{"id":5055,"date":"2006-06-28T07:13:22","date_gmt":"2006-06-28T11:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5055"},"modified":"2010-07-15T10:00:24","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T14:00:24","slug":"rowling-speaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5055","title":{"rendered":"Rowling Speaks: “I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990, so I’ve known exactly how the series is going to end.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love this article<\/a>. Someone may die in the final installment … a major character … and who knows, it could be Harry. Rowling isn’t saying. But I do just love how whenever this woman opens her mouth, it’s an EVENT. For some reason I don’t find it obnoxious.<\/p>\n

Details in the article that I found really interesting:<\/p>\n

She says: “The last book is not finished. But I’m well into it now. I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990, so I’ve known exactly how the series is going to end,” she said.<\/p>\n

Fascinating. You can tell when you read those books (well, for the most part – there are the meandering sections where I get bored as hell and it seems like Rowling is just marking time) – but in general, you can tell that Rowling knows what she’s doing. She’s setting stuff up<\/i> because she knows where she’s going<\/i>. I’ve always felt that. I know the chapters and the incidents that I would cut – but hey, I’m not Rowling. I just love the idea that she wrote the last chapter to this whole series 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

I also love this: “The final chapter is hidden away, although it’s now changed very slightly. One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die that I didn’t intend to die,” she said. “A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil here. They don’t target extras do they? They go for the main characters. Well, I do.”<\/p>\n

She’s kind of awesome. No. They do not “target extras”.<\/p>\n

And the piece closes with: “I don’t think I’m ever going to have anything like Harry again. You just get one like Harry.”<\/p>\n

I don’t think these books are classics, like the Narnia books. I think they are a phenomenon<\/i>. I don’t think they’re particularly well-written – although she does have her moments – but I do know this: I can’t put the books down once I start them. They are addictive. And that takes some serious story-telling skills, which Rowling has in spades.<\/p>\n

And judging from this article – (and I guess THIS is why I love the piece so much): I really get the sense (unlike other literary phenomenons) that this is ALL ROWLING. Things get so over-marketed so immediately these days that it’s really quite disheartening – nothing even gets a chance to survive or not. Now these books are obviously marketed really well, it’s an entire business – but the books themselves, the writing of the books – is all Rowling. I still get the feeling that she sits alone in her room, and loses herself in her work – in the same way that she did when she was on the dole, scribbling the first book on napkins at the coffee shop. Listen to her wording: “two die that I didn’t intend to die” … I love that. She’s not completely in control of this book – it’s almost like IT is telling HER where she needs to go. Madeleine L’Engle talks a lot about characters in her own books who have surprised her, who have suddenly done things she found incomprehensible … and yet it took the book to the next level. But the magical thing is that; she is writing it!! Isn’t she just sitting there making stuff up? Yes, but then there is this little thing called inspiration. That’s why some writers talk about feeling like “vessels” or “channels”. It’s not a completely conscious artform – and I just really like that Rowling seems to be in that place. The book is leading HER. I feel like she hasn’t changed, even though now, apparently, she is richer than the Queen of England. In my opinion, the books have gotten better<\/i>, not worse, as the series went along … She doesn’t seem to compromise. There’s a lot of pressure on her – publishers, the movie franchise, marketers … It’s gotta be intense. She has<\/i> to come up with the goods. Many writers would cave under such a circumstance. Rowling seems to still know how to create that private space around herself – where she can write, and create. Because I thought the last 2 books were the best in the series. So obviously, she is not just trying to repeat herself. She’s not lazy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I personally can’t freakin’ wait for the next book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love this article. Someone may die in the final installment … a major character … and who knows, it could be Harry. Rowling isn’t saying. But I do just love how whenever this woman opens her mouth, it’s an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[964],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5055"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20730,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5055\/revisions\/20730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}