Blog Post #1 Response

My expectations of Harry Potter, after the first two books were a little disjointed. My initial experience with Harry Potter is probably different from most. I did not want to read Harry Potter. My best friend at the time did not like to read, and as a young girl I pretty much did what she wanted. In a much less malicious was I was the Crabbe to her Malfoy. Not many kids in my grade school read Harry Potter, and only a select group that I knew of brought them to school to read. My mom traveled a lot on business, and she always brought us back something. Even though she knew I had not read Harry Potter, for some reason her gift to me after one of her business trips was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Not wanting to be ungrateful I read the first chapter. I had intended to quietly put the book on the bottom shelf, but I didn't want to stop reading. I stayed up all night and finished The Goblet of Fire. I then went to the school library and checked out The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, and finally The Sorcