Potty

Yes, the frenzied mania is beginning to build up momentum. Time Magazine has a great feature that shows the lengths that the Harry Potter brain trust (yes, apparently there is such a thing) went through to maintain the secrecy of the Deathly Hallows. Wikipedia also has this really fascinating analysis of the final book.

I so cannot wait for the book (here I'm beginning to sound like a raving maniac but I don't really care, I'm one of scores of many). I have been contemplating for the past few hours whether I should take leave from work and go off somewhere just to read the book in complete seclusion and savour the moments of reading this final book from Rowling. After all, the moment's never going to come again (I can hear people exclaiming "Oh for goodness sake!"). I read the 2nd last book at The Avillion, and cried when Dumbledore died (and cried a 2nd time when I read it again the next time, that's how absorbed I got in Rowling's writing).

So, I am seriously thinking about taking 2 days off (it's been too long since I've stopped eating just to read a book - I used to do that as a kid, not actually stop eating, but bringing the story book and propping it up in front of my plate, until my parents stopped that habit). I almost want to pull out of that treasure hunt on the launching weekend too. But I've already promised, so I shouldn't back out.

I've also been trawling the web for various interviews that the cast gave after the Tokyo premiere yesterday of the 5th Potter movie. Yah, like a Potter-stalker. But well, I'm not the only one. But I do admit, I'm looking forward to the 7th book more than the 5th movie. The movie will merely whet my appetite for more in the book. Ah, but I'm raving now.

I've heard a really huge rumour on the character that will die in this final book - and hearing that rumour, it thoroughly caused me to gape with horror. I hope it is just that, a rumour, nothing more. But not wanting to spoil it for some, I won't say who is rumoured to die. As, apparently, I already spoilt it for KF because I just could not keep my horror to myself. However, the writer of this Time article put it perfectly succinctly:

"People read books for any number of reasons; finding out how the story ends is one among many and not even the most important. If it were otherwise, nobody would ever bother to read a book twice. Reading is about spending time with characters and entering a fictional world and playing with words and living through a story page by page. The idea that someone could ruin a novel by revealing its ending is like saying you could ruin the Mona Lisa by revealing that it's a picture of a woman with a center part. Spoilers are a myth: they don't spoil."