Victory, thy name is Cloud!

So I just finished, for the first time ever, reading a book in Russian. Garri Potter i Uznik Azkabana. Five hundred and seven pages.

Oh. My. Gawd.

It took me a week, what in English would take two days. (Excuse me in advance if this blog is littered with idiomatically clumsy sentences—reading this much Russian has had a noticeable effect on my spoken English too.)

I haven’t read an English language book all week—a long time for me. Russian print is swirling around in my head; I can’t walk down the street without finding myself absent-mindedly repeating some word or another—sometimes without knowing for sure if it’s a real word or one I’ve just made up. It’s incredible and …*sigh*

The funny thing is that the achievement is made more amazing not only by the idioms and expressions and words I seem to have effortlessly picked up and integrated (erratically) into my speech—and Lord knows there’s bunches of words that bounced OFF my head too—but rather by this one tiny, almost ridiculous realization which has swooped me into euphoria.  Namely:

I know two words for cloud.

!!!

I know, it seems useless. After all, I am no meteorologist. I am no weather reporter. I am no sky-gazer.

But two words! This is victory indeed! Because it provides—flexibility. *sighs happily* Flexibility is power, I have decided. I can choose among words…or in this case, between words. I can be the master of my own nuances!

I am on cloud two, I tell you!

It occurs to me I also know now two words for werewolf. I typically discuss neither clouds nor werewolves at length, but I sense integration of both into my daily conversation for at least a while.

Russian: “Hello, Ruth. How are you?”
Ruth: “I am well. Is that a cloud (1)? I am a werewolf (1)”
Russian: “Uh, are you pointing at the pavement?”
Ruth: “Clouds (2) are different in America. Are you also a werewolf (2)?

Good times. Ah, and I now have five words for interrupt. Several ways to describe smirks, bitter smiles, glinting eyes, exploding with fury, exchanging glances, examining things… Precautions. Invisibility Cloaks. Wiping one’s tears/sweat. Aiming one’s wand… Yes, several ways of aiming weapons, assuming all weapons are wielded similarly to wands…

Life, fellow English speakers, is GRAND!    But now I must bid you adieu, for I have two clouds to gaze at.

You’re Writing a Book? Cool! Can I Be In It?

J.K. Rowling has famously said that her conceited character Gilderoy Lockhart was modeled on someone she knows.  As she says on her website:

I assure you that the person on whom Gilderoy was modelled was even more objectionable than his fictional counterpart. He used to tell whopping great fibs about his past life, all of them designed to demonstrate what a wonderful, brave and brilliant person he was.

She goes on to remark that she doubts that this person will ever realize how he’s been depicted:

He’s probably out there now telling everybody that he inspired the character of Albus Dumbledore. Or that he wrote the books and lets me take the credit out of kindness.

Amusing.

Have any of you ever taken real people and put them into the pages of your books?  I’m not talking biographies, I should say.  Do you find you have any qualms, or is it pure pleasure?  What is it about a person that merits your doing so, if you do?  Do you find any similarities among the folks who slip between your pages?  Do you make changes on purpose, or do they metamorphosize naturally?

One of my characters has taken the name of someone from my own past.  He had no great personal impact in my life, yet he became, to me, the quintessential bully.  Despite this, his character is much more nuanced in the book.  Although he’s retained one physical feature from the real boy, overall he looks different and possesses a character I understand more than I ever sought to understand the real boy’s. Also, I care for him.  Which is more than I can say for that kid from the past.

Despite my giving him a name I have forever associated with someone else, a tough and unforgiving name, his character immediately *snap* was his own.  He’s one of those organic characters I mentioned earlier.  I never had to draw him up on a chart.  I knew him from the get-go.  Despite the fact that he came with the bully’s name, he also came with his own personality and story.

And then I have one other definite drawing from real life.  She, however, has not changed a whit.  She was always intended to be this person, and that she’s remained.  I’ll need to change her name in the rewrite.  She’ll always be my secret chuckle, I think.  If she lasts.

What about you?  And have you heard of other authors doing this?

you gotta love the free market...

Err, I should note I don’t kill characters based on real people.

