Another public Harry Potter related poll - Beedle the Bard

[author_by_night]

[Poll #1309309]Comments are also welcome. I'm contemplating getting the book, but I don't know if it's really worth spending money on? I love Harry Potter as much as I did a year and five months ago, but I've actually never been as quick to get the companion books. It took me two years to get around to buying Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages.[Poll #1309309]

Comments

[linda-lupos.livejournal.com]

I actually felt that it was even more geared at the hard-core fans than FB and QttA. The Tales are cute but sometimes rather horrific (especially The Warlock's Hairy Heart), although even then much better than the sugary sweet 19th century alternative! *grin*
It's especially worth buying for the Dumbledore Documents (lol), but that also immediately makes clear that it's only for fans: casual readers won't care enough about the Tales to buy the book, and hardcore fans will gobble the extras up. Similarly, I don't really think little kids will care much about wandlore or historic backgrounds, let alone pick up little details that are only hinted at (hairy heart indeed), or little injokes (Grubby Goat!). Besides, I found Dumbledore's way of writing similar to his way of speaking in HBP and TDH; that is, verbose and somewhat academical. Easy for adults to read, but perhaps somewhat off-putting for younger readers, I'd think (but such a delightful way for Jo to display her sense of humour!).

I must say, though, that I really really loved that JK Rowling did the foreword and some of the footnotes, while still pretending that this was all real! "Professor McGonagall told me..." etc. I dunno, somehow it seemed as if she'd written herself into this world, or something. But it seemed really fitting, as a closure to the series, that the creator and the creation now interacted. :)

(I do think it's a shame that while the book has the subtitle 'Translated by Hermione Granger', there's no foreword by her or anything. The subtitle might as well not be there.)

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I dunno, somehow it seemed as if she'd written herself into this world, or something.

She's a writer - of course she's written herself into the world. And I believe McGonagall probably DID tell her... okay, obviously not literally, but I can totally believe that she was feeding the cat one day, and suddenly had this daydream where McGonagall was talking about - well, whatever Jo then said McG told her. :P

[linda-lupos.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, I get the writer kind of 'talking to the characters' (like stupid SMeyer not knowing her characters' favourite colour because 'they haven't revealed that to me yet'), but I felt that in BtB, it was presented as if Jo actually sat down and wrote a letter to McGonagall, and could just as easily go to Hogwarts herself (well, if she could see it anyway ;)). That's what I meant with writing her into the world.

...

OMG JO WROTE A SELF-INSERT.