Rowling, J.K.. “Introdução para One City [por Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin e Irvine Welsh], Edimburgo: Polygon, 2005. INTRODUÇÃO por J.K. Rowling Quando eu cheguei a Edimburgo em dezembro de 1993, a cidade estava...
consulte Mais informaçãoO que aconteceu em 2005? Em 16 de julho de 2005, Harry e o Enigma do Príncipe foi publicado. Jo deu uma grande festa no Castelo de Edimburgo e convidou os webmasters Melissa Anelli e Emerson Spartz para uma entrevista de uma...
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: {patylda}
Revisão:
“Living with Harry Potter”
Interviewer: Stephen Fry
Source: BBC Radio4
Broadcast: December 10, 2005
Audio: Available from the QQQ [mp3; 13MB]
Context: This interview was recorded in the late summer of 2005 and broadcast as a Christmas special.
Transcription: Courtesy of Matthew at Veritaserum with corrections by Roonwit and Lisa Bunker
Stephen Fry: It was at Christmas five years ago that I had the strange experience of hearing myself on the radio all day long on Boxing Day as Radio4 broadcast the recording of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
It has been a privilege to be the voice of JK Rowling’s work over 6 books, 2,764 pages, and 100 hours and 55 minutes of recordings.
The characters are familiar friends – and enemies – for me, but like millions of others, I eagerly await each new installment.
I first met Jo nearly seven years ago when she came to the studio where I was recording the first book. She remains famously reticent, and like millions of Potter fans, I am fascinated to know what it’s like to live with Harry, where the inspiration for the books comes from, what she thinks of her critics, and what she will do when she finishes the final chapter.
So when Jo agreed to record a conversation with me, I jumped at the chance.
Jo, I suppose a good question to open with would be simply which character you find yourself identifying with most when you’re writing or when you’re reading what you’ve just written.
JK Rowling: Probably Harry, really, because I have to think myself into his head far more than any of the others, because everything is seen from his point of view. But there’s a little bit of me in most of the characters, I think. They say of writers that, um, I think it’s impossible not to put a little bit of yourself into any character, because you have to imagine their motivation.
SF: Did it occur to you when you were planning the books, hoping the first one would be published, that so many people who have never been inside a boarding school would relate to the very particular world of an English boarding school which Hogwarts represents?
JKR: Well, the truth is, I’ve never been inside one either, of course. I was comprehensive educated. But – it was essential for the plot that the children could be enclosed somewhere together overnight. This could not be a day school, because the adventure would fall down every second day if they went home and spoke to their parents, and then had to break back into school every week to wander around at night, so it had to be a boarding school. Which was also logical, because where would wizards educate their children? This is a place where there were going to be lots of noises, smells, flashing lights, and you would want to contain it somewhere fairly distant so that Muggles didn’t come across it all the time.
But I think that people recognize the reality of a lot of children being cloistered together, perhaps, more than they recognize the ambience of a boarding school. I’m not sure that I’m familiar with that, but I think am familiar with what children are like when they’re together.
SF: The thing is, you have created a world, it’s the sort of the definition of successful fiction, is to have a world that is somehow circumscribed by its own rules, its own ethics, its own cultural flavour, and smell and senses, and you’ve done this, and that’s why it’s very common to hear about children and adults dreaming that they are in Hogwarts, dreaming that they are side by side with Harry and Ron and Hermione and so on. And naturally, what comes as a result of this, too, is you get strange warning voices from people I always imagined with the steel-colored hair with a knitting needle stuck through it and a bun at the back, arguing that somehow this is dangerous…
JKR: Yes.
SF: …for people, and, aside from the whole business of whether or not magic is dangerous for people, which I think we can ignore because…
[Both laugh]
SF: …it seems to cover such wild shores of unreason.
JKR: It’s all part of that. Young ladies, two hundred years ago, weren’t allowed to read novels because it would inflame them and excite them and make them long for things that weren’t real. And I remember being very distressed to read, when I was quite young, about Virginia Woolf being told she mustn’t write because it would exacerbate her mental condition.
We need a place to escape to, whether as a writer or a reader, and obviously, the world that I’ve created is a particularly shining example of a world to which it is very pleasant to escape. That beautiful image in C.S. Lewis where there are the pools – the world between worlds – and you can jump into the different pools to access the different worlds. And that, for me, was always a metaphor for a library. I know Lewis wasn’t actually thinking that when he wrote it, of course…
SF: Yeah, he was writing Christian metaphors.
JKR: No, it was more Christian a metaphor for him, yeah. Of course, but to me, that was to jump into these different pools, to enter different worlds, what a beautiful place, and that, for me, is what literature should be. So whether you love Hogwarts or loathe it, I don’t think you can criticize it for being a world that people enjoy.
SF: No. Precisely. I mean, that is, that is why it, it exercises such a keen hold on all our imaginations, this.
JKR: I read an interview with you in which I was very flattered to see that you drew a parallel between that world and the world of Sherlock Holmes, and I found that a very flattering comparison that also resonated with me, because when I read the Holmes stories, it is, of course, it’s a world that never really existed. And yet, you can wholeheartedly believe it existed, and more importantly, you want it to have existed, don’t you?
SF: Exactly right.
JKR: So that’s why it’s such fabulously entertaining reading.
SF: Yeah. And why Sherlock Holmes, to this day, still gets letters to 221b Baker Street.
JKR: Exactly, yeah.
SF: And of course, it is a peculiarity that you will be accused of creating both a world in which children can luxuriate in an escapist fantasy and for creating a world that is frightening…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: …because it’s so full of wickedness and danger…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: …and that it could upset them. Now they can’t both be true.
[Both laugh]
SF: But I do think it is one of the advances in children’s literature that you have made with this remarkable series, is that you have not held back from the difficult and the frightening and the treacherous and the unjust and all the things that most exercise children’s minds.
JKR: I feel very strongly that there is a move to sanitize literature because we’re trying to protect children not from, necessarily, from the grisly facts of life, but from their own imaginations.
I remember being in America a few years ago and Halloween was approaching, and three television programmes in a row were talking about how to explain to children it wasn’t real. Now there’s a reason why we create these stories, and we have always created these stories, and the reason why we have had these pagan festivals, and the reason why even the church allows a certain amount of fear… we need to feel fear, and we need to confront that in an controlled environment. That’s a very important part of growing up, I think. And the child that has been protected from the dementors in fiction, I would argue, is much more likely to fall prey to them later in life in reality.
And also, what are we saying to children who do have scary and disturbing thoughts? We’re saying that’s wrong, that’s not natural, and it’s not something that’s intrinsic to the human condition. That they’re in some way odd or ill.
SF: Exactly.
JKR: That’s a very dangerous thing to tell a child.
SF: And guilt is the greatest trigger for aggression that man has. And if people grow up thinking they’re peculiar for having dark thoughts or being aware of the weirder side of the world and their lives, then that’s going to make them awful human beings, isn’t it?
JKR: [quietly] I totally agree.
SF: One of the jobs of writing, in a sense, is to show you that you’re not alone.
JKR: Yes, yes, it is, and certainly, I discovered I wasn’t alone through books, I think, arguably more than I did through friendships in my early days, ‘cause I was quite an introverted child, and it was through reading that I realized I wasn’t alone on all sorts of levels.
SF: Absolutely. And it’s a central anxiety, if you’d like, that the reader is always confronted with Harry, is that there is this extraordinary closeness he has to Voldemort – the one who must not be named, but must be named. And I think that as the series progresses and we feel “Gosh, it’s not long now – what is going to happen?” There’s a great deal of speculation, and I’m not asking you to come out with any answers here, but there’s a great deal of speculation as to how close this relationship is…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: … between the darkest wizard of them all and our hero, who saved the world.
JKR: Well, the question I was asked a lot early on was “Was Voldemort really Harry’s father?” And of course, that’s a Star Wars question…
SF: Exactly. Total Star Wars.
[Both laugh]
JKR: …really, isn’t it? And, no, he is not going to turn out to be Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. He is not, in a biological sense, related to him at all.
SF: Now, that’s a very good answer to have. I think that one of the current front-running endings – I’m not sure if you’re aware of this – as far as the betting goes, is that Harry will finally defeat Voldemort at the expense of all his own powers, and he will end by going into the world as an ordinary Muggle. [JKR gasps theatrically] Which is an extraordinary idea.
JKR: It’s a good ending.
SF: It is a good ending! You can borrow it if you like.
JKR: And be sued for plagiarism by about 13 million children.
SF: This is your problem, isn’t it? You’re not allowed to read anything…
JKR [chuckling]: No, I’m not.
SF: …written by anybody else, just on the off chance. Well, let’s think about the world that you’ve used, in terms of its tradition, if you like, from little cornish pixies to, you know, kelpies and, you know, mentions of particular types of plant, like mandragora and so on.
JKR: Mmm.
SF: These are all real and a lot of children will, of course, imagine you made them up completely.
JKR: I’ve taken horrible liberties with folklore and mythology, but I’m quite unashamed about that, because British folklore and British mythology is a totally bastard mythology. You know, we’ve been invaded by people, we’ve appropriated their gods, we’ve taken their mythical creatures, and we’ve soldered them all together to make, what I would say, is one of the richest folklores in the world, because it’s so varied. So I feel no compunction about borrowing from that freely, but adding a few things of my own.
SF: Absolutely.
JKR: But you’re right, yes, children, they know, obviously, they know that I didn’t invent unicorns, but I’ve had to explain frequently that I didn’t actually invent hippogriffs. Although a hippogriff is quite obscure, I went looking, because when I do use a creature that I know is a mythological entity, I like to find out as much as I can about it. I might not use it, but to make it as consistent as I feel is good for my plot. There’s very little on hippogriffs. I could read…
SF: It’s the map, isn’t it? It’s the “Here Be Hippogriffs.”
JKR: Exactly. “Here Be Hippogriffs,” yes.
SF: Like Heffalumps in Pooh.
JKR: But they don’t seem to have been closely observed by many medieval naturalists, so I could, I could take liberties.
[both laugh]
SF: I presume they are, as the name would imply, and this is to bring this onto your other love, which is language itself, at its most basic level of words and derivations that hippogriff is, of course, is a mixture of the idea…
JKR: Horse
SF: … of the Welsh “griffin” and the Greek for horse “hippo,”
JKR: That’s right.
SF: …which is a perfect example, as you say, of the bastardization of our English folklore, like our language.
JKR: Arcane. Like our language.
SF: It’s the perfect mixture.
JKR: Which is what makes our language so rich.
SF: Exactly.
JKR: Nobbily, and textured, and I love it.
SF: And even things like Mundungus have a meaning.
JKR: Mundungus.
SF: Isn’t that wonderful?
JKR: Isn’t that a fantastic word?
SF: And it means?
JKR: Foul-stinking tobacco, which really suits him.
SF: Exactly. Isn’t it perfect? Now do you actually trawl through books of rare words or OED [Oxford English Dictionary] or things, or are they just things that you somehow, you’ve got a good memory for words?
JKR: Um…I don’t really trawl books. They tend to be things I’ve collected or stumbled across in general reading. The exception was Gilderoy – Gilderoy Lockhart. The name Lockhart, well, I know it’s quite a well-known Scottish surname…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: …I found on a war memorial. I was looking for quite a glamorous, dashing sort of surname, and Lockhart caught my eye on this war memorial, and that was it. Couldn’t find a Christian name. And I was leafing through the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable one night. I was consciously looking for stuff, generally, that would be useful and I saw Gilderoy, who was actually a highway man, and a very good-looking rogue.
