25 November, 2001

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
J. K. Rowling
1997
309 pp. (PB)

Well, like everybody else in the First World, I went to see the Harry Potter film. It's good fun, but as usual the book is better. Discussing the film made me want to read the novel again, and after four disappointing reads in a row, I was ready for something I knew I'd enjoy.

This is mostly comparisons between the book and the movie, geared towards comments folks have made.

1. Comment: "The actress who played Hermione in the film was 'too pretty,' Hermione is plain." That's not actually said anywhere in HPatSS, the only physical description given of her is that she has "lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth." Since Harry really isn't of an age where he'd be noticing girls, anyway, the lack of detailed description is apt.
2. Comment: "The school is crazy and dangerous, for example, the flying lesson: how could they just let them do that, a kid broke his wrist!" The book clarifies it a bit more. While the scene happens pretty much the same in the film as in the book, one sees from the book that Hogwarts students can afford to be placed in greater physical danger, because they have superior medical care. Neville's broken wrist is the real-world equivalent of a bruised shin. In the book, he appears the same evening, all fixed up.
3. Comment: "The ending is totally contrived. How lame is it to guard the Sorcerer's Stone with security measures a bunch of children could get past?" Well, the traps and spells guarding the Stone are better in the book than in the film (for one thing, there's more of them). But, they are still contrived. Most of them, any competant wizard could have gotten past. The only good ones were Fluffy (from a brute force POV) and the Mirror of Erised (which tests the purity of one's intentions). Actually, the Mirror alone would have been sufficient to keep Quirrel and Voldemort away from the Stone, if it wasn't for those meddling kids. I guess we can rationalize the weakness of the rest of the traps by saying they were just there to slow folks down.

As many have noted, it is incredibly lame that the publishers changed the alchemical artifact's name from the historically accurate "Philosopher's Stone" to the cheesy "Sorcerer's Stone" because they thought that American kids would be too stupid to get it. ("Duuuh, Philosopher's stone? What does that have to do with Philosophy?" As if it has any thing to do with Sorcery, either. They should have at least changed the name to the technically correct "Alchemist's Stone," or something like that.) I find that so offensive, I'd buy the British versions of the books, except that I really like the American cover art, and the chapter icons.

Anyway, the name change did give me a moment of amusement in the scene where Hermione looks up Nicolas Flamel in an old book:

"Nicolas Flamel," [Hermione] whispered dramatically, "is the only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone!"

This didn't quite have the effect she'd expected.

"The what?" said Harry and Ron.

A lot of snooty people knock the Harry Potter series, saying that it's "second-rate kid's stuff" or that it doesn't hold a candle to [insert other YA fantasy novelist here]. I disagree with the first assessment completely, and tend to dismiss people who make such statements as grouches who take themselves way too seriously. (Unless they haven't even read the books, in which case I dismiss them as pretentious nitwits.) As for the second, I haven't read every YA fantasist out there, so I can't say that all such statements are wrong, but one thing is for sure: Rowling's series has much broader appeal than any of them. It's amazing that people with such different tastes as myself, my mother, and my grandpa all love Harry Potter.

This page Copyright P. Korda, 2001, 2002. kor2@midway.uchicago.edu