckled by a wolf

Lupus = Latin for 'wolf'

Vol-de-mort = French for 'Flight of death' (not Classical, but worth mentioning!)

Expecto patronum = Latin for 'I am expecting a guardian'

Oculus reparo = Latin for 'I repair the eye'

All the spells are Latin except for 'Avada Kedavra' (which is from the same root as Abracadabra). I won't list them all here, but if anyone is curious about a particular spell, ask me about it in the comments.

I love Harry Potter. Its not great literature - Rowling's writing is somewhat basic (count the number of times she has to say 'he, Harry' because she hasn't made the subject of her sentence sufficiently clear) and there isn't a single original idea in all seven books, but they're great, fun reads. As I spend all day reading thick and often impenetrable books for work, sometimes in different languages, I find it increasingly difficult to get into fiction books in the evening - it's so much easier to just put in a DVD. But there are no problems there with Harry Potter, the stories are exciting and fast-paced and time spent reading it just flies by.

Contrary to popular opinion, my favourite of the films is number four, The Goblet of Fire, but out of the first three I like Prisoner of Azkaban very much. The other two are fine, the first sets up the world of Harry Potter nicely, but they're a bit... bland.

Book One's Fluffy is presumably inspired by Cerberus, the dog that guarded the entrance to Hades, the Greek underworld (see description here). The name 'Fluffy' is great, but unfortunately what he's guarding isn't anywhere near as exciting as the underworld; just a bunch of supposedly protective charms and spells that three 11-year-olds can get through.

Book Two's basilisk is also Classically named - see Pliny the Elder's description here. The Wikipedia article is also good. The basilisk is pretty cool and pretty scary, though I always think it's cheating to have Fawkes destroy its sight. Still, it's a good scene, and I think Dan Radcliffe first showed some real acting skill in that movie, when he thinks he's dying and tries to persuade Ginny to leave without him - I feel really sorry for poor little Harry at that point!

Professor Snape, in the third film, is absolutely right about the origin of the word 'werewolf' (from the Anglo-Saxon wer, man), though werewolf stories were known in Greece and Rome too (see here and here, at LXI and LXII). The first time I read Book Three, before I started to study Ancient History and before I had done much Latin, I didn't realise Lupin was a werewolf - something I have since become somewhat embarassed about (see above)! I like Prisoner of Azkaban a lot - as a book, its one of my favourites. I was genuinely surprised by some of the plot twists and Rowling's treatment of lycanthropy ('werwolfism', from the Greek) as an illness puts an interesting twist on an old tale.

The use of Latin for the magic spells in Harry Potter is similar to its use for the same purpose in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Latin is old, and therefore mysterious. Its also a language that relatively few people can really read, but that a lot of people know little bits of. A lot of us, for example, known the meaning of a motto that we've come across in Latin (like that of the RAF, Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through hard work to the stars). Anyone who's Catholic or who has enjoyed classical Catholic music, like a Requiem Mass, will have heard some Latin. So its an old mysterious language, but one that, at the same time, sounds familiar and which has some words that are almost recognisible - like 'oculus', eye, in 'oculus reparo', the spell to repair spectacles. This makes it especially effective as a magical language. The fun thing for me is translating the Latin spells back into English!




Me at my MA graduation, wearing the Gryffindor House scarf I knit myself and looking very Hogwarts, I think!

Next up: Monty Python's Life of Brian. More Harry Potter to follow at a later date!