SF: Really?
JKR: And Gilderoy Lockhart, it just sounded perfect.
SF: It is a perfect, perfect…
JKR: Impressive, and yet, in the middle, quite hollow, of course.
SF: Indeed, as we know, he was.
JKR: As we know.
SF: So, to get down to the really important bit, which is me.
JKR: Yes, let’s, let’s do you. [Both laugh]
SF: I wondered if the way I’ve read the books has altered your writing of them?
JKR: I know that I’ve told you this before. There was a time when Jessica, my daughter, who’s now ten – she absolutely loves the tapes – and there was a time when I was writing Goblet of Fire in particular, where I would settle down to work in the evening, and I could hear you reading from her bedroom, which really was a mind-warping experience to be writing one book while listening to you reading Chamber or, you know, Azkaban.
SF: Yes.
JKR: It was bizarre, and I felt that I couldn’t escape Harry Potter. There was no escape. I could hear him, and I could see him, and I was writing about him.
SF: Yes. Certainly, I have to say, without just meaning to be flattering that the shapes, the phrasing, the balance of sentences does make the books a delight to read in that sense.
JKR: Well, that’s really kind, and that’s really good to hear.
SF: It really…sometimes writers have a marvelous sense of writing for the page and the words happen in that part of the brain that does it…
JKR: Yeah.
SF: …but really, the matter is terribly difficult.
JKR: See, I love writing dialogue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I really love writing dialogue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: And when I hear you reading it, it gives me a whole new sense of pleasure, because I never read my work aloud. And yet hearing the dialogue spoken, and I always hear you speak it before I hear actors speak it – it’s very pleasurable, because I’ve always enjoyed writing it.
SF: Each time I do a new book, there’s a CD that the engineer at the sound studio produces with all the characters…
JKR: I remember, yes.
SF: It’s almost going to have to be a DVD next time. [laughs]
JKR: Oh sorry!
SF: It’s so that I could remind myself of what, you know, what Lavender sounded like, or what, you know…
JKR: Yeah.
SF: What, with a particular character.
JKR: Of course. Jessica wanted to know how you got Hermione’s voice. She thinks you’re so brilliant at doing Hermione and she doesn’t understand how someone with such a deep voice can do a girl’s voice, so I was to ask you.
SF: That’s an interesting question. I always loved the Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter. Do you remember him?
JKR: Oh yeah. [Laughs.]
SF: And I noticed from a very early age, when I was ten, that when he did a woman, he usually deepened his voice. So unlike trying to do a sort of falsetto, he would go, “Hello, I’m Faith Douche.†[JKR laughs] Or some strange character like that. And actually, for a lot of women that works well.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Not for young girls, but for grown-up women that works very well.
JKR: So softening the voice, really, more than…
SF: It’s a sort of softening, exactly.
JKR: I do remember being there to see you record, and you said to me, “It’s very hard to hiss something with no sibilant in it.†[Both laugh] Someone had hissed something like “don’t do that.†[SF laughs heartily.]That’s another influence you’ve had on me. Every time I want someone to be hissing, which Snape does quite a lot, I have to check there’s actually an “s†in it before I…
SF: Yes.
JKR: Before I make them do it.
SF: You’ve done it with Snape and all that’s around him. He’s got three s’s himself, and his house has got an “s,†and it’s got a Slytherin, it’s you know, the whole, the whole, herpetic, I believe is the adjective.
JKR: Yes, right.
SF: The whole snake-like work is done. Now, the question I’m sure you’re asked a lot, and that is for generations now, the ideal child’s hero is Harry Potter. But that didn’t exist when you were a child. Who was the one you went hunting with, the one you dreamt of being with?
JKR: Loads and loads.
SF: Loads.
JKR: I liked the heroine of The Little White Horse because she was quite plain, and I was plain, and most heroines are very beautiful.
SF: Yes
JKR: She was freckly, and had reddish hair, and I identified with her a lot.
SF: Eloise was a bit like that as well.
JKR: Yes, I love Eloise.
SF: I loved Eloise.
JKR: There were so many. I loved E. Nesbit. She is still, probably, the children’s writer with whom I most identify.
SF: Yes.
JKR: She wasn’t very sentimental.
SF: She wasn’t, was she?
JKR: And she loved a quirky detail. [SF laughs] So, um, yes, I thought she was very, very good. I think female writers generally are less sentimental about childhood than male writers, in my opinion.
SF: I think you’re absolutely right. It’s a strange thing, children’s fiction. There’s the boy’s adventure style…
JKR: Yes.
SF: Which, you know, is, I suppose, the greatest example of them is Treasure Island.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Which is just one of the most immaculately written books of any genre.
JKR: Which is, which is a wonderful book and which I also love, yes.
SF: It is a truly great book, isn’t it? Yeah. And that, really, has almost no females in it at all.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: But what you’ve done is you’ve written a boy’s adventure book, but…
JKR: But with girls. [laughs]
SF: …it is also a girl’s book. Which is actually extraordinary. And, you know, one perhaps shouldn’t over talk about the idea of gender in it. I remember seeing in a Martin Amis novel – I think it’s The Information – the characters have an enormous row talking about this very subject. You know, he actually leaves the dinner table because of talking about, you know, “Women read certain types of book and men read other types of book.†And that it will ever be thus.
JKR: Yes.
SF: But do you find… I expect you get more letters from women, from girls, simply because girls are better at writing letters you said. [laughs]
JKR: I have a theory. It was roughly fifty percent each, and my theory is that parents were so thrilled their sons were reading that they would prod them into writing to me in the hope that they would keep this enthusiasm going. And I occasionally had extraordinary letters from boys – very, very, very touching letters from boys. Arguably more touching, particularly when it’s a letter that’s written by someone who obviously doesn’t find writing very easy, telling me that it’s the first book they’ve ever read and they really like it.
SF: It’s a wonderful compliment.
JKR: Oh yes, it is.
SF: And an extraordinary thought, and it must make you slightly go all pink and…
JKR: It does make me go pink and wibbly. [Both laugh]
SF: Exactly, yes. “What good is a book,†said Alice, “without pictures and conversations†in Alice in Wonderland, which is always a book I think grown-ups actually like more than children, though.
JKR: I think so, too.
SF: But it’s a splendid comment and a very sophisticated one, which is why adults like Alice so much. I wondered if, simply the expense of the first edition of your first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, whether the issue of illustration had come up? And whether it was just, “Well, this is the biggest children’s novel we’ve ever published in terms of size…â€
JKR: Yes.
SF: Length. We’re not going to add to our expense by getting Quentin Blake or whoever.
JKR: No. But you’re absolutely right. That was precisely the argument. They also felt that illustrations might aim it a little bit at a younger audience than they were aiming for.
SF: Yes. I think it turned out to be quite right.
JKR: And they were right. The American edition, which is a very beautifully produced book, I must say, they have very small line drawings at the beginning of every chapter, which I like. It’s just a suggestion of what’s to come.
SF: Yes.
JKR: But it’s not full-blown, full-page.
SF: Color plates.
JKR: Exactly, color plates. Although, I used to love a color plate. I used to flick through to find them before I read the book.
SF: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There was a smell to them, because the paper was shiny and different.
JKR: There was a very distinctive smell.
SF: Oh, and sometimes they were frightening.
JKR: Yes.
SF: You knew the one was coming that you didn’t quite like for some reason.
JKR: Yeah.
SF: I can still remember them all. It’s weird, isn’t it? While on the subject of America, you’re published there by Scholastic, I believe.
JKR: Scholastic, yep.
SF: I remember you telling me about your first signing queue in America and…
JKR: Oh, that was, yes.
SF: You would expect a few boys to come with a scar penciled clumsily on their foreheads, but you had…
JKR: There was…
SF: You had a woman in gilt.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: Tell us about her!
JKR: I had a woman who dressed up as the Fat Lady, complete with frame hung around her neck. That was extraordinary, and that was the closest I will ever get to being a pop star. [SF laughs] I walked through this door at the back of the store, and there were screams, literally screams and flash bulbs going off and I didn’t know where I was. I was completely disorientated. I think, as a defensive mechanism, when those events are over, I kind of shut down, and I think I have to shut down and think that that was a very odd anomaly. And then I have to return to my office and just convince myself that this is just my world.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I find this a really difficult question to answer myself, and I wrote the characters, so I don’t see why you should find it any easier, really, but I’m going to ask. Is there any character with whom you identify particularly?
SF: The easy wisdom and slightly kind of twinkling…
JKR: Of Dumbledore.
SF: …quality of Dumbledore. I’ve always had this love of great teachers. With the first fictional character I [unintelligible] created was for a radio program, was an old Cambridge Don, Donald Trefusis.
JKR: I used to listen to Donald Trefusis, yeah.
SF: Do you remember an Archbishop of Canterbury called Ramsay, the last of the really sort of great and monumental primates of the Church of England? Which I don’t mean an ape, of course. [JKR laughs] And I remember seeing him being interviewed by a Malcolm Muggeridge type person who said, “Now, you’re going to be a very wise man.†He said, “Am I, am I, am I wise, I wonder, am I wise, am I?†[Both laugh] And the interviewer said, “Well, Your Grace, perhaps you could explain what you think wisdom is?†“Wisdom, wisdom. Mmm Mmm, wisdom. I think it’s the ability to cope.â€
JKR: Oh, is that…
SF: Which is a marvelous definition, you know. It is, and so right, I mean it comes, as you know, is the wisdom is the kingdom of wit, it is wit, witdom, wit-knowing, the German of knowing, wissenschaft and so on, and in wit is a marvelous…
JKR: See, you are Dumbledore, look. [SF laughs] A natural teacher.
SF: And that sense of being able to cope with things.
JKR: Yes.
SF: It’s not how much you know.
JKR: No.
SF: And you sense …
JKR: Something completely different.
SF: … that with that rather marvelous, occasionally rather tired, worn quality that Dumbledore has, because he’s experienced so much, and he can cope, but he would almost rather not be able to.
JKR: Absolutely. That’s exactly right. Dumbledore does express the regret that he has always had to be the one who knew, and who had the burden of knowing. And he would rather not know.
SF: But of all, of course, Harry Potter is the one, because he is the point of consciousness in the book. Harry is the one who is … undergoes all the tests and the ordeals by fire and all kinds of other things. And as with any hero, you measure yourself against him. And there are times when I think I would just run away, or I wouldn’t care. I’d wave my wand even though I’m not supposed to, you know.
JKR: My favorite comment about Harry, at the time of the first book…was it was a schoolboy, who was interviewed on television, and asked why he liked Harry – the character – so much, and he said, “He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on a lot of the time, and nor do I.†[SF laughs.]
SF: Oh, that’s so good! I suppose there are times when you – you know, I think I mentioned this to you when I first read The Order of the Phoenix – was, do you have to be so cruel to him?
JKR: Well, Phoenix, I would say, in self-defense – Harry had to, because of what I’m trying to say about Harry as a hero. Because he’s a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there’s a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanized himself.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down, and say he didn’t want to play anymore, he didn’t want to be the hero anymore – and he’d lost too much. And he didn’t want to lose anything else. So that – Phoenix was the point at which I decided he would have his breakdown.
