Did any of the teachers have a partner? It seemed like they were all single.
They didn't really have much in in the way of personal lives at all (which is very much how kids see teachers).
Nice acronym, Mom!
Buffy ,'Showtime'
The Buffista Book Club: the Harry Potter iteration
This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.
By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Trudy Booth - Oct 23, 2007 9:46:59 am PDT #3199 of 3301
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart
Kat - Oct 23, 2007 10:51:19 am PDT #3200 of 3301
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
I think Hagrid was the only one who had any relationship present in the text.
Vortex - Oct 23, 2007 11:33:34 am PDT #3201 of 3301
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
Anansi Boys didn't take place in a black setting as far as I could tell.
what makes a setting "black"?
§ ita § - Oct 23, 2007 11:42:36 am PDT #3202 of 3301
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
what makes a setting "black"?
No idea. Which is one reason I couldn't say Anansi Boys was in one. Okay, the reason. They were just people, and some of them were Jamaican. Setting only arose in an attempt to draw or fail parallels with sexual orientation in fiction.
beekaytee - Oct 23, 2007 12:32:09 pm PDT #3203 of 3301
Compassionately intolerant
All I know is, I was reading Dumbledore and Grindelwald's relationship as romantic, and Snape and Lily's as platonic
This was exactly my reading.
I don't have the book in front of me, but after reading the text and then listening to the audiobook several times in a row, it became more and more clear when Dumbledore used terms along the lines of...'boy with a golden smile', or some such, that his feelings for Grindelwald were more than chummy. The torrid letter writing. The heartache of being separated from him, and then feeling betrayed by him. It all just seemed...normal.
When it first occurred to me, my eyebrow went up with an 'oh-hoe!' But then the notion that Dumbledore was gay simply became part of the tapestry.
I'm struck now...that it didn't strike me as odd.
Connie Neil - Oct 23, 2007 1:17:34 pm PDT #3204 of 3301
brillig
I'm struck now...that it didn't strike me as odd.
The man does wear funky boots.
Vortex - Oct 23, 2007 1:51:11 pm PDT #3205 of 3301
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
Typo Boy - Oct 23, 2007 1:57:27 pm PDT #3206 of 3301
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
Yeah, OK. I have no problem with Rowling not putting everything she knows about her characters in her work; most good writers know stuff about their characters that is not in the text - although by not putting it in the text they leave their work open to equally valid alternative readings.
But she put a fair amount of trivia in the work. Even if she did not see it as essential to the series did she not understand that it would have been far from trivial to many readers? Honestly, is there any shortage of sentences she could have cut out to make room for something along the lines people here have suggested "I was blinded by his beauty for a time"?
Kate P. - Oct 23, 2007 4:17:55 pm PDT #3207 of 3301
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love
Do they actually say the character's races in Anansi Boys?
I don't think any of the black characters are ever described with the word "black," if that's what you're asking, but I think there are a couple of instances where a character's skin color is mentioned or implied. I remember Rosie's mom, for example, is described as resembling Eartha Kitt. Which doesn't necessarily mean that she'd be black, but that's certainly what I would assume until told otherwise.
The story would also have to take place in a setting where, to some extent, queer was the default.
Anansi Boys didn't take place in a black setting as far as I could tell.
Is Jamaica not a setting where one might assume that most people you meet will not be white? I'm honestly asking, as that was the impression I got from the book. I'm not sure what a "black setting" would be, exactly, but I do think that Anansi Boys took place in a setting where I found it easy to believe that most of the characters we met weren't white.
I think the question of whether you can parallel Anansi Boys with a story that treats sexuality in a similar way is interesting, but I'm not sure I can answer it fully. I can say pretty definitely, though, that J.K. Rowling's story is not that story.
I find it hard to make the leap from that to "being gay in the HP universe is totally not a big deal!" when we're given nothing else to support that reading.
I didn't say she'd succeeded in portraying that world. I just meant that may have been her thinking. (Which means I agree with you.)
Sorry, Emily, I did understand that you and I were in agreement. I was just taking your point and running with it.
Kat - Oct 23, 2007 4:23:20 pm PDT #3208 of 3301
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
I think the question of whether you can parallel Anansi Boys with a story that treats sexuality in a similar way is interesting, but I'm not sure I can answer it fully. I can say pretty definitely, though, that J.K. Rowling's story is not that story.
But Boy Meets Boy, a YA book, might be close. Not my favorite book. But it does create a non heteronormative world.