A most interesting owl.
25/11/2003 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIzzie is lurking at the Min of Fin en route to an evening of Champagne tasting. And what are we celebrating? Well a green envelope from the Ministry Library got Iz all gooey and nostalgic.
This little green envelope contained one of those rude letters from the library demanding their books back.
But two years ago on another Tuesday in November (27 November to be precise), Iz returned from her house elf job at 2pm to discover just such a green letter from the very same library. This one was to say that the two books I had requested had arrived and would be held for up to three days.
Oh happy Iz. Truly it was a moment of inspiration to try the Min library instead of pointlessly waiting in queues at the public libraries.
Since the queues were so long in those libraries, Iz had to make do with the next best thing which was called "Exploring Harry Potter" by Elizabeth Schaeffer. It was an American book sort of in the style of those notes to plays that students use to study for English Literature. It had brief explanations about alchemy, chemistry, potions, medieval history and all sorts of interesting things as well as descriptions, symbols and themes for each chapter of the first three books. A sad substitute really but some of the background information was quite fascinating. Izzie had her own idea of the stories based on this book and it was interesting then to compare the map to the actual territory (And it did contain lots of spoilers)Ironic really since Iz never ever used these sorts of notebooks in any literature course she ever did. I want to find the stuff myself and not be spoon fed thank you very much. But then again - most of the books that these study guides are concerned with are much more readily available to creatures like Iz who do not want to spend money acquiring them.
Iz goes to pick up the precious possessions with anticipation but no idea just what adventures were to be in store.
The librarian has a big smile on her dial and whispers to one of the others - "She's here" and hands over the loot. Apparently they were all rather curious and wanted to see exactly which crazy creature wanted the Potter books!
That evening, Iz went over to stay at Petunia's place and sat outside by the moonlight trying to read the first few pages of the preciousssss. Gave up in the end and went inside and resorted to muggle technology to get the Potter gossip.
By the end of the week, was back at the Library filling in the request forms for the other two books.
It's funny really. While I had heard so much good stuff about these books from my bestest friends and even from my fairy Godmother (especially from my fairy Godmother) the whole merchandising and utterly awful crap in the shops - those WB cartoon characters in particular were extremely offputting. The name of the main character himself which Iz still thinks (like Petunia Dursley) is a really nasty name indeed - conjured images of nerdishness and Bill Gates on a broomstick.
I'd also listened to numerous talk back shows about the books with the usual bunch of boring whinging born again Christians damning such satanic works and noticed that all the people who condemned the books had never read them and that most of the people ringing in to praise them were parents and teachers (and the kids of course) Stories from teachers of dyslexic kids with severe bibliophobia suddenly turning into insatiable bookworms simply because they did not want to wait for stories at bedtime to hear what happened to Harry next or where the truancy levels in one particular school dropped dramatically when the teachers started reading the books in class at 2pm, all made Iz immensely curious.
I'd probably first vaguely heard the books mentioned back in 1999 but it was in July 2000 that the world seemed to go totally Potter crazy. The ma would snort with derision. Marketing. A book making kids want to read? People are so so gullible. Iz would feel the need to defend Harry in spite of knowing nothing about him for the simple reason that Petunia's very own daughter also became a rabid insatiable bookworm due largely to the influence of one book "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".
Here was the evidence in her own family, in front of her own eyes and she is claiming it could not be possible!
And now two years later, from initially refusing to buy the books in the shops, Izzie has two copies of the first book, one of the second, two of the third and two of the fourth, not to mention the countless copies of them that I have given as presents to people or the fifth one which was the first time ever ever in my life where I bought a book - not only a first edition in hardback, but without having read a single sentence of it. Not even one word. And managed to keep it that way for four whole hours until I got to the special Izzie place specially chosen for the occasion.
And that's just the excuse Iz needs to celebrate!
This little green envelope contained one of those rude letters from the library demanding their books back.