SF: Right.
JKR: And now he will rise from the ashes strengthened.
SF: It is such a primary energy, particularly with children, and we lose it, I suppose, at our peril, the outrage of injustice, which is one of the primary sort of motor forces in all the books, isn’t it?
JKR: The feeling of the twelve-year-old boy that they’ve been unfairly accused – the burning sense of outrage. You’re right, we shouldn’t lose that.
SF: Yes.
JKR: But we do, often.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: Adults do.
SF: Yeah. No, that’s quite right.
JKR: I think the thing that I find most extraordinary is – I don’t know how many characters I have in play now – how do you find voices for them?
SF: It’s not a simple thing to answer. I mean, so often they’re there and I hope that, generally speaking, I’ve…if not given exactly the voice you imagine, that it’s somewhere in that area. I mean, there are characters like Tonks which, for some reason, I just instinctively felt she had that slightly sort of Burnley, you know, Jane Horrocks sort of accent. [JKR laughs] And it just seemed to fit her exactly.
JKR: It does, yeah.
SF: And I think Celia, the producer, had the same idea in her head, that it should be that.
JKR: Mmhmm.
SF: And yet you did, there’s no kind of “put wood in th’ole…â€
JKR: No.
SF: And “baht ‘at” kind of Northern writing. It’s just something that’s there. And I’m sure it’s just as unconscious with you sometimes, that you’re writing a smallish character that uses a turn of phrase that makes me think, “Well, that sounds like a Cockney, or that’s an older character, or that’s a younger character.â€
JKR: Because you knew that Hagrid was West Country.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And that was the only thing I wanted to warn you before you started reading, and my plane was delayed. It was the first time we ever met. And I got there, and one of the first things you said to me was, “I’ve done Hagrid as a kind of Somerset.â€
SF: Yeah.
JKR: And I thought, “Oh, thank goodness for that,†because I’d thought, if you make him Glaswegian [SF laughs] you know, it would’ve had to…that was the only character I felt protective about accent-wise.
SF: Yes, yeah.
JKR: What I really enjoy about your reading is the accents aren’t intrusive. I don’t feel as though you’re in any sense giving a sort of virtuoso performance of “These are as many accents as I can do,†or different voices. You don’t form a big barrier between the listener and the story, I feel. Do you know?
SF: I know exactly…
JKR: Do you know what I mean?
SF: That’s precisely what I aim for is not to get in the way of it.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Is that for people not to hear the voice after a while. And you know how when you’re reading, sometimes you lose it and you’re find you having to go back and…
JKR: Yes.
SF: …because you’re aware of the letters and the words. And then you can read a whole chapter and not be aware of having turned over a page.
JKR: Mmhmm.
SF: I mean, you know, the print and the paper have not been there. And it should be the same with my voice when they’re listening, you know. The first paragraph or so, but then immediately their mind is the world of the Dursleys and of Hogwarts and the Knight Bus and everything else, and they don’t notice me doing it. And Celia, the producer and Helen are very good at making sure that I don’t over project a voice or mimic, you know, overdo something. And the only other problem is the pacing, you know…
JKR: Yeah.
SF: I think it’s so important to refresh a page.
JKR: Yes, yes.
SF: You know? Because otherwise you can get a bit lulled.
JKR: Mmhmm.
SF: And…but you mustn’t overdo that either.
JKR: So, I don’t feel I should almost push you that much further, but are there any scenes that you have particularly, or that you can remember, enjoying reading?
SF: Well, the, um…the whole creepy stuff at the climax of Order of the Phoenix, you know, in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic and so on. I love the fact that it was so frightening and scary and dramatic, and I loved, you know, building up the tension and so on of the strange glass orbs and what, what are they going to mean and then getting stuck behind doors.
JKR: There were a few children who’ve told me that they took it in much better when you read it to them than when they read it on the page, and I think that’s because with Phoenix, because people had had to wait three years for it, they raced through the book.
SF: They read too fast. They leapt ahead and they lost of the geography.
JKR: Really raced it. Exactly. And then I’ve had readers say to me, “I read it again, and there’s a lot more than I thought there was.†And that’s because you read it in about an afternoon, didn’t you? So listening to you, I think, has really, yes, given them a sense of where they are.
SF: Is it really true that you’ve got it all planned out?
JKR: Yes, it is really true.
SF: That’s astonishing.
JKR: Yes, I do know what’s going to happen in the end. And occasionally, I get cold shivers when someone guesses at something that’s very close, and then I panic and I think, “Oh, is it very obvious?” and then someone says something that’s so off the wall that I think, “No, it’s clearly not that obvious!”
SF: Good.
JKR: I always leave myself latitude to go on a little stroll off the path, but the path is what I’m essentially following. So much that happens in six relates to what happens in seven. And you really sort of skid off the end of six straight into seven. You know, it’s not the discreet adventure that the others have all been, even though you have the underlying theme of Harry faces Voldemort, in each case, and – you know better than anyone – there has been an adventure that has resolved itself.
SF: Yes, exactly.
JKR: Whereas in six, although there is an ending that could be seen as definitive in one sense, you very strongly feel the plot is not over this time and it will continue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: It’s an odd feeling. For the first time I’m very aware that I’m finishing.
SF: The tape is in sight.
JKR: The end is in sight, yeah.
SF: It’s extraordinary.
JKR: Yes.
SF: You’ll always write because it’s a need you have. Do you imagine you will write for children next time you write something new?
JKR: Um…there is a…
SF: Would you write for the children who were children who are now adults? Who were your first generation?
JKR: Poor people, never escape me. Um…I don’t know. Truthfully, I don’t know. I am…there is another childrens’ book that is sort of mouldering in the cupboard that I quite like, which is for slightly younger children, I would say. But there are other things I’d like to write, too. But I think I’ll need to find a good pseudonym and do it all secretly.
SF: Yes.
JKR: Because I’m very frightened – you can imagine…
SF: Oh, absolutely
JKR: …of the unbearable hype…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: …that would attend a post-Harry Potter book…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: …and I’m not sure I look forward to that at all.
SF: Well, with that tantalizing glimpse into the future for Jo, and the lingering question as to whether we will recognize her post-Potter work, we parted, and I set off on 600 more pages of Harry. I can’t wait for book seven. Like many a fan, I want to know what happens in the end. But I don’t really want the end to come.
consulte Mais informaçãoBlake, Carrie. “Mulheres inspiradoras: J.K. Rowling, escritora”. Girl Guiding Scotland, não datada. Nota: a data provável desta entrevista seria no final do verão de 2005. Quanto a ser escocesa… Blake: Como...
consulte Mais informaçãoAnelli, Melissa. “Notícia TLC: Fim de semana de lançamento de ‘Harry Potter e o Enigma do Príncipe’, Edimburgo, Escócia, 15 de julho – 17 de julho de 2005: Parte Dois”. The Leaky Cauldron, 19 de julho de 2005. Você...
consulte Mais informaçãoAnelli, Melissa. “Notícia TLC: Fim de semana de lançamento de ‘Harry Potter e o Enigma do Príncipe’, Edimburgo, Escócia, 15 de julho – 17 de julho de 2005: Parte Três”. The Leaky Cauldron, 19 de julho de 2005. Você...
consulte Mais informaçãoAnelli, Melissa. “Notícia TLC: Fim de semana de lançamento de ‘Harry Potter e o Enigma do Príncipe’, Edimburgo, Escócia, 15 de julho – 17 de julho de 2005: Parte Um”. The Leaky Cauldron, 19 de julho de 2005. Você...
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Matheus
Revisão: Adriana Snape
Anelli, Melissa. “A princely Harry Potter adventure was the dream of a lifetime,” Staten Island Advance, July 18, 2005.
EDINBURGH, Scotland — The weekend has been like a dream, complete with the bits of fantasy that usually accompanies one.
Walking up the cobblestoned slope to Edinburgh Castle on Friday night, Emerson Spartz (who represented MuggleNet) and I (representing my site, The Leaky Cauldron) kept pinching each other, and I have the marks to prove it. It seemed too much to believe, that we were in Edinburgh, on our way up to a castle, for a “Harry Potter” launch event at which author J.K. Rowling would give a reading, that following that reading we would receive a book (“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”) for which we’ve been waiting two years, that we’d spend all night reading that book and that in the morning we’d be preparing for an afternoon interview of Jo Rowling at her home office.
The pinches were necessary.
At the castle, a projection of the cover art to the British edition of the books — Harry and his mentor, Professor Albus Dumbledore, at the center of some sort of fiery vortex — covered the face of the castle, making it look ablaze. A red carpet had been set up between two sets of stadium seats, and reporters swarmed one side of it while fans crowded the other.
We sat in the stadium until Ms. Rowling arrived, huddling against the rapidly dropping Scottish temperature and whooping loudly along with all the fans, who were being worked into a frenzy by an eager emcee.
When it was time to walk into the castle we looked back at the stadium in awe and reverence, and took deep breaths as we entered the dramatically lit location.
About 10 hours later, I finished the book. It is my favorite “Harry Potter” to date — dark, elaborate, whimsical, fast-paced and humorous, containing shining examples of all the best elements of Ms. Rowling’s writing, all braided tightly together in a plot that hurtled me through its depths.
There are few things better than being able to say such things about a book you love, and one of those things is being able to say it to the author’s face. Jo asked us immediately, when we met her at her spacious office later that day, if we had read the book and what we thought, and did so earnestly. Considering our situation, it probably sounded disingenuous to rave about it as we did, but there was nothing but honesty in our ebullience.
I had seriously wondered whether I would a) tense up, b) clam up or c) throw up as the interview started, but because Jo is so relaxed and welcoming, the interview — which was supposed to be one hour but somehow inflated to two — immediately launched into a funny and calming exchange of laughs and ideas, impressions and exclamations, and best of all, questions and answers. It felt as if we’d been pen pals together for a long time, and had just made the happy discovery that we could be friends in real life, too.
The full transcript of the interview will be posted on www.the-leaky-cauldron.org throughout this week, and it contains all kinds of tidbits about her life and her books, as well as several satisfying discussions about more sober and serious topics. For years, we as fans have watched journalists who know next to nothing about the books ask her how she got the idea for Harry Potter and whether there will be more than seven volumes in her series, things she has answered so many times, the responses can be recited off by heart by any committed fan. As much as that frustrated us is as big of a relief and welcome change as this interview became. By allowing us to interview her, Jo allowed the fans to skip the basics and go right to the good stuff.
It’s the interview we’ve wanted to read for a long time, and we got to conduct it.
Time for another good pinch.
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Luh B
Revisão: {patylda}
Spartz, Emerson. “Emerson’s Scotland Report: Part One,” Mugglenet, 18 July 2005
6:00pm GMT July 14th (Thursday)
The nine hour flight was uneventful, except for almost missing my connecting flight from London to Edinburgh and the airlines losing my luggage, which eventually came a half hour before the interview on Saturday. Better late than never, I guess. I met up with MuggleNet staffer Jamie, whom I stayed with the other three times I’ve been to England, at the Edinburgh airport and we took a bus to the hotel. On the way I got my first glimpse at the famous Edinburgh Castle, which is, if you didn’t know, perched on the top of “a big friggin’ mountain” (Melissa’s words). I can’t imagine how this castle could possibly have ever been overtaken, but apparently it has been done before.
