Thread II: A Catholic Homeschooling Father Reads Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

Gloria Romanorum blog ^ | 8/20/07 | Florentius

[Antoninus]

Having read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I dove into Book 2, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets anxious to see where J. K. Rowling was going to take the story. I also wanted to see if my criticisms of the first book would stand up or get flattened as the story progressed.

Well, as for the story line, it really wasn’t a whole lot different from the first book. A mystery is introduced: the Chamber of Secrets has been opened by the mysterious Heir of Slytherin and whatever was locked in the Chamber has been attacking, but not killing, certain students who are not of pure magical blood. Harry and his friends sleuth around to figure out the mystery, breaking a myriad of school rules in the process and nearly (of course) getting expelled. When Hermione is attacked, Hogwarts is on the point of shutting down for good. It’s up to Harry, Ron, and the famous but useless Professor Gilderoy Lockhart to discover where the Chamber of Secrets is located and defeat the evil that lurks within.

I have to say I enjoyed reading this installment in the series quite a bit less than the previous book. The character of the self-promoting Gilderoy Lockhart, while resonating with the publisher in me, was too overdone to be funny--like a Monty Python skit that is shown over and over again until all the humor is thoroughly beaten out of it. Also in this category was the scene with Ron vomiting up slugs. Several pages of such imagery is more than enough for even the most scatologically-inclined juvenile reader.

On the other hand, I did like the character of Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister. In fact, I think that a lot of homeschool families would find the Weasleys very sympathetic. They've got seven kids--six boys and a girl. They're poor, so their forced to make due with hand-me-down robes and second-hand wands. And they're ridiculed by their social "betters" for their financial straights. The fact that Ron and his brothers are quick to resort to fisticuffs rather than hear their family demeaned may also resonate with some.

One thing that particularly irritated me about The Chamber of Secrets was the introduction of some alternate history taken directly from wicca 101. "Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the time," the ghost of Professor Binns lectures. "They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution" (pg. 150). I've heard similar nonsense bandied about by real, modern, historically-challenged wiccans, so when I saw this, I just shook my head. Not good. To my eye, this looked like a seed planted by Rowling and it seemed to substantiate Amy Welborn's observation:

"There's only one reason the Harry Potter books are in the least bit controversial. Just one. Wicca. That's it. If we didn't have this ridiculous little "religion" bustling around, forming "covens" in dorm rooms and getting army chaplains, I doubt one parent in a million would even think to waste even a minute being concerned about these books."

But it is a concern. For the record, there is an excellent article in the Catholic Encyclopedia that gives a capsule scholarly history of witchcraft from the Catholic perspective and it is very effective in debunking wicca and its ridiculous alternate history. I hope that the future books in the series do not contain other such seeds--I'll certainly be looking for them.

The Chamber of Secrets also elaborates upon the differences between the magically inclined and those poor benighted creatures known as Muggles--that is, anyone who is "normal" and non-magical. In Rowling's world, there are those among the magical who despise the "Mudbloods"--anyone who is magical but from a Muggle family--and those good magic-users who are tolerant of Muggles, no matter how awful and nasty they may be. There seems to be an obvious intent on Rowling's part to make this a lesson in tolerance somehow, but it seems peculiarly elitist to me. Even the magical beings who tolerate the Muggles still, for them most part, look down on them as curious and generally pathetic creatures in need of study. One could easily imagine a book of poetry in the Hogwart's library containing "The Magical Man's Burden." I'm curious to see where this tangent ends up in the future books.

The climax of the book was also subpar. The horrible creature in the Chamber of Secrets is fairly inept. It kills no one (and the reasons given for this are ludicrous) and is eventually destroyed almost by accident. Though Harry is the hero, he seems to survive his deadly encounters almost completely by luck and the intervention of an "eye-in-the-sky"--all of which makes you wonder why the "eye-in-the-sky" didn't just deal with the problem in the first place.

I've heard it said that Chamber of Secrets is the weakest of the Potter books. Having read only the previous one, I can't comment on that, yet. However, it was certainly weaker than Sorcerer's Stone. The book also did little to quell my criticisms of the original book. Indeed, it enhanced them and added a few new ones. We'll see where all this leads in book three.

