on rereading OotP

[edenfalling]

I started rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix early in November, but I'm still only about halfway through it. I'd forgotten what a difficult book it is to read -- not because it's bad or boring, in any way, but because I identify with Harry and he spends most of the book feeling like he's blindfolded, handcuffed, trapped in a box, and ready to explode. That doesn't even remotely resemble a pleasant feeling, so, since I don't have the driving need to find out what happens next that carried me through the first time I read the book, I can't cope with more than one or two chapters at a time.

(My dirty little secret as a writer of HP fanfic is that I've actually only read OotP one and a half times (not counting this read-through), HBP once, and DH one and a quarter times. And yet I've cheerfully written fanfic based on those three books, or at least incorporating information from those books. *is sheepish* This is one of the things I'm trying to fix by rereading them, as well as ironing out some plot and prop stuff for "Strange Likenesses.")

So far, OotP sprawls and meanders in a lot of ways, and there are some plot points that need a fair bit of handwaving to smooth their rough edges, but it makes an emotional whole that is, to me, extremely convincing. I admire that.

Comments

[purple-alicorn.livejournal.com]

I have only read the last 3 books once. I have issues with them as I don't think they are well written and suffer from pacing issues (and plot holes but that's a whole other story). I suppose that's why I like fanfic as it tends to fix these and have a more convincing whole (and more emotional depth)

[edenfalling]

I see what you're saying, but... mneh. I am of the opinion that canon is canon and fanfic is fanfic, and it seems silly to prefer fanfic to canon, since without canon we wouldn't have fanfic. Even if/when there are fics I personally like rereading more than I like rereading canon, I put them in different mental categories -- apples and oranges, you know? -- so they never compete directly against each other.

And I like my fanfiction to be as canon-accurate as possible. Sometimes I change things a lot, but I try to keep the characters IC in their reactions to those changes. When I elaborate on or try to make sense of various world-building elements, I always refer back to canon; I fit my explanations and changes around what's already there, rather than throwing it out because I think I could do better. (Even when I do think I could do better.)

Maybe that's just me being weird.

[luriko-ysabeth.livejournal.com]

//and it seems silly to prefer fanfic to canon, since without canon we wouldn't have fanfic.//

Here, on the one hand, I can see what you're saying, and on the other, it seems to me something like someone saying they prefer Rodgers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse to Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors (or either to Plautus's Menaechmi), or liking Rent better than La Boh`me, or even preferring the LotR movies to the books; one wouldn't exist without the other, but the same transformative content that makes it apples-and-oranges to you can also mean that someone will rank one better than another. Especially when one gets into the question of writing and characterization styles.

(Actually, I sort of took purple_alicorn's comment to be preferring the first four books to the last three, which makes sense; I could pick up PoA again and again, but short of fic research, I have no interest in rereading OotP like, ever.)

//When I elaborate on or try to make sense of various world-building elements, I always refer back to canon; I fit my explanations and changes around what's already there, rather than throwing it out because I think I could do better. (Even when I do think I could do better.)//

I don't think that's being weird; short of fusions and crack AUs, I try to do as much myself, unless I started something with an incomplete canon and later canon flat-out contradicted my spackle. In those cases, depending on how much thought I put into it and how much the story depends on it, I may choose to declare a given work "AU after [book __/episode __]" rather than try to rewrite to a plot-munching extent.