Our room was roughly the size of a broom closet and the shower was about as wide as a box of cereal, but it was courtesy of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury so I’m not complaining (…really!). I hadn’t slept in 22 hours and I knew there wouldn’t be time for sleeping on Friday night so I passed out as soon as we checked in to the hotel.
12:00pm GMT July 15th (Friday)
Yes, you read that correctly. I was out cold for almost 18 hours, only waking once to eat dinner. We met up with Melissa and her two friends David and Kathleen who were in the rooms next to ours. Two Irish lads (GO IRISH!), Ciaran (pronounced “keer on”) of the MuggleNet staff and his friend Lachlan joined our troop a little later. Most of the day was spent getting ready for Saturday- sleeping, eating, sleeping, eating, etc.
The real fun began that night. At 9pm, Melissa and I headed over to the city council chambers for a reception with the 70 cub reporters and their parents. The Lord Provost (mayor) gave a short speech and shortly after, a man dressed in a loud, Victorian outfit appeared atop the balcony and introduced himself as Crispin the Curator. Eight “prefects” dressed in full Hogwarts garb appeared for Crispin’s over-the-top speech explaining how Edinburgh Castle is a museum and J.K. Rowling is a magical historian. The kids ate it up.
Our group of about two dozen Bloomsbury staff and VIPs followed behind the cub reporters as they set off in their Hogwarts-like carriages and made their dramatic entrance at the castle to 2000 screaming fans. We took our seats in the VIP section of the huge grandstand had been set up to cheer Jo and the contest winners on as they entered the castle… which, by the way, looked spectacular with an enormous image of Harry and Dumbledore projected on to the front. A massive screen was set up outside near the red carpet which would was broadcasting bits and pieces of the ITV1 special “Magic at Midnight” along with shots of the crowd and filler footage of the prefects talking about their lives at Hogwarts. An MC on the ground made sure the crowd made tons of noise for the TV cameras as the kids’ carriages arrived. The noise was deafening when Jo made her dramatic appearance riding a Thestral (kidding, of course). She looks terrific for a woman nearing 40.
I just happened to be sitting right next to the CEO of Bloomsbury and his daughter Alice (you know, “the girl who saved Harry Potter”?). I pestered them both with questions all night… real nice people.
At one point, while Jo made her way down the carpet five rows of seats in front of us cleared for reasons we are still unaware. I thought it looked bad, so I slid down a few rows to the middle of the ocean of empty seats. I have always had dreams of pursuing a career as an Oscar seat-filler, so this was my time to shine. Melissa made some excuses about a skirt but after much taunting, she joined me and we gave Jo several standing ovations as the night went on.
After Jo had smiled for about 300 photos and signed as many books, she walked in to the castle and we followed shortly. The crowd kept their seats to watch the book reading on the giant screen outside.
The castle was as magical on the inside as it was on the outside. Lining the path to “the chamber” were actors dressed up like grindylows and other magical creatures. The costumes were actually pretty cool-looking – the mechanical, fire-breathing horse was especially impressive. We didn’t go in the actual room where she did the reading as we had been promised originally because we would get in the way of the TV cameras, so we watched it on screens in a room outside with the parents of the cub reporters and Bloomsbury staff. Jo was originally planning to read the first chapter but she ended up reading from chapter six – see interview for explanation. Melissa cried during the reading (“it’s all too much!”) and much to her chagrin, I have tattled to every single person we’ve met since. I believe she is planning retaliation by announcing to the world in her write-up that I was doing Irish jigs all night. Come on. I’ve been going to Notre Dame football games (GO IRISH!) since I was a wee lad and I am kind of, you know, enrolled there. I’m practically a jigging expert.
We received our beloved books from Bloomsbury immediately after the reading. I jigged. Melissa cried some more. We took a moment to soak in their awesomeness (!) and raced, literally, back to the hotel. Poor Melissa had to make the four block jaunt barefoot – she was wearing high heels and you obviously can’t run in high heels. We made off with armloads of instant coffee packets from the hotel reception and plopped down on our beds to read.
Spartz, Emerson. “Emerson’s Scotland Report: Part Two,” Mugglenet, 20 July 2005
I turned the last page at 1pm – 12 hours after I first laid eyes on the precioussss. I didn’t read straight through – took frequent breaks to stay awake (and sane), but I still think I read half the lines in the book twice due to lack of focus.
I was expecting Harry to be more powerful of a wizard by now, but overall Half-Blood Prince was a big improvement over Order of the Phoenix and probably her best yet, but I have evolved too much as Harry Potter fan to objectively say it was or it wasn’t. Harry/Hermione shippers can expect me to be even more arrogant and cocky thanks to my recent vindication (see interview or just the last four books). “…Anvil-sized hints…”
The two hours before the interview were spent frantically thinking up last minute questions and arguing over what shirt I should wear (commence eye-rolling).
The phone rang. The car was here for us.
****
Jo’s PA (Personal Assistant) Fiddy gave us a tour of her office while we nervously waited for the queen herself. The room is covered – and I mean covered – in Harry Potter paraphernalia from the books, movies and video games. She even has copies of every book in every language.
Jo walked in five minutes later, followed by Neil and little Mackenzie, the cutest little chub you’ve ever seen. We hugged and I was caught momentarily speechless, which, I assure you, is very unlike me. We gave her the gifts we’d brought for her – shirts, Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, keys to cities, etc. – and she said she had gifts for us, but didn’t want us to open them until she’d left in case we didn’t like them (as if!).
We discussed non-HP things for a few minutes before we got down to business. Melissa and I were happy to hear she’s a huge West Wing fan, because we can’t get enough of that show either. She kept asking us questions about our sites and we were happy to answer, but we needed to get the interview going because we only were supposed to have an hour with her and, well, she’s the interesting one – not us!
I was very surprised at how easy it was to talk with her – she’s so personable and friendly it seemed ridiculous that I had ever been nervous about meeting her. At first, I kept thinking to myself, “I can’t possibly be in this room talking to this woman right now,” but it only took a few minutes before I became totally engrossed in the conversation and forgot about everything else.
It didn’t even feel like an interview, it was more like a chat with friends. Her sense of humor manifests itself well in the books, but she’s even funnier in person. The two hours flew by in what seemed like thirty minutes. I was very disappointed when I heard Fiddy knocking on the door, letting us know our car was here. Jo immediately said, “He hasn’t been waiting that long. Give us 10 more minutes.” Melissa and I each had about a dozen “last questions” and Jo didn’t end up leaving for about a half hour later. This is probably wishful thinking, but it seemed like she wanted to keep on going. Melissa chimed in several times, “We should do this again.” And every time, Jo laughed and said “It’s a possibility.” We should only be so lucky!
Far too soon, it was time to say goodbye. She signed our books, we took some photos together, hugged, and just like that, she was gone. Off to raise kids and the best-selling novels of the decade.
We opened her gifts on the way back to the hotel. She gave Melissa a neat-looking ring with a snake on it (“but that doesn’t mean you belong in Slytherin!” the note said). Melissa cried some more and for once, I didn’t mock her. She’s been wearing it since.
Her gift to me was a beautiful silver cup with ornate handles on either side. Her handwritten letter explained that it was a “Quaich”, a word she assures me she didn’t make up but is actually Gaelic and means “friendship cup”. My breath caught in my mouth when I saw that it was engraved.
“To Emerson, with love from J.K. Rowling”
What an incredibly thoughtful woman.
Back at the hotel, our Potter posse was waiting to hear everything. We talked HP for a few hours – everyone was dying to talk about the book and the interview – and went out for a celebratory dinner at a famous Edinburgh restaurant/pub.
I love my life.
SUNDAY
The kids’ press conference took place at the castle at 9am. Melissa and I sat in the back row and slumped in our seats so we wouldn’t stick out, being the only adults seated. (Yeah! I’m an adult now!) They asked a few good questions but we’ve heard most of them before. Read the transcript here. We waited around for a half hour afterwards for the transcript before they told us they’d just email it to us. Bloomsbury gave us gift bags like the cub reporters got and we headed off to the internet café to update our sites.
We had lunch with Lizo Mzimba, the CBBC guy who’s been able to interview Jo several times in the past. He really knows his HP… I was impressed. Then we had to go back to the hotel and get started writing our reports and transcribing the interview. When we both had satisfactory drafts done and the first part of the interview transcribed, we went out to dinner to celebrate nothing in particular. Hey, you’re not in Scotland every day – that’s enough reason to celebrate! Well, you might be, but I’m not.
MONDAY
Hellish. But the trip was so incredibly positive overall, I don’t want to leave a bad taste in your mouths by writing a blow-by-blow account of all the things that went horribly wrong this day. I did write it, actually, in vivid detail, but that was just to make myself feel better.
OVERALL
I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I was 11 – Harry’s age – so I have grown with Harry, laughed with Harry and cried with Harry. Every Harry Potter fan wishes they could go to Hogwarts, and after visiting the Goblet of Fire movie set in November and interviewing the creator, I think I have gotten as close to Harry’s world as it is possible for a fan to get. And I have you, MuggleNet fans, to thank for this. Without your support, MuggleNet surely would not have gotten this kind of attention and I would not have been presented with these wonderful opportunities.
I don’t know how mere words can express how grateful I am to J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury for allowing me this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. All the events surrounding the release were designed to reward Jo’s fans, which says a lot about the kind of caring person she really is. She is truly a figure to respect and admire.
Thanks, Jo, for everything.
consulte Mais informaçãoJones, Owen. “Autora de Harry Potter teme encerrar o capítulo final”. Ireland On-line, 17 de julho de 2005. A autora de Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, revelou hoje que está temerosa por encerrar o capítulo final de sua...
consulte Mais informaçãoGrossman, Lev. “Poções do amor e magia trágica”. Time Magazine, 17 de julho de 2005. Um fato curioso sobre a magia de Harry Potter é que ela não parece assim tão difícil de ser feita. Você agita a varinha, diz as palavras...
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Virag
Revisão: Adriana Snape
Grossman, Lev. “J.K. Rowling Hogwarts And All,” Time Magazine, 17 July, 2005
As the much awaited Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrives in stores, J.K. Rowling talks frankly to Lev Grossman about fantasy, fathers and how the magic is almost over.
Here is a J.K. Rowling who lives in the hearts and minds of children everywhere. She has a fairy wand and hair of spun gold, and when she laughs her tinkly laugh, tiny silver bubbles come out of her mouth.
That J.K. Rowling, however, doesn’t exist. Here’s a look at the real Jo Rowling (rhymes with bowling, by the way, not howling) at work five years ago on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: “Goblet–oh, my God. That was the period where I was chewing Nicorette. And then I started smoking again, but I didn’t stop the Nicorette. And I swear on my children’s lives, I was going to bed at night and having palpitations and having to get up and drink some wine to put myself into a sufficient stupor.”
Little children everywhere should be grateful for the real Jo Rowling. Because if the imaginary one had written the Harry Potter books, just think how incredibly boring they’d be.
The real Rowling’s hair is sort of gold, although at the moment it has about an inch of dark roots. Which is understandable, since in the past six months she has given birth to her third child–daughter Mackenzie–and completed the sixth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was released promptly at midnight on Friday. At 39, Rowling is a tall handsome woman with a long face, a slightly crooked nose and interestingly hooded eyes. Sitting at a conference table in a bungalow adjoining her stately Edinburgh home (neither her only nor her stateliest home), she talks rapidly, even a little nervously. She uses the word obviously way more often than the average person does, and she likes to say outrageous things, then break out into fits of throaty alto laughter to show you she’s just joking. Rowling wears all black–a floppy black sweater, black pants. A glance under the table reveals shiny black leather boots with steel spike heels that are, at the very least, three inches long.
