Igenlode Wordsmith

Even without access to fanfiction.net, apparently I haven't lost the urge to rewrite other people's mangled fic...

(Unfortunately the beginning of this is just as bad as the point at which I started the rewrite, so if I do decide to post it as an 'epilogue' scene in its own right I'll have to find some other introduction. The canon's a bit dodgy, as Snape's portrait ought to be in the Headmaster's office, not that of the teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts, but I suppose they might have moved it in the course of twenty years :-p)



https://m.facebook.com/FantasticBeastsIMO/photos/a.119923721984057/805427063433716/
( original )

( rewrite )

Tried to book seats for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" when the new batch of performances went on sale this morning. I got the onscreen countdown all right... but by the time the computer actually displayed the 'Book here' boxes, I was already number 20,145 in the queue. Seven thousand people got seats -- or at least, there were still thirteen thousand in the queue when the 'Sold Out' sign went up.

It's just not worth it. No performance can survive that sort of gold-fever rush a year in advance -- even if it's a good show, it can't be as good as all that. And no live performance that I've been to has lived up to the stress and price tag of getting seats, however cult (or otherwise) the show and good the reviews. Not "Flight Path", or "Mack & Mabel", or ENO's "Tosca", or "Les Misérables", or "The Phantom of the Opera"; I remember only a handful of theatrical productions that have ever worked magic for me, and one of those was "Bitter Sweet" at the local theatre when I was too young to be sophisticated. (The "Opera Up Close" productions, using small venues and English-language libretti to bring famous operas back to life, were the most effective that I can remember of late -- but their most recent ventures seem to constitute an attempt to 'fix' the perceived ideological flaws of the originals instead of merely restaging them, which puts my back up.)

So I don't think it's 'sour grapes'. I wasn't terribly keen on the idea of launching into this cut-throat clicking competition in the first place (and I wouldn't have been any happier about the idea of hanging endlessly on the telephone trying to get through to the Box Office, for that matter). I don't particularly enjoy spending large amounts of money on anything, because in my experience it has never, ever, been worth it, whether on ordering much-awaited books or a once-in-a-lifetime tall ship voyage -- the things that give pleasure are often the completely free ones, and the things that cost money and are hard to get come with an unpayable debt burden of anticipation to fulfil.

I can just imagine booking tickets, waiting a year, and then sitting through your two performances thinking 'well, was that it?'

So I may as well read the script now and find out what happens, since it doesn't look as if I'm likely to see the actual plays any time in the foreseeable future...

What a day!

I'd made determined plans last night to get a bit of urban walking in on Monday, that being my sole free day; then the alarm went off and I woke up and found out that it was still raining. Having been raining almost constantly since yesterday afternoon.

So I rolled over and lay down again, listening to the water gurgling down the drainpipes... and planning despite myself how I might circumvent the weather and set off after all. By the time I'd remembered the existence of the waterproof map-case the die was pretty well cast... and I got up and set off after all, only an hour behind schedule. It was now pouring down.

I did feel a bit silly dressed up in all my winter wet-weather gear and striding around town, but on the other hand I managed about eight miles or so without getting wet in the slightest. There is a good deal of satisfaction to be had in defeating the climate: as my grandmother used to say, "There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing". (There is also a good deal of satisfaction in watching other people get soaked while you remain toasty dry!) And I did manage to get back before it was dark, at which point it started thundering...!

After yet another hot bath, I finally sat down to the last chapter of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"; even given my one-chapter-a-day, when-I-have-privacy, when-I-have-time policy, the amount of time it has taken me to finish this book has been extraordinary. Especially as I can't do any more beta-reading jobs for Potter fan-fiction until I've actually read the latest installment myself... I'm afraid I'm not a True Fan. A True Fan would have been unable to defer satisfaction that long.

To be honest, it wasn't exactly enthralling me in many places. Rowling just can't seem to handle it when emotions are supposed to be running high -- she puts in lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and people bellowing and yelling, but it isn't convincing at all, and when it's an important part of the plot it just gets annoying. That was part of the problem with Book 5. (And part of the reason why Snape's an effective character, I think: he generally keeps control over his emotions, and Rowling can write cold rage and sarcasm. When he starts spitting and frothing it just gets messy.)

But the book does improve in that respect in the last few chapters. Harry supposedly grieving over lost companions is all 'tell' and no 'show'; with Harry resigned or happy, the writing is more transparent and the story can get through, as it were.

I feel like shouting "I told you so" with respect to my post-Book-6 Dumbledore story, although to be fair I didn't have it quite right; the emphasis on the Dark magic of the hand, though... It's ironic; reading Rowling's own characterization of the interview between those two, my gut reaction was 'she's got Snape right': no sentiment, just sarcasm. But of course, she was the one who wrote the character in the first place! (And even given that, I think she went a bit too far in explaining away Snape's role in the affair of George's ear: it reads as special pleading. Nobody ever claimed that Snape was nice...)