Or I haven’t yet, I should say.  (She flicked a speck of dust off her shoulder and smiled into the distance.)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, or, Yay, Snape is BACK! :)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince RAWKED.

Rickman takes Snape to a whole new level.  Now, everyone knows I love Snape, and there can’t be a disparaging word said about Rickman’s acting by anyone with a funny bone to tickle and a self to menace, so let’s leave him for a moment and turn to the others.  (Yes, just a moment.)

The kids.  Holy crap, but Radcliffe and Grint upped their game in this one!  Radcliffe still doesn’t know what it means to cry, apparently; he’s stiffer than an Inferi trying to do so.  But barring his fear of crying, he’s improved so very much, it’s astonishing.  Almost my first words whispered after the film started were a surprised “but he can act now!”  Very great.  Grint brings Ron to a new level too, finally blending comedy with sincere emotional grounding.  And Emma Watson, well, she could always act.  :)  Tom Felton finally shows what’s what, too.  Great Draco, great bathroom scene.  Uber impressive.

Need I say Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and the regular cast were spectacular as usual?  Yes?  Okay, they were.  And Jim Broadbent–!!!  That man is magic, wizard or no.  He was beautiful, magnificent…just perfect as Professor Slughorn.

But eff the acting, anyone going to see the movie knows exactly on what par this troupe of British actors are.  (The highest.)  The real question for any fan is:  does the movie do the book justice?

It does.

SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE MOVIE AND BOOKS SIX AND SEVEN FOLLOW:

Best Scene:

After seeing Pensieve Slughorn reveal Horcrux information to a young Tom Riddle (brilliantly cast), Dumbledore sinks to sit on the ground.   Harry asks if Horcruxes can be anything at all.  Dumbledore says yes, but that dark magic always leaves…a mark. He’s risen during this speech, and is staring deeply at Harry.  He tells him he thinks he’s found another one, but he can’t destroy it alone.  The next scene is them heading off to leave Hogwarts for the RAB Horcrux.

What’s amazing about this scene?  While Harry (and the non-reading viewer) thinks Dumbledore is speaking of the Horcrux they’re about to go after together, he’s not.  Dumbledore is discussing Harry.  Harry as a Horcrux.  That’s why he sinks to the earth, and why he looks at Harry–his lightning scar–as he speaks of dark magic leaving a mark.  And if that’s not clearly enough foreshadowed, the script calls for Harry touching the Slytherin ring and feeling a zap of darkness.  Brilliant writing.  I feel it’s not written into the book that way, but I’ll have to check.

Worst Failing (IMHO):

There is no battle at Hogwarts in the movie, and the anguish and fury on Harry’s side at Snape’s betrayal, and Snape’s meltdown in his final showdown with Harry…are missing.

Rowling writes a magnificent scene into the end of HBP drawing a strong parallel between Fang, trapped in Hagrid’s hut, which is ablaze and threatens to destroy him alive, and Snape.  Snape has just killed the only man who ever trusted him, the only man who ever really knew him, the only man who cared for him–at this man’s own urgent, secret request.  No-one will ever know.  He’s alone, he has no-one to turn to, no friend on earth, no-one.  Only the end to contrive, hidden in the evil background.  It’s heartbreaking.  It’s vivid.  It’s raw.  And in the film, it’s missing.

In the book his emotional turmoil is powerful.  Harry is beyond reason too, throwing hex after hex at Snape.  Snape effortlessly deflects them, and taunts Harry to conceal his emotions or he’ll never win.  Then Harry summons up a curse he learnt from the Half Blood Prince’s potions book.  Snape deflects it too and cracks.  You dare cast my own spell on me, he snarls, revealing that he is the Half Blood Prince.  Harry, who’s shunned anything ever taught him by Snape, has improved in potions and, sadly, in the dark arts too, by connecting with a younger and more inventive Snape via his old high school potions book.

Again, Snape turns to escape, but Harry calls him a coward.  Snape snaps.  He loses it, on par with his Shrieking Shack scene in the third book.  Don’t call me a coward! he shrieks into the wild air between them–and casts his first and only curse on Harry.  It stings, and Harry’s thrown back, his wand falls out of his hand.  Snape runs away with the other Death Eaters, trapped in a future that must burn him to the ground soon, and no-one will ever know that it killed him to kill Dumbledore.  His grief, his loyalty, his love, his commitment must all be hidden without a murmur.