Fans send Rowling wands and quills by the bushel, but she admits, a bit shamefacedly, that she never actually uses them and that the wands go straight to her oldest daughter, Jessica. The most popular living fantasy writer in the world doesn’t even especially like fantasy novels. It wasn’t until after Sorcerer’s Stone was published that it even occurred to her that she had written one. “That’s the honest truth,” she says. “You know, the unicorns were in there. There was the castle, God knows. But I really had not thought that that’s what I was doing. And I think maybe the reason that it didn’t occur to me is that I’m not a huge fan of fantasy.” Rowling has never finished The Lord of the Rings. She hasn’t even read all of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia novels, which her books get compared to a lot. There’s something about Lewis’ sentimentality about children that gets on her nerves. “There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex,” Rowling says. “I have a big problem with that.”
Rowling certainly isn’t afraid of sex, as Order of the Phoenix–which had Harry making out with the beautiful, grieving Cho Chang–ably demonstrated. Harry and his friends are now 16, and it would just be weird if Harry didn’t have more on his mind than wands and snitches. “Because of the demands of the adventure that Harry is following, he has had less sexual experience than boys of his age might have had,” Rowling allows. “But I really wanted my heroes to grow up. Ron’s hormones get fuller play in book six.” Cue the throaty alto laughter. “Basically it dawns on Ron that Hermione’s had some action, Harry’s had some action and he’s never got close!”
It’s precisely Rowling’s lack of sentimentality, her earthy, salty realness, her refusal to buy into the basic clichés of fantasy, that make her such a great fantasy writer. The genre tends to be deeply conservative–politically, culturally, psychologically. It looks backward to an idealized, romanticized, pseudofeudal world, where knights and ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves. Rowling’s books aren’t like that. They take place in the 1990s–not in some never-never Narnia but in modern-day Mugglish England, with cars, telephones and PlayStations. Rowling adapts an inherently conservative genre for her own progressive purposes. Her Hogwarts is secular and sexual and multicultural and multiracial and even sort of multimedia, with all those talking ghosts. If Lewis showed up there, let’s face it, he’d probably wind up a Death Eater.
Granted, Rowling’s books begin like invitations to garden-variety escapism: Ooh, Harry isn’t really a poor orphan; he’s actually a wealthy wizard who rides a secret train to a castle, and so on. But as they go on, you realize that while the fun stuff is pure cotton candy, the problems are very real–embarrassment, prejudice, depression, anger, poverty, death. “I was trying to subvert the genre,” Rowling explains bluntly. “Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he’s left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life.”
And unlike Lewis, whose books are drenched in theology, Rowling refuses to view herself as a moral educator to the millions of children who read her books. “I don’t think that it’s at all healthy for the work for me to think in those terms. So I don’t,” she says. “I never think in terms of What am I going to teach them? Or, What would it be good for them to find out here?”
“Although,” she adds, “undeniably, morals are drawn.” But she doesn’t make it easy. In Goblet, the good-hearted Cedric Diggory dies for no reason. In Phoenix, we learn that Harry’s dad, whom he idealized, had been an arrogant bully. People aren’t good and bad by nature; they change and transform and struggle. As Dumbledore tells Harry, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Granted, we know Harry will not succumb to anger and evil. But we never stop feeling that he could. (Interestingly, although Rowling is a member of the Church of Scotland, the books are free of references to God. On this point, Rowling is cagey. “Um. I don’t think they’re that secular,” she says, choosing her words slowly. “But, obviously, Dumbledore is not Jesus.”)
There are limits to Harry Potter’s sophistication. Since Sorcerer’s Stone was published in 1998, world events have moved to the point where they threaten to ask more from the books than they have to give. By Phoenix, the fifth book in the series, Harry is embroiled in a borderless, semi-civil war with a shadowy, hidden leader whose existence the government ignored until disaster forced the issue and who is supported by a secret network of sleeper agents willing to resort to tactics of shocking cruelty. The kids who grew up on Harry Potter–you could call them Generation Hex–are the kids who grew up with the pervasive threat of terrorism, and it’s inevitable that on some level they’ll make a connection between the two.
Which isn’t a terrible thing necessarily. But the series’ major shortcoming to date is the flatness of Harry’s antagonist Voldemort (whose name Rowling pronounces with a silent t). In the past few books, Voldemort has managed to assemble a body, but he still lacks any kind of realistic motivation. You get no sense of where his boundless enthusiasm for being evil comes from. “You will,” Rowling says. “There is obviously a big gap there, and in six Harry finds out a lot of Voldemort’s history. Though he was never that nice a guy.” She laughs.
No, he wasn’t. Half-Blood Prince goes a long way, finally, to working through Rowling’s take on the psychology of evil, largely through a kind of Pensieve-aided documentary of Voldemort’s early life. Much of Rowling’s understanding of the origins of evil has to do with the role of the father in family life. “As I look back over the five published books,” she says, “I realize that it’s kind of a litany of bad fathers. That’s where evil seems to flourish, in places where people didn’t get good fathering.” Some of that must surely flow from her own experiences: her relationship with her father has been uneven, and the father of her oldest daughter is no longer part of Rowling’s life.
Despite her colossal success, which has run her personal fortune into the hundreds of millions, you can still feel Rowling’s enormous, churning ambition for her work, which seems to be fueled at least in part by lingering feelings of insecurity and self-doubt. Maybe it’s her well-known history as a onetime careerless divorced mom who spent nearly a year on public assistance, but she still constantly questions her writing, reviewing it like a boxer watching tapes of his fights. “I think Phoenix could have been shorter. I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end,” she says. She is worried that Goblet was overpraised. “In every single book, there’s stuff I would go back and rewrite,” she says. “But I think I really planned the hell out of this one. I took three months and just sat there and went over and over and over the plan, really fine-tuned it, looked at it from every angle. I had learnt, maybe, from past mistakes.”
This obsessive focus on perfection can leave Rowling a little unavailable to those around her. She tells the story of a conversation she had with her younger sister–Di, 38–about Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, who Di feels sometimes lacks compassion for his charges. “She said, ‘That’s like you.’ And I said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ As sisters do. And she said, ‘Well, you are kind of detached.’ That was, you know, uncomfortable, and probably quite illuminating. I maybe wouldn’t find it as easy as she does to say, ‘That person is my very best friend in the world.'”
Rowling is about to say goodbye to a very good friend: Half-Blood Prince is book six of a planned seven, and then that’s all she wrote. “I’ll be so sad to think I’ll never write a Harry-Ron-Hermione sentence again,” she says. But her feelings aren’t entirely unmixed. “Part of me will be glad when it’s over. Family life will become more normal. It will be a chance to write other things.”
Hang on–other things? It’s disconcerting to think of Rowling stepping out on Harry and the gang with another set of characters. But at least we can say Harry is Rowling’s last wizard. From here on out, it’s Muggles only. “I think I can say categorically that I will not write another fantasy after Harry,” she says, making herself and her publicists, who hover nearby, visibly nervous. “Wait, now I’m panicking. Oh, my God! Yes, I’m sure I can say that. I think I will have exhausted the possibilities of that. For me.” Beyond that, she isn’t giving away many clues, but she’s approaching the project with her usual ruthless skepticism. “We’ll have to see if it’s good enough to be published. I mean, that is a real concern, obviously, because the first thing I write post Harry could be absolutely dreadful, and, you know, people will buy it. So, you know, you’re left with this real insecurity.”
But future insecurities can wait. Rowling still has book seven to worry about. She has already started writing. “It will be a very different kind of book,” she says, “because I kind of cue up the shot at the end of six, and you’re left with a very clear idea of what Harry’s going to do next.”
“And,” she adds in an uncharacteristic moment of hubris, “it will be exciting!” Then she immediately retreats into self-deprecation. “You don’t know! You might read six and think, Ah, I won’t bother.”
But that, for once, is pure fantasy. Obviously.
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Miss Granger
Revisão: Adriana Snape
Couric, Katie. “J.K. Rowling, the author with the magic touch: ‘It’s going to be really emotional to say goodbye,’ says Rowling as she writes the last book in the Harry Potter saga,” Dateline NBC, July 17, 2005
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND— It seems like yesterday, he was a lonely unwanted orphan stuck with his insufferable relatives on Privet Drive. Harry Potter, the pride of Hogwarts, has come a long way in the last seven years and so has his creator.
J.K. Rowling is celebrating the publication of her new book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and this past weekend, here at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, she met with some of her most rabid fans for a special reading. She also talked with us in a rare and exclusive interview about the latest adventures of the boy who lived.
J.K. Rowling: Harry has, I think, taken the view that they are now at war. He does become more battled hardened. He’s now ready to go out fighting. And he’s after revenge.
The literary juggernaut known as Harry Potter continued to cast its spell on wizard wanna-be’s all weekend, as copies of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince†flew off the shelves faster than a golden snitch.
For devoted fans, it meant the end of two long years of hankering for the new Harry. And for booksellers, it marked the publishing event of the year.
“It is also a moment of great celebration for reading and literacy,†said Barbara Marcus, executive vice president of Scholastic. “But behind all the excitement is the genius of J.K. Rowling.â€
You might say J.K. (a.k.a. Jo) Rowling is the author with the magic touch. That’s certainly what they were thinking at a Potter party Friday night, when she held a private reading, something she often does to launch a new book.
Only this time, it was followed by a kids-only Q&A.
Rowling: I love it. They ask the best questions, you know? They really know the books back to front. In fact it’s now reaching the point where I feel I should revise this kind of event. I’ve now produced six novels and I feel I should go back and read them all meticulously to make sure I know what’s going on. Because I have been caught out, people have asked me questions and I’ve—“What books are they in again? Who are you talking about?”
Call it “Hogwarts Heaven†for those chosen few aficionados, most of whom had won contests hunting for Harry’s most bewitched fans.
So needless to say, I felt privileged J.K. Rowling granted her only “Half-Blood Prince†television interview to a muggle like me.
Katie Couric: Not many adult journalists are being given this opportunity so I’m very, very flattered. And why have you decided to keep the number of grownups at a minimum?
Rowling: Mainly because I’ve just had a baby, to be totally honest with you. It’s pressure of time. I just couldn’t really fit a whole bunch of interviews into the, you know, the nursing schedule, so I just decided that I was going to try and focus on the kids this time.
The 39-year-old native of England and her Scottish husband, Neil Murray, have some kids of their own. They just had their second child together, and Jo has one older daughter from a previous marriage.
Rowling: And we’ve got a mad dog as well that your crew met earlier.
Jo says her growing family has given her new perspective, and made writing more of a labor of love.
Rowling: I took a break, as you may remember, between the end of “Goblet†and “Phoenix.†And then since I started writing again, I have to say I’ve absolutely love it. But I am pacing myself a little better.
Couric: How are you doing it differently?
Rowling: I think that emotionally, I’ve probably felt a little bit more balanced when I started writing again. And, although, life was actually fuller because I got married again and was pregnant for most of the writing of “Phoenix.†I was almost pregnant for most of the writing —in fact for all of the writing of…
Couric: Maybe pregnancy makes you more creative.