[Antoninus]

Here's the next installment. Here's a link to the previous one:

Buried in Potter's Field? A Catholic Homeschooling Father Reads the Harry Potter Series

[Tax-chick]

May I suggest you give a cooling-off period, followed by editing, to your next installment? You’ve got Homophonia.

[Antoninus]

Nahh. "Cooling off periods" only take me farther from my original impressions. I will be happy to eat my words in the reviews of the future books, though, if necessary. I'm going to refrain on making a judgment on the series as a whole until I'm finished Book VII.

I'm happy to squash the homophones, though.

[Religion Moderator]

Drop the tagline.

[Antoninus]

Roger. It’s a vestige from a previous thread. Not appropriate here.

[Bigg Red]

You’ve got Homophonia.

&&&
You are just too clever. I had planned to comment on the homonym problem, as well, but your summation was brilliant.

[Bigg Red]

The greatest gift parents can give their child is siblings.

&&
That tagline is great!

[Antoninus]

You are just too clever. I had planned to comment on the homonym problem, as well, but your summation was brilliant.

Arrrggggh! I now know what you're referring to. This is especially annoying because I actually fixed this error on the blog (straights = straits) but it didn't take for some reason.

Typos truly are the bane of my existence. Amusingly enough, I found a pretty obvious one in Prisoner of Azakaban. It's astounding to me that a book with such a huge budget and so many publishing resources associated with it would have an error like that, but such is life. I certainly won't criticize it for that.

[CholeraJoe]

Chamber of Secrets, eh? Attempted murder, kidnapping, slavery, animal cruelty, bad table manners, theft. Did I miss any? The inter-racial dating doesn’t start until book 4.

[Antoninus]

Pinging from the previous thread.

[Antoninus]

Chamber of Secrets, eh? Attempted murder, kidnapping, slavery, animal cruelty, bad table manners, theft. Did I miss any? The inter-racial dating doesn’t start until book 4.

Let's not forget about Hagrid and his strangely intimate relationships with flobberworms.

[Claud]

Good observation on the history of magic.

I think it’s particularly funny that wiccans want to be medieval and pagan at the same time—thus proving that they understand neither paganism nor the Middle Ages.

I think folks today are getting their history more from the D&D Players’ Manual than, say, Ovid and Malory. :)

[Tax-chick]

I meant “cooling-off” after writing, in order to see one’s homophones with a clear eye.

As the leader of the Typso and Allied Verbal Mayhem ping list, I have a set of shorthand diagnoses for grammatical gaffes: “Homophonia” is one of the most common problems, followed by “Comma Chaos.” Then there’s “Semicolitis,” for those inclined to Faulknerie.

[Tax-chick]

Antoninus, your new tagline has subject-verb disagreement.

[Claud]

Antoninus, your new tagline has subject-verb disagreement.

LOL...what's he supposed to do? The greatest gift ARE siblings? You have a singular subject and a plural "object" connected by "be". You can avoid the problem by pluralizing "gifts" but let's suppose you want to keep it singular.

[ArrogantBustard]

Arrant pedantry, up with which I shall not put!

[Tax-chick]

Rephrase the whole statement to avoid the linking verb. (When I get in a really bad mood, I torture my children by making them write without linking verbs.)

[Antoninus]

I think it’s particularly funny that wiccans want to be medieval and pagan at the same time—thus proving that they understand neither paganism nor the Middle Ages.

And it's just too convenient to claim that the "persecution" of witches (or is that whiches? Which is it??) started in the Middle Ages when the Catholic Church was ascendant when pretty much every ancient pagan culture made the practice of sorcery an offense deserving death.

I think folks today are getting their history more from the D&D Players’ Manual than, say, Ovid and Malory. :)

LOL. I think you're right. Rowling's got lots of inadvertent (or not) D&D references in the books. Every time she brings up a new creature, I think to myself, Monster Manual, 3HD, 1-8 hp damage per attack.

[Claud]

I wrote “object” but predicate nominative was the phrase I was trying to think of.

before I get corrected too! ;)

[Tax-chick]

A big kiss for your correct use of “arrant”!

I’d better start the school year on Monday, instead of putting it off until after our vacation. Then I won’t have time to niggle my FRiends’ grammar!