What a scene, what power, what intensity, what visceral power…  But it’s not done that way in the movie.  *sigh*  Ah well, win some, lose some.

Overall, however, the movie was fabulous.  Snape, as another blogger mentioned earlier, holds his pauses as long as he damn well pleases, and is sheer beauty to watch.  The cast feels 100% real and comfortable in their roles.  The kids are in high school now, and everything from their antics and emotions, to the natural lolling about of their classmates, is perfect.  Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and London are fabulous.  The movie is MAGIC.

Highly recommended

(If you’re into the bad boys of Harry Potter or literature in general, here’s another post you might like to read…and to share your thoughts on!)

The Bad Boys

I won’t lie.  I love Professor Snape more than I love Harry Potter.

Not because I reckon he’s a better person and not just because his dialogue drips with perfect acidity and deliciously rendered sarcasm.  No.  I love him for his flaws and for his struggle with his soul.  Maybe he stopped his struggle at a certain point, never willing to look at Harry as an individual with his own heart-bound luggage.  Maybe he turned into the bully that as a child he was subjected to.  Maybe he himself crippled his emotional development by latching onto and trapping himself into the past as much as Sirius did, albeit for different reasons.  But that tragedy makes him, if not a hero–for Jo Rowling won’t hear that word used for him–then at least a damn compelling person whom it would hurt to know and care about, were he real.

All this is nothing against Harry.

Then there’s Frodo, say, or Samwise Gamgee, versus Sauron.  But who is Sauron?  No-one but an idea with almost invincible power and dark servants scouring the earth, hunting down the One Ring–the one ring the heroes must destroy before their entire world is vanquished.  Great book, Lord of the Rings.  But the bad guy never had a shot with me.  Can’t love a being endowed with no humanity.  Can’t hate him, even.  Can feel viscerally opposed to him–thinking of Gollum even in Sauron’s clutches chills the bones.  But…Sauron doesn’t move me.  It’s Samwise’s loyalty that gets me every time.  He’s my hero.  And I weep over Frodo’s journey, commitment and sacrifices.

Back to Lord Voldemort, Harry’s nemesis.  Is he great?  As a villain, I mean, not as the master of all dark wizards.  Sure, he keeps the plot going.  He forces Harry to grow up and reveal who he is as a person, who he’s willing to be.  He forces others’ hands too–Draco Malfoy’s, for instance.

Swinging back to Lord of the Rings… Boromir is a flawed soul, aching for greatness–true greatness and not just petty grandeur–but he’s torn by his desire for self-glory and heroism.  I prefer him to Sauron, as a character with depth to move me.  And I prefer Snape to Lord Voldemort, and even to Harry.

My favourite hero in Harry Potter is … Remus Lupin.  Another torn character.

Am I called to torn characters in general, because their inner conflicts and outer conflicts just add so much tension and hope and tears to the story that they become unforgettable?  Maybe.

So what does this all mean?

I find myself pondering this because I’ve noticed that contrary to my expectations, I find writing my antagonists approximately 99% easier than writing my protagonists.  Because they are defined, in a sense, by their own flaws which is where they settle, but which is simultaneously the point within them that causes them the most pain, anguish, shame and anger.  I feel their pain.  I know their self-deceptions.  Their conceits.  Their fears.  And so I can write them and feel for them.

Despite the fact that both of my “leads” were created and “in action” weeks before my antagonists appeared, it’s my antagonists who have taken to life with strength, tenacity and vivacity I’d never expected.  There’s only one exception to this protagonist rule for me.  And interestingly, it’s for a tragic heroine.

My book’s not angsty.  It’s not tragic.  And I’m among the cheeriest people I know (thank God).  Yet inner conflict is what allows me to speak with my characters, to see them, believe them and help breathe that spark of life into them.  Only once I find the pain and the journey can my characters step off the page and into life.

Picnic Tables Askew, Upstate New York