Rowling: Well, I was also pregnant while writing “Philosopher’s Stone†so actually half of my novelistic output has been done while pregnant, so.
Couric: So maybe you shouldn’t stop having babies.
Rowling: No, really Katie, I think we’ll stop here. That’s not a good enough reason.
Her publisher may disagree. Not including this newest novel, the wildly popular series about the sensational but shy, young wizard has sold some 270 million books in 62 languages, even Braille, turning a generation of couch potatoes onto the lost art of reading.
Couric: You ever get mobbed by throngs of 11-year-olds?
Rowling: The most embarrassing one was last year. I was in a café in Edinburgh, and I got up and I went into the ladies room, and I heard a whole lot of people come into the bathroom and a lot of whispering. Didn’t really think about it. Came out of the cubicle to find about 11 teenage girls all standing holding bits of paper. And you really don’t want to be ambushed in that situation preferably. So that one was, I mean, they were they were adorable. But I would have preferred them to wait while I was out of the ladies room. Call me prudish.
And this seven year phenomenon shows no sign of waning.
“Half-Blood Prince†is expected to out-sell the fastest selling hardback in history, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.â€
“Harry Potter five was the largest product release ever in the history of Amazon.com,†says Jan Baker-Strand of Amazon.com. “And it was nearly double the size of Harry Potter four.â€
That’s why for book six, Potter’s publisher, Scholastic, ordered a printing of 10.8 million copies, the largest first printing of any book ever.
Couric: You’ve said the opening chapter of this book has been brewing in your mind for 13 years.
Rowling: It has, yeah. You find out a lot more back story, really a lot. Harry finds out a lot more about the past which hopefully will be useful to him in the future. You see, I’m even measuring what I’m saying because I can see it written on fan sites, with them analyzing what I’ve just said, and thinking “What does this mean?†But you know, you could go a little bit mad.
Her paranoia is justified. Spoiler sites and stolen book pages have plagued previous installments. So, in the months leading up to book six’s release, binderies both home and abroad were forced to take extraordinary security measures to make sure Harry’s secrets were safe.
Couric: There were basically armed guards everywhere. People had to wear ID badges. And one employee joked that as of yet there had not been a body cavity search.
Rowling: No you wouldn’t want it in a body cavity. This is a big book.
Still, rumors were rampant the manuscript had leaked, especially after betting Web sites based in Britain were taking odds on whether or not Harry’s headmaster Dumbledore was doomed. For those of you who haven’t read the book yet, we won’t spill the beans.
Rowling: They think Dumbeldore’s a goner. Well, I will say that I have actually never said that a major character is going to die.
Couric: So it’s not true?
Rowling: I’m not saying that.
But even Jo couldn’t have conjured up this Potter plot: Last month, two men were arrested for allegedly trying to sell a stolen book to a British tabloid. British police confirm one of them was charged with possession of a firearm.
Couric: Do you ever feel like the world has gone mad?
Rowling: Has gone insane? Yeah, absolutely. I mean ultimately what is this? It’s a kid’s book. And I mean obviously it’s my life. I mean I’ve worked very hard on it. But 15 years ago, if someone had said “You know yeah, you’ll publish it, it will be popular, and they’ll be guns involved.†I think it’s just— it’s surreal isn’t it?
Meanwhile, Rowling’s money keeps… well, rolling in.
Never mind the books, the first three Harry Potter movies have grossed over $2.5 billion. And the fourth film, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire†comes to theaters this fall.
Couric: I know that you’re very modest about your success. On the other hand, I read, Jo, that you are one of four self-made female billionaires in the world—
Rowling: Billionaires?
Couric: No, is that wrong?
Rowling: It’s okay— well— You feel really sorry for me, I’m not a billionaire, what a tragedy.
Couric: Well—
Rowling: No, this about that figure came from Forbes Magazine.
Couric: Right.
Rowling: And I have been told that they are speculating on all possible future earnings, all past earnings. And, frankly, they’re adding figures together that don’t exist. So I am not a billionaire. I’ve got plenty of money, more money than I ever dreamed I would have. But I am not a billionaire.
Couric: So the b-word does not apply?
Rowling: No, not at all. But if we assume that they’ve inflated the other women similarly. So, you know, relatively speaking, I’m doing okay.
But Rowling hasn’t forgotten what is was like before she became synonymous with fame and fortune— less than a decade ago, when the only checks coming in to her house were welfare checks.
Rowling: Last year, when I was pregnant with Mackenzie, Neil and I were on the other side of Edinburgh. And we were very near the flat in which I finished writing “Philosopher’s Stone.” I hadn’t been back there since I had left it and moved to a new house. And I said to Neil, “Let’s go around the corner, this is where I used to live.â€
And when I clapped eyes on the place, I burst into tears. I couldn’t stop crying. For a moment, I was back where I had been all those years ago. It brought back this tidal wave of emotion. And I think it hit me so hard how life had changed. And in all respects, how wonderful it was.
And I’m standing there and I’m looking at this place and I’m thinking, it was almost like, I would see the ghost of myself standing in the window and I would be able to communicate to that person, “It’s all going to be okay. You know, you’re working so hard, and it will be okay. And it will be more than okay, it will be fabulous.†I will never forget how it felt to go back there.
While Rowling understands everyone loves a rags-to-riches story, she says “happily ever after†is not automatically her epilogue.
Rowling: This was something that I always had difficulty with expressing when it had all just happened to me, and everyone wanted my emotions to be very simple. They wanted me to say, “I was poor and I was unhappy, and now I’ve got money and I’m really happy.†And it’s what we all want to see when the quiz winner wins the big prize, you know. You want to see some jumping up and down, for everything to be very uncomplicated. The fact is, I was living a very pure life. There was no press involvement, there was no pressure. Life was very pure and it became more complicated.
Jo told us, she’s already begun writing book seven— the one in which she will bring the Harry Potter saga to its climactic end.
Couric: If you, God forbid, got hit by a bus…
Rowling: Yeah, it’s perfectly possible, I’m a very distracted person.
Couric: Does anybody know your ideas for book seven?
Rowling: No.
Couric: Nobody? Not a soul?
Rowling: No.
Couric: Not Neil?
Rowling: I wouldn’t tell— Neil would forget. You know, he wouldn’t be a good person to tell anyway. No, no one knows. Which is good, because if I do get hit by a bus, I would really hate to think someone else was going to take over. It’s my baby.
And as she looks forward to a literary life beyond Harry Potter, Jo says she will savor her final journey aboard the Hogwarts Express.
Couric: When you finish it, and obviously you have a lot of work ahead of you, are you going to be sad or—
Rowling: Yeah. It’s going to be really emotional to say goodbye. I’m going to find it very difficult. But it must be done, it must be done. It’s been a fabulous ride, but you have to know when to get off, and I know when to get off, and it will be the end of book seven.
Couric: Terrifying, though, to think about what you’ll do next—
Rowling: No, liberating. Definitely. Yeah. It is. The world is my oyster. I can do whatever I like.
Watch more of Katie Couric’s interview with J.K. Rowling, Monday morning, on the “Today” show.
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
© 2005 MSNBC.com
consulte Mais informaçãoOwen, Jones. “Cara-a-cara com J.K. Rowling”. ITV Network, 17 de julho de 2005. Crédito da transcrição: Joanne Hill, extraordinário “canon niffler”! Nota do editor: O garoto Owen Jones, de 14 anos de...
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Sammy
Revisão: Adriana Snape
Coad, Emma. One-on-one interview with J.K. Rowling, ITV, 17 July 2005
Transcript by Deborah Skinner
Emma: Why did you start writing the series?
JK: Well, the idea hit me on this train journey, when I was travelling from Manchester to London in England. And it just came out of nowhere, the idea of a boy who didn’t know he was a wizard and received a letter telling him he had a place at a wizards’ school, and from that lots of the plot that appears in the seven books evolved on that train journey, so that by the time I got off the train I was so excited at the idea of writing this book that I just couldn’t wait to get home, and that’s how it started.
Emma: What was the very first thing that inspired you to write the books?
JK: Well, I think that first idea was one that engaged me so much, it made me so excited about the possibilities of that plot, that it gave me the motivation to persevere with it. I think that most people, erm … it can be quite discouraging writing when you haven’t got a publishing deal, you’ve got to have a lot of faith in what you’re writing just to keep going and finishing the novel and I just love the story so much so that’s what kept me going really.
Emma: Are any of the characters in the story like some of the people you met at school or when you were a kid?
JK: Not, ummmm, not, not very obviously. I think, I think the exception would be I’ve often said Ron Weasley is a lot like a boy I was at school with called Sean, who is now obviously a grown man and he’s, he’s an…Ron isn’t really Sean. I mean they’re not the same, but I noticed as I wrote Philosopher’s Stone, the first book, that he sounded like Sean and that certainly wasn’t a coincidence. Some of his humour is very Sean-ish.
Emma: Do you think you’ll be writing more books featuring some of the other characters from the Harry Potter series, like Snape and what he did before?
JK: I don’t think so, no, I’m pretty sure I won’t. My feeling is that I planned the, this series as a seven book series, that in book seven I think your questions will be answered. People will always have a few unanswered questions that they wonder, things about the characters and those things will probably be answered in fan fiction, you know, people get a lot of enjoyment writing their own stories about my characters and good luck to them. If they enjoy it then that’s fantastic, and some of it’s very good!
Emma: [Question unintelligible]
JK: Yeah, definitely. I think we’ve all met people like Draco Malfoy. In fact, nearly every reader of your age I’ve ever met has said ‘I know someone just like Draco Malfoy’ and sometimes it’s a girl. Many of my hopes and fears are Harry’s hopes and fears, in that we all want to just, we’re anxious about the same kind of things, although we’d rarely admit it. So we’re anxious about fitting in, we’re anxious about coping with work and we’re anxious about friendships and being made fun of and all of these things. Sometimes you want to be different, sometimes you want to be just like everyone else. So I think Harry goes through all of those things.
So I was very influenced by … I was also influenced by fantasies I’d had in my childhood. I had a fantasy about flying horses and a flying coach and eventually I used that in Goblet of Fire, as you know.
Emma: How do you think of the names in all the books like Gringotts and Hogwarts?
JK: Erm, Gringotts, really, I think, came from Ingots. you know you get ingots of gold, those bars? So I just liked the sound of it, so to me it sounded, ‘gr’ words can sound quite aggressive or quite, erm, or even sinister. So I really combined Gringotts. I just thought it sounded that little bit intimidating, but it had that allusion to gold in it.
Hogwarts, I always wanted Hog to be there, for some reason. I messed around with various different versions of Hogwarts until I settled on Hogwarts. I like it. I think it sounds comical and inviting at the same time. So you think about words like that and you try lots of different things and then suddenly one fits and you’re happy with it.
Emma: What one spell would you like to bring to life and why?
JK: Ooh, there are so many, aren’t there? So many. Erm, I think for me there … the outstanding spell is ‘Expecto Patronum’, and you know what that does don’t you? It creates the Patronus, it creates a kind of spirit guardian in a way. And that’s partly because of what it does. It’s the protector, and you could protect yourself and other people that you cared about with a Patronus, but it’s also because it’s such a beautiful spell. you know, the image of the silver Patronus emerging from a wand. I really like that.