But two years ago on another Tuesday in November (27 November to be precise), Iz returned from her house elf job at 2pm to discover just such a green letter from the very same library. This one was to say that the two books I had requested had arrived and would be held for up to three days.
Oh happy Iz. Truly it was a moment of inspiration to try the Min library instead of pointlessly waiting in queues at the public libraries.
Since the queues were so long in those libraries, Iz had to make do with the next best thing which was called "Exploring Harry Potter" by Elizabeth Schaeffer. It was an American book sort of in the style of those notes to plays that students use to study for English Literature. It had brief explanations about alchemy, chemistry, potions, medieval history and all sorts of interesting things as well as descriptions, symbols and themes for each chapter of the first three books. A sad substitute really but some of the background information was quite fascinating. Izzie had her own idea of the stories based on this book and it was interesting then to compare the map to the actual territory (And it did contain lots of spoilers)Ironic really since Iz never ever used these sorts of notebooks in any literature course she ever did. I want to find the stuff myself and not be spoon fed thank you very much. But then again - most of the books that these study guides are concerned with are much more readily available to creatures like Iz who do not want to spend money acquiring them.
Iz goes to pick up the precious possessions with anticipation but no idea just what adventures were to be in store.
The librarian has a big smile on her dial and whispers to one of the others - "She's here" and hands over the loot. Apparently they were all rather curious and wanted to see exactly which crazy creature wanted the Potter books!
That evening, Iz went over to stay at Petunia's place and sat outside by the moonlight trying to read the first few pages of the preciousssss. Gave up in the end and went inside and resorted to muggle technology to get the Potter gossip.
By the end of the week, was back at the Library filling in the request forms for the other two books.
It's funny really. While I had heard so much good stuff about these books from my bestest friends and even from my fairy Godmother (especially from my fairy Godmother) the whole merchandising and utterly awful crap in the shops - those WB cartoon characters in particular were extremely offputting. The name of the main character himself which Iz still thinks (like Petunia Dursley) is a really nasty name indeed - conjured images of nerdishness and Bill Gates on a broomstick.
I'd also listened to numerous talk back shows about the books with the usual bunch of boring whinging born again Christians damning such satanic works and noticed that all the people who condemned the books had never read them and that most of the people ringing in to praise them were parents and teachers (and the kids of course) Stories from teachers of dyslexic kids with severe bibliophobia suddenly turning into insatiable bookworms simply because they did not want to wait for stories at bedtime to hear what happened to Harry next or where the truancy levels in one particular school dropped dramatically when the teachers started reading the books in class at 2pm, all made Iz immensely curious.
I'd probably first vaguely heard the books mentioned back in 1999 but it was in July 2000 that the world seemed to go totally Potter crazy. The ma would snort with derision. Marketing. A book making kids want to read? People are so so gullible. Iz would feel the need to defend Harry in spite of knowing nothing about him for the simple reason that Petunia's very own daughter also became a rabid insatiable bookworm due largely to the influence of one book "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".
Here was the evidence in her own family, in front of her own eyes and she is claiming it could not be possible!
And now two years later, from initially refusing to buy the books in the shops, Izzie has two copies of the first book, one of the second, two of the third and two of the fourth, not to mention the countless copies of them that I have given as presents to people or the fifth one which was the first time ever ever in my life where I bought a book - not only a first edition in hardback, but without having read a single sentence of it. Not even one word. And managed to keep it that way for four whole hours until I got to the special Izzie place specially chosen for the occasion.
And that's just the excuse Iz needs to celebrate!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Looks like you got hit by a spambot, Izzy.
Date: 2003-11-25 03:36 am (UTC)Re: Looks like you got hit by a spambot, Izzy.
Date: 2003-11-26 05:09 am (UTC)But as long as they remain nutty rather than nasty - will not yet go so far as disabling anonymous posts.
The summoning of the green light took somewhat less time than 30 seconds;)