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New Harry Potter Illustrations
Via mental_floss:
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are getting a makeover. British artist Jim Kay, who won a Carnegie Medal in 2012 for illustrating Patrick Ness’s fantasy children’s book A Monster Calls, is reimagining the look of Harry’s world for a new edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. According to The Guardian, Kay is slated to create full-color illustrated editions of all seven of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, with the first expected to hit shelves October 6. The subsequent novels will be released one per year.
A Harry Potter fan himself, Kay tells The Guardian that “hearing the news that I’d got the commission was an explosion of delight, followed instantly by an implosion of brain-freezing terror.” Kay continues, “From my point of view it is, without doubt, the best commission you can be given—I’m a bit of a control freak, so to be given the opportunity to design the characters, the clothing, the architecture, and landscapes to possibly the most expansive fantasy world in children’s literature, well, let’s just say I’m extremely excited about it.”
And after a sneak peek at Kay’s work—well, let’s just say we’re extremely excited about the new editions.
Sunday Inspiration: Small Things
Do small things with great love.
—Mother Teresa
Is the Star Wars Universe Mostly Illiterate?
I don’t know, but this article by Ryan Britt made me think.
Not once in any Star Wars movie does someone pick up a book or newspaper, magazine, literary journal, or chapbook handmade by an aspiring Jawa poet. If something is read by someone in Star Wars, it’s almost certainly off of a screen (and even then, maybe being translated by a droid), and it’s definitely not for entertainment purposes. As early as the 1990s-era expanded Star Wars books and comic books, we’re introduced to ancient Jedi “texts” called holocrons, which are basically talking holographic video recordings. Just how long has the Star Wars universe been reliant on fancy technology to transfer information as opposed to the written word? Is it possible that a good number of people in Star Wars are completely illiterate?
He concludes,
Obi-Wan may have put a lightsaber in Luke’s hand, but really he and Qui-Gon should have been going around teaching people on poor planets to read years and years prior. After all, hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good book in your hands.
Indeed.
Flossie Familiarizes Fans with Frightening Female Fiends
It just another Mythic Monday at Flossie Benton Rogers’s eponymous blog. Today, she describes seven female monsters from world mythology.
Sunday Inspiration: Children
If we don’t stand up for children, then we don’t stand for much.
—Marian Wright Edelman
Rowan Williams on Fairy Tales
From his New Statesman review of a trio of recent books relevant to the topic:
In 1947, J R R Tolkien published a celebrated essay on fairy tales in which he insisted that their association with childhood was recent and unfortunate; it misled us into thinking that the genre was not worth serious analysis, not something to “think with”. Marina Warner’s wide-ranging and handsomely produced book Once Upon a Time will reinforce Tolkien’s insistence that these stories are very far from being a simple style of narrative to be outgrown. She surveys the literary history of the fairy tale, from the elegant fables of 17th-century French aristocrats to Angela Carter and beyond, discusses the feminist move to reclaim women’s agency from generations of patronising images of languishing princesses, and offers a particularly interesting analysis of recent film treatments of the classic tales. Her conclusion is that “fairy tales are gradually turning into myths”: paradoxically, in our day, it is adults who seem most to need and use them, because they are just about the only stories we have in common with which to think through deep dilemmas and to keep alive registers of emotion and imagination otherwise being eroded. The fairy tale now has to carry an unprecedented burden of significance, and it is not surprising that modern versions – retellings or radical rewritings, like those of Angela Carter – produce a darker, more complex, less resolved narrative environment than hitherto.
Sunday Inspiration: Passion
Passion is too important to be without, but too fickle to be guided by…. Don’t follow your passion, but always bring it with you.
—Mike Rowe
Merry Christmas
Christ is born! Glorify him!
Tolkien Geek’s Review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Heading into the theater I was a little disconcerted by the mixed reviews of this last installment in the Hobbit series from both critics and fans alike. I suppose a lot of one’s appreciation for (or lack thereof) this grandiose cinematic interpretation of such a small but beloved book depends primarily on the expectations that are brought to it. Personally, from the outset I’ve been very happy with what Peter Jackson and company have presented. And I know that I’m probably considered very much to be a Jackson homer/fanboy, blind to the mistakes, imperfections and downright presumptive liberties taken in the execution of turning “The Hobbit” from written word to visual media.
A 1901 Version of “A Christmas Carol”
Via mental_floss:
Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost, a silent film from 1901, is the earliest known film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1843 A Christmas Carol. Produced by the English movie pioneer R.W. Paul, the film is based more on J.C Buckstone‘s 1901 stage adaptation Scrooge than on Dickens‘ original story. Like in the play, the silver screen Scrooge is shown the error of his miserly ways all by the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley—played surprisingly convincingly by a man in a sheet.
Darrell J. Pursiful 