Emma: How do you keep inspired as there be so much pressure on you trying to make each nook better than/of the one before it?
JK: Well there is pressure but I’m lucky in that I planned all the books so long ago now that, erm, I can’t really be deflected by much. I mean, I know what I’ve got to do next. It would be much harder if I didn’t really know what the next book would be about and I had a lot of pressure on me to as you say, make it good or make it exciting and I was sitting there think ‘Oh God, *gasps*, what do I make him do this time?’ well, luckily for me, my plans are there and I know what he’s going to do next time, so I really just have to sit down and do the whole book and make it into a book.
Emma: Will Harry and Hermione start dating, or will it be Ron and Hermione?
JK: What do you think?
Emma: Harry and Hermione.
JK: You will get more clues on that in this book (indicates HBP). In fact you’ll half of it, half of your answer is will come in this book.
Emma: Do you ever get writers’ block?
JK: Very, very, very rarely.
Emma: Really?
JK: Yeah, Erm, I once..I think I’ve only actually had one case of what I would call true writers’ block, and that was during the writing of Chamber of Secrets, and that was related entirely to the fact that Philosopher’s Stone had a lot of success which really took me aback and temporarily paralysed me so I didn’t…I was just plain scared I think, you know, I thought ‘I can’t keep this up, I can never keep this going’. I felt very insecure an very frightened by what was happening around me and that got me temporarily. And I can’t now remember how long that lasted for, I think a couple of weeks. That’s a very long time for someone like me, who writes pretty easily on a day-to-day basis.
Emma: Do you enjoy going to the movies to see your books come to life?
JK: I do enjoy it. It’s a funny feeling. One of the most disturbing feelings, and yet wonderful as well, was the first time I visited the film set. They were showing me around the set, just incredible, and there were two things. I walked into the great hall, and I’d drawn the director, Chris Columbus, sort of a rough diagram of how I saw the great hall and we’d really discussed, and the production design manager had just done the most astonishingly good job, and that felt like walking into my own head. I just walked into this place that I had imagined for so long and there it was and it really looked exactly as I imagined it and it was astonishing. And then later that day they showed me the chamber where Quirrell faces Harry at the end of Philosopher’s Stone, and there was a spooky, spooky moment when I was stood in front of the Mirror of Erised seeing myself, of course, exactly as I am — and you know what that means in the book. And so I was seeing myself as a successful, published author. Wow, so that was a very, almost embarrassingly symbolic moment, you can imagine.
Emma: Did you ever expect your books to be so popular with adults and children?
JK: No, I, I never dreamed that I would be where I am now, it’s just been incredible. I never dreamt that people would like the book so much. Erm, I often get asked the question about adults and all I can say in that is that I … I … I write these books and I don’t sit down and think ‘right, now what would an eight year old like to read and what would a twelve year old like?’ I really do write what I’d quite like to read. So from that point of view it doesn’t surprise me that other adults like them because I’m an adult, obviously, and I like them, but the scale of it obviously, is breathtaking.
Emma: the story seems to be drawing to a close, how will you feel when the books actually stop?
JK: I’ll have very mixed feelings, because, I’ll certainly have a big sense of loss and it will almost be like a bereavement because I’ve been living with Harry since 1990, so it’s 15 years so far and that’s a very, very long time to be with anyone and certainly longer than a lot of marriages, so it’s, erm, that’ll be painful, the idea that I won’t write about him anymore. On the other hand, you’ve just mentioned there is a certain amount of pressure that comes with being the writer of Harry Potter, and it would be nice to write something without any of that pressure. Although, I don’t really feel the pressure when I’m writing Harry Potter, then at some point I have to emerge from writing the book and then I really, I feel the weight of it a little bit. Erm, so there are things connected with the whole world of Harry Potter that I won’t miss so much.
Emma: What is your favourite wizards’ sweet?
JK: Oh, my favourite wizards’ sweet? I have a very soft place in my heart for Cockroach cluster. I enjoyed inventing that and yeah, I do like that!
Emma: What makes a good writer?
JK: Oooh, there’s a question. Erm, many many many different things make a good writer. For me, I like books but, erm, if you combine characters that you care about with a really intriguing story than I think, then you’ve generally got something I’d like to read. So, those are things I appreciate in other writers. Erm, but I like a number of very different writers and you could find very few things that they had in common, so it’s one of those…it’s so subjective because your favourite writer, someone else would loathe.
consulte Mais informaçãoAnelli, Melissa e Spartz, Emerson. “The-Leaky-Cauldron e MuggleNet entrevistam Joanne Kathleen Rowling”. The Leaky Cauldron, 16 de julho de 2005. AVISO: A totalidade desta entrevista está recheada de informações...
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: patriciaruiva
Revisão: {patylda}
McCauley, Mary Carole. “Magic Touch: Arthur Levine is the editor behind phenomenally successful children’s books — including, wonder of all wonders, the ‘Harry Potter’ collection.” Baltimore Sun, 13 July 2005
NEW YORK – Arthur Levine’s particular brand of sorcery is to write as though in disappearing ink.
As the U.S. editor of the six phenomenally successful Harry Potter books, the 43-year-old Levine is a real, if seldom-quoted, partner in the creative process. He says his work is at its best when it leaves no apparent trace.
“My job is invisible,” he says. “That’s the way it should be. What I do for Jo Rowling and my other authors is to be the ideal reader, to react at the same time both critically and sympathetically. I tell her what makes me cheer and laugh, what makes me anxious and confused. I give her feedback, after she’s done that as much as she can for herself.”
In 1997, Levine, a respected publisher of literary children’s books, visited an international book fair in Bologna, Italy, and picked up a manuscript by a then-unknown writer, a former British welfare mom. Levine read the draft in one sitting on the plane ride back home.
“From the first chapter, I was laughing and absorbed,” he said. “By the time the plane landed, I had finished the book and was certain I wanted to publish it.”
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone already was under contract in the United Kingdom to Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. Levine immediately snapped up the U.S. rights for $105,000 – surely one of the publishing bargains of the century.
With the release Saturday of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, there will be about 114 million of Rowling’s books in print in the United States, according to a spokeswoman for Scholastic, their U.S. publisher. Like its predecessors, this sixth offering in an anticipated seven-book series is expected to account for roughly 10 percent of Scholastic’s annual, $2.2 billion in sales.
Levine resembles one of Harry Potter’s hipper wizard teachers, with his bald head, sculpted beard and rectangular frames. And if you use your imagination, his office even resembles a classroom at Hogwarts. Is that a pen on his desk, or a magic wand?
Same difference.
One wall is crammed with the English-language and foreign editions of the roughly 90 children’s books published by Arthur A. Levine Books, a Scholastic imprint. First editions of the Harry Potter novels receive no particular pride of place, but are rubber-banded together and shoved into a back corner. It’s not that Levine isn’t entranced with them – he is. But he’s passionate about every book he publishes.
In a way, his career is an outgrowth of his first love, poetry.
Born in Queens, Levine majored in English and creative writing at Brown University and fell under the spell of such poets as Mary Oliver and Billy Collins. Levine is himself a poet, but versifying is notoriously unlucrative. Luckily, he discovered that the meter so important to a sonnet or sestina is equally essential to children’s literature, especially in picture books. Rhythm and rhyme can help kids remember what they’re hearing and, eventually, to read.
After graduating, Levine took the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course and joined Putnam Publishing, where he began to specialize in children’s literature. In 1996, he came to Scholastic – and the following year made the discovery that catapulted him to superstar status in the publishing world.
“I believed in Jo before she was famous,” he says. “The way I respond to her books has not changed; it’s all about the writing and the characters.”
Respect for privacy
Of course, Rowling is famous, and that limits what Levine is willing to say about her, even if that means that his own contributions remain in the shadows. Whereas a lesser-known author might profit from any publicity, even mentions of his or her endearing quirks, similar revelations would be embarrassing to a writer of Rowling’s stature.
“I’m conscious of not sacrificing Jo’s privacy just because she’s famous,” Levine says. “It might lead her to feel less safe, and nothing could influence me to do that.”
That’s especially true since rumors about Rowling are rife. The writer has been slammed for everything from the supposed Satanist subtext in her books to her income. In 2004, she made Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.
“We’ll have a good laugh about how off-base all the talk is,” Levine says. “That takes the sting out of it. She’ll say things like, ‘I can’t talk long because I have to muck out my sixth castle.’ Even though she knows the things being said about her aren’t true, it still hurts.”
Levine will allow, cautiously, that unlike other authors, Rowling doesn’t run ideas past him while she’s immersed in a draft. Nor will she send him early chapters to gauge his response.
“Her process is to work very, very hard for a long time before she sends me the manuscript,” he says. “At the point at which she’s ready to send it to me, it’s pretty polished. She’s almost always aware of what she’s doing and why. She rarely does anything unconsciously. She’s a secure writer, very confident.”
After studying the manuscript, Levine and Emma Matthewson, Rowling’s British editor, confer in person or over the phone. Then, they write a joint letter to Rowling outlining their responses. So considered and thoughtful is this letter that Levine describes it almost as though it were a gourmet meal that had been painstakingly planned over a period of weeks.
“It’s like all three of us are friends, and Emma and I are preparing this thing for our third friend,” he says.
Levine and Matthewson see eye to eye to a remarkable degree, he says. “When we don’t, we’ll agree to disagree and present both sides to Jo.”
But not even Rowling’s trusted editors can penetrate the cloak of invisibility that she keeps over future plot developments. Levine’s queries about a manuscript of Rowling’s will not infrequently elicit this response: “That’s a good question. You’ll find out the answer in book 7.”
Levine’s contributions may be invisible once a book is finished, but they’re hardly anonymous. Other children’s book authors whom Levine has edited say that Rowling is lucky.
“A really good editor never tells you what to do,” says Betsy James, a New Mexico author of 16 children’s books. “Instead, Arthur poses questions. He has a marvelous ear for subtle meanings and rhythms. Arthur’s a delight to work with, really highly intuitive. I’ve had various editors, and he’s the star in that department.”
Another writer
Levine also plucked Lisa Yee out of the slush pile. Yee, whose second book will be published in October, said that working with Levine not only made her career, it made her a better writer.
While she was working on her first book, Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Yee’s naturally lively, funny writing style deserted her. Instead, she seemed able to produce only stiff, mannered prose.
Levine deduced that she was being buried underneath her own expectations. He told her that when she sat down to write, she should pretend that she was sending him e-mails. The resulting manuscript later won an award for humor writing in children’s books.
“He has the power to transform lives,” Yee says. “He’s like Simon Cowell on American Idol, only nicer and funnier and more handsome. He can be larger than life in his presence and enthusiasm. When he gets excited about something, his voice raises, and he gets animated. He will talk nonstop.”
Understandably, nothing stings Levine more than the accusation that a book was under-edited – a charge leveled by some reviewers about the fifth novel in Rowling’s saga, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
At 870 pages, it is the longest novel in the series by 150 pages. It was published amid rumors that Rowling had writer’s block, had missed two deadlines and that her publishers rushed the newest installment into print.
And it is a charge that Levine emphatically denies.
“The book was edited carefully, and Jo was open to the process of editing,” he says. “If anything, we took extra precautions because we knew that it was a book that millions of people would read and that would be around forever.”
Levine is the bravest of all editors, one who has exposed his own work to the same scrutiny that he lavishes on his authors. He has written six well-received children’s books, most of which have been published by William Morrow & Co.
“Levine’s precise and evocative language packs graceful surprises,” wrote Publishers Weekly in a review of The Boy Who Drew Cats, a retelling of a Japanese folk tale.
But as satisfying as Levine finds the hands-on work of crafting a story, he’s not about to quit his day job. “I’m not a frustrated writer,” he says.
“When I want to write something, I write it. It’s a different impulse than being an editor. Being an editor is like being a friend. The responsibilities are the same, and so are the satisfactions. The feeling of closeness and intimacy you get are the rewards of friendship, and they’re also the rewards of being an editor.”
What could be more magical than that?
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Frede_Potter
Revisão: {patylda}
Anelli, Melissa. “American Editor Levine on HBP: ‘There are a lot of answers,’ The Leaky Cauldron, June 16, 2005
TLC attended yesterday’s unveiling of Scholastic’s 30-day countdown clock at its New York City store. Kids from a nearby elementary school gathered around the huge Half-Blood Prince display and answered trivia questions posted to them by Arthur Levine, the main editor of the Scholastic edition of Harry Potter, and Barbara Marcus, the executive vice president of Scholastic. The kids chanted Alohomora, and the two execs pulled back curtains to reveal the countdown clock.
See pics of the event here; cycle through by hitting “next” at the bottom of each! (These pics were taken by Leaky designer extraordinaire, John Noe.)
After Mr. Levine and Ms. Marcus were through with the event, they were kind enough to stick around to answer some of our questions. Levine said:
“[Fans] will like the fact that they are finally getting a lot of answers … You have moments when you say, ‘Wow, Harry is really growing up,’ which is not something you would have said three books ago. … Gosh, Hermione? You know, ‘You go girl.'”
There’s more in the video; we threw in a little uptempo music to reflect the mood of the day as well as the free, fun attitude of Mr. Levine and Ms. Marcus. (Make sure you watch to the end. There’s also a little joke for the sharp-eared fan in there, if you can spot it.) These files are brought to you by the good folk at Streamload.
The Scholastic 30-Days-to-HBP Countdown
Arthur Levine and Barbara Marcus Talk to TLC
Low Res (5MB, Quicktime)
[Remember to right-click and “save as”]
Medium Res (10MB, Quicktime)
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The Interview (transcription by Sue Upton)
After montage of event, Barbara Marcus and Arthur Levine together, waving at camera: “HI LEAKY CAULDRON!”
They turn to huge Half-Blood Prince Countdown clock and Book Cover: “And LOOK, look what’s about to happen!”
Barbara Marcus: “It’s incredibly exciting, and all the activities are starting to come in, and everyone is trying to get really creative now, and thats all very exciting. We just wanna make sure that it all, everything goes perfectly.”
Arthur Levine: “I think they will like the fact that they finally are getting a lot of answers. Definitely J.K. Rowling has paced the books in a very deliberate way, and this is book six. She only has two more, and so she really has to start (BM: “Including this one.”) yeah, and book seven ( BM: “Don’t get [inaudible], Melissa will write, “Oh my god, there’s a book eight!”) [Laughter.]
AL: “No, of all people, I know the Leaky Cauldron know what the score is! But, you finally, there are a lot of, there are a lot of answers.[He nods several times] And I think that is the most satisfying thing for fans.”
AL: “I guess for me the most satisfying thing is to see the continuing emotional development of the characters. To see them, to actually see them growing up, which is something that, as in with your children, you don’t neccessarily notice on an ongoing basis but you have moments that you say, ‘Wow,’ you know? ‘Harry is really growing up,’ you know. And it’s not something you would have said three books ago [laughter]or when he first got to Hogwarts, or… Gosh, Hermione? (Nods) You know, “YOU GO GIRL.” [laughter]
BM: “We knew that from the begining though.”
AL: “Right we knew that, but she didnt always – but she’s come a long way. So I think the character development is for me, the most satisfying.”
BM: “Aren’t we lucky? I mean that’s the word that always comes into mind, aren’t we lucky to have had this experience?”
AL: This may sound odd, but I’m just not that aware of the larger phenomenon. It’s not my job to be aware of the larger phenomenon. It my job to be focused on a book, on Jo as the author, and this, the sixth of a seven book cycle. [It’s like having the] sense of having been watching an artist paint, but the Sistine Chapel or something like that, and seeing the last bits color going, coming into the picture, finally. … Espeically the night of [the book release], that has always been the point of that I allow myself to feel that pleasure of seeing kids online, and adults, at midnight for a book.”
BM: “Mature worldly kids, and there are tons of worldly mature kids out there and adults who turn around and go go, ‘OK, the next Harry Potter is coming out. I’m gonna go back and read the first ones again.’ I mean that’s so [touches heart] How amazing? How amazing is that?”
AL: “The idea that a pub[lication] date is part of America’s cultural awareness is unique. This author has set up this incredibly elaborate puzzle, you know, putting a little piece here, a little piece there and still it’s continually amazing that this little tiny minor detail from book two suddenly becomes a plot point – I’m making that up by the way, that’s randomly chosen from my head [laughter].
BM: “You never know who the kid, that’s the other unbelievable thing, you never know who the kid that is gonna be connected and is so passionate about it. You think you do, but you don’t.”
BM: “The readers drag you back to that moment of, ‘This is why this is such a big deal.’ It’s the readers, it’s the book, it’s having the opportunity to have known J.K. Rowling, all that, has been so amazing.”
AL, standing with Cheryl Klein, continuity editor on HP: And, the Half-Blood Prince is – [Cheryl clamps her hand over Arthur’s mouth and smiles smugly while Arthur reveals the secret behind her hand (or so we think)].
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Naty Granger
Revisão: {patylda}
Parsons, Claudia. “Publisher has over 10 million Potter books ready,” Reuters, June 5, 2005
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A stolen copy of the new Harry Potter novel may already have surfaced in Britain, but the book’s American publisher is confident the latest tale of the boy wizard’s adventures will be kept secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic, until next month’s publication.
Barbara Marcus, president of Children’s Book Publishing at Scholastic — author J.K. Rowling’s U.S. publisher — said 10.8 million copies of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” had been printed.
Most them will be in bookstores on July 16, with some held in reserve for restocking.
In an interview at the Book Expo America trade fair in New York, Marcus said security was tight but Scholastic was relying on booksellers to make sure there are no leaks or early sales.
“They really know what their responsibility is. The only thing we hold over people’s heads is that we say we can’t ship any more books,” she said, noting that the threat of being cut off from future supplies was keeping booksellers from breaking the rules.
“Everybody wants to be able to put this book in the hands of the children,” she said.
Marcus spoke shortly before news emerged that two Britons had been charged with firearms offenses on Saturday after reportedly trying to sell a stolen copy of the new Harry Potter book to the London tabloid the Sun for nearly $91,000.
The latest book is the sixth installment in the hugely popular series about the boy wizard and his friends. The fifth adventure, published in 2003, made publishing history, selling 5 million copies within 24 hours. Pre-orders have already made the new book the top seller on Amazon.
Marcus said she was one of just a handful of people who had read the book, including the editors responsible for Americanizing the text.
“I would say definitely fewer than 10 people have read it,” said Marcus, who bought the American rights to the series for $105,000 back in 1997. She said it seemed like a lot of money at the time “for an unpublished first book by an unknown British writer.”
Scholastic has sold 103 million copies of the previous five Harry Potter books and is providing promotional material for bookshops around the country which plan to hold midnight parties for fans to buy the book the moment it goes on sale.
“The booksellers have taken control and I would say there are going to be thousands and thousands of midnight parties at 12.01 on July 16,” Marcus said.
She declined to give away much about the new book, beyond repeating a few snippets that Rowling has already revealed.
“There’s a new minister of magic, someone dies but it’s not Harry or Voldemort, and the half blood prince is not Harry or Voldemort,” she said.
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Beatriz Fernandes
Revisão: {patylda}
Jacobson, Aileen. “Inside BookExpo America: Hints of Harry Potter [excerpt],” NewsDay.com, June 4, 2005
Alas, I was less successful wheedling any information about the new Harry Potter from the book’s editor, Arthur Levine. “There’s a new character named Maclaggen,†he said, and spelled the name. And …? And nothing. Levine clammed up. Jim Dale had mentioned yesterday that somebody dies. True? “I can neither confirm nor deny.†Does Harry have a girlfriend? “I can’t say … He’s definitely growing up in all areas of his life.†Later, he said he didn’t experience this book to be as dark as the last, though the overall arc of the series is that the “world is getting more pernicious.†This one, he said, “has more romance in general.†And then he and marketing VP Jennifer Pasanen, who was sitting in, started humming “Love is in the air.†Well, it’s a clue.
Unless someone swipes a copy of “HP and the Half-Blood Prince†(as two men already did in London, but they were caught), we’ll have to wait until July 16.
consulte Mais informaçãoJacobson, Aileen. “Dentro da BookExpo America: Vai as loucuras no Dia 2”. NewsDay.com, 3 de junho de 2005. No primeiro compromisso na manhã de hoje, eu estive presente em um café da manhã de autores infanto-juvenis....
consulte Mais informaçãoTradução: Rö. Granger
Revisão:
Hammer, A.J., “Arthur Levine talks Half-Blood Prince on CNN,” CNN, May 23, 2005
Transcription of television broadcast
A.J. HAMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We’ve gone straight to the top to uncover the secrets of the next Harry Potter book. Here at the publishing company’s own book store, we tracked down the publisher of installment No. 6, “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.” The magic trick we try to perform is to get even a hint of what’s in the story.
(on camera): Have you read the book?
BARBARA MARCUS, SCHOLASTIC: And it has a — I’m not at liberty to
tell.
HAMMER: You’re not at liberty to tell me if you’ve read the book?
MARCUS: No, we’re not at liberty to tell.
HAMMER: Well security pretty tight around here.
(voice-over): The editor wasn’t much help either.
(on camera): Does anyone die in the next Harry Potter book?
ARTHUR LEVINE, EDITOR: I can’t tell you that.
HAMMER: OK, I can see where this is going to go.
(LAUGHTER)
HAMMER: Do Ron and Hermione actually get together finally? There’s been sort of this, you know, a little tension between them. Are they…
LEVINE: You know it’s interesting that you should ask that because I can’t tell you that.
HAMMER: OK. Well, here’s one for sure you can tell me. Who’s the new Minister of Magic?
LEVINE: I can’t tell you that.
HAMMER (voice-over): There are some facts out there. The sixth book in the series releases July 16 worldwide, and preorders for the book have already put it at the top of BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com’s best seller lists.
It has been two years since the fifth book, which has sold more than 16 million copies in this country alone. And just like the last time, bookstores are planning parties and events to handle the crowds.
MARCUS: Last time, booksellers sold five million books over the first weekend. We, right now, have 10.8 million copies that are going to be coming off the press and being sent to book stores, because we know that there are millions and millions of families and children waiting to read the next Harry Potter.
HAMMER: But as for what’s in that book….
LEVINE: Well, I can tell you that there is a new character named McClaggan.
HAMMER (on camera): We got a little something.
LEVINE: You got a little something, something.
HAMMER: McClaggan. And McClaggan is?
LEVINE: McClaggan. I’m not going to tell you that.
HAMMER (voice-over): In this case, fans of the story will just have to read all about it.
A.J. Hammer, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Source: Videotape, CNN
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