Harry Potter bewitches Guantanamo Bay prisoners
Prisoner of Azkaban, indeed. Either they're reading the books to try to imitate Sirius Black's escape from the Dementors, or these prisoners and I share some of our literary tastes.
Speaking of which, you may have noticed that the 5-book paperback set has been on my "nightstand" for a few weeks now. After I finished book six, I ordered the set, as I didn't have the first four books in the series in any format. Impossible, you say? I borrowed them all from a friend during a weeklong book binge at the end of the summer before my senior year of college. We actually tracked one of the four books down and took it from another of his friends who had been borrowing it, so obsessed was I, so intent on finishing what there was of the series before classes resumed.
Anyhow, I'm now at the start of book four once again, remembering things that Hollywood hasn't since spoon-fed to me and feeling my anticipation for the movie version of Goblet of Fire growing. And, speaking of Azkaban, I'm wondering if anyone else has thought about the differences between the book and the movie? I think this may be one of the few times that I prefer the images from a movie to the storytelling in a book; Steve Kloves and Alfonso Cuaron found an elegant way to deal with plot elements, like Hermione's time-turner, that Rowling seems to struggle to keep under control. The stones thrown by Hermione and the ferrets she uses to lure Buckbeak are inventions of the movie that speed things along, as is her role in Harry's casting of the Patronus that saves his life and that of Sirius, telling him that no one is coming to save him and spurring him to recognize that he saw himself, not his father, at the water's edge. None of these things happen in the book, and I missed them when I reread it. Funny that two men would take it upon themselves the enhance the role of a female character created by a woman, isn't it?
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