Harry Potter and the Mission to Tesco

Filed by: Darren Turpin on July 26, 2007 at 8:23
Filed under: Books

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' by J.K. Rowling - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukI read the final Harry Potter installment on Saturday, publication day.

Having managed to avoid all potential spoilers and plot-hints for the past couple of weeks, it was vital that I managed to read the book without any outside interference ruining the event. I've had a good reading experience wrecked for by spoilers a few times before (one case I clearly remember was Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons) and it's always been dreadfully disappointing. And as I've thoroughly enjoyed the entire Harry Potter series so far - and have invested dozens of hours of precious reading time in getting to the final episode - the last thing I wanted was to end up reading the entire book subconsciously waiting for such-and-such to occur, rather than reading the book as J.K. Rowling presumably intended it to be read.

I therefore formulated and enacted the following minimal human interaction purchasing plan: Out of bed 06.40. Arrive Tesco 07.00. MP3 player on, something suitably raucous - Oasis as it happens - to drown out any possibility of over-hearing some evil bastard of a career shelf-stacker with a grudge against people who can actually read discussing the denouement with his mates just inside the entrance... Enter store. Work out where they've stashed the Potters. Grab a copy of The Book. Head for self-service checkout...

[So far so good. Sticky moment here when Tesco's checkout programming threatened to thwart my carefully laid scheme and a member of staff has to come over and press the right buttons for me. Luckily she didn't say a word about the book. I'm very glad, for both our sakes, as bludgeoning her to death with the new Harry Potter could quite possibly have led to an unacceptable reading-schedule delay due to police interference.]

Right then, purchase complete, mission accomplished. Head for home. Kettle on, large mug of tea and packet of biscuits to hand. Lie back on the sofa, and begin to read...

Okay, why all the rigmarole? Easy: I'm pathologically allergic to spoilers. Paul Raven wondered the other day whether a book that's susceptible to spoilerage is worth reading in the first place, so I'll explain how this unfortunate condition affects me, personally: Well, actually, an allergy to spoilers is probably the wrong way of putting it; I think it's more to do with my having an addiction instead; an addiction to the anticipation of the unknown, to the satisfaction that's gained from the gradual unfolding of narrative events and the corresponding thrill of the moment of eventual revelation.

The way I see it, if an author has crafted a novel so that the plot unfolds in a particular sequence of events, with a specific effect in mind, then it's only right that those events should be discovered by the reader in the sequence that the author intended, wouldn't you say?

Knowing that a particular event is going to happen at some point in the novel - or even the nebulous hint or possibility that something specific might occur - can actually change the way you experience the book, sometimes dramatically, often detrimentally. It can also lessen the impact of other key scenes by drawing the focus of your attention away from them ("Oh, so that's not the bit where so-and-so happens, then..."), and of course, at a very basic level and if the plot element is a key one, it simply ruins the surprise ("Oh, yeah, there it is. Ho, hum...")

I think that it's primarily a question of maintaining the element of mystery. I don't necessarily mean that as in 'whodunnit?', but in a very essential, psychological sense. As Jung said: "Before mystery one retains a certain awe along with the yearning to explore and comprehend." And if that isn't the essence of a good reading experience, then I don't know what is.

So, that's why I hate spoilers. Not because they lessen the intrinsic quality of the book, but because they take away some of the narrative mystery, and in doing so they lessen the power and quality of the reading experience. And I have so little reading time these days that I feel I have to do whatever I can to ensure that everything I read offers the highest quality reading experience possible. Even getting up at 6.40 on a Saturday morning and then reading for eight and a half hours straight, if that's what it takes.

Anyhow, what did I think of the book?

Thoroughly enjoyed this one, too.

No, it's not a work of supreme literary genius. No - as James at Big Dumb Object pointed out - it wasn't perfect in every respect. But you know what? It was 600 pages of bloody good children's / young adult story-telling and it offered a very satisfying conclusion to the series. And given all the hype and the pressure and the sheer weight of expectation on J.K. Rowling's shoulders, then what more could we have possibly asked for? And personally, I can honestly say that I was perfectly happy to turn that last page, finally knowing how it all turned out, and safe in the knowledge that I'd finished the narrative journey in the manner in which J.K. Rowling intended it to be experienced.

Yes, Saturday was a pretty good day. Sunday, I had double chores... :(

Filed on: July 26, 2007
Filed under: Books
Tagged With: | |

Comments

9 Responses to 'Harry Potter and the Mission to Tesco'

  1. Christopher Teague on July 26th, 2007 10:08 am

    Tesco? Utterly appalling... by all means go there to buy groceries, but a book? You should be ashamed of yourself...

  2. Ariel on July 26th, 2007 10:12 am

    Ah, yes... I wondered who would be first. The thing is, I had to go to the sorting office,which is next door to Tesco, to collect some parcels from the P.O. Box. Plus the trams aren't running at the moment due to engineering work, so that would have meant either a bus or car journey to the nearest proper book shop (either into Manchester or up to Bury), which would have added an hour or two to the Mission time and increased the risk of exposure several-fold.

    So yes, it was a despicable act, and I do feel... dirty. Can you ever forgive me?

  3. Ed on July 26th, 2007 8:16 pm

    I've bought several books from Tesco and feel no guilt. Would you rather I bought them in Waterstones ;)

    As to your spoiler part, why do some reviewers insist in spending most of their review relaying the main plot strands. That's tantamount to spoilerage. I find myself skipping over to the last paragraph to their opinion which is after all the important part.

  4. Jocelyn Lavin on July 26th, 2007 9:51 pm

    I quite agree re spoilers. In fact, I go a stage further - I hate to even know someone's OPINION of things before I've experienced them for myself. My reading experience is definitely altered if I know that one of my friends has already read the book in question - even if they don't mention what they do or don't like about it! I was quite cross with some of my friends who downloaded the leaked copy and then posted that they liked the book but weren't going to post any spoilers. However, I didn't say anything to them, because I felt a bit silly at being upset by this, and I'm not sure I could have satisfactorily explained why I was!

    The same does not go for Ben Hammersley, whose blog I will never read again after he posted a very specific spoiler, yet claimed that it WASN'T a spoiler... presumably because it didn't involve Harry himself, and/or because he didn't mention which characters were involved. His comments made it pretty easy to guess which characters it was, and knowing that this scene was to come near the end of the story (he gave the PAGE NUMBER) definitely affected my reading experience. Argh.

  5. Ariel on July 27th, 2007 8:06 am

    Ed mate, I actually kinda forgave W'Stone's a while back... after all, Joe did end up being hired by FP to do his dream job as a result (actually, the bastard ended up being hired to do my dream job as a result, but I'm not bitter...)

    Hi Jocelyn - Ouch, sorry to hear about that one. Quoting a page number? That's pretty low... exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. Okay, there's an argument that if we're that desperate to avoid spoilers we should just avoid any mention of the target book / movie / TV show whatsoever, but sometimes spoilers are dumped on you. I found out about a major event in the third series of Lost before it happened, because I was simply checking out the home page of Digg.com and there happened a headline on there that gave it away... because the series had aired in the US already and folks were discussing it after the fact. Hardly deliberate, but still damn annoying...

  6. Christopher Teague on July 27th, 2007 8:45 am

    Ah, spoilers... the funniest was when a bunch of us were drinking and talking shit in a pub in Caerleon, when the topic turned to "The Sixth Sense" and Gary Greenwood gave away the end... only to find out that Steve Lockley hadn't seen it yet, and was looking forward to watching it. ;-)

    Buying books? Well, it's the lesser or two evils I s'pose but W'Stones is apparently a bookshop and sell titles to make a profit, as opposed to selling them at a loss to entice people in so that they can be fleeced on a tin of beans.

    It will be a cold day in Hell before I buy a book from the big T.

  7. Ariel on July 27th, 2007 8:59 am

    Blimey, the look on Steve's face must have been priceless. Mind you, I expect the look on Gary's when he realised he'd put his foot in it was a picture as well... :)

    And yes, yes, yes, but W'Stone's was miles away and I had a schedule to stick to... okay, now I feel really, really bad. Would it help if I said I ordered a signed copy of Tunnels from Waterstone's online last week, and paid full price and everything..?

  8. Christopher Teague on July 27th, 2007 2:37 pm

    Ask him about it at FCon... Gary'll generally spin it out to atleast an hour-long yarn. ;-)

  9. Jocelyn Lavin on July 28th, 2007 1:36 am

    Well, I was being careful, and had split my RSS feeds into two sets - those that I felt I could and couldn't trust not to reveal spoilers. The latter set, I just didn't read in the week before the book came out. But I'd thought a big name like Ben Hammersley - who I'd always had the utmost respect for - would know better.

Leave a Reply






Technorati


Technorati Authority:

View blog authority

Add to Technorati Favorites

Miscellania


British Blog Directory. Blog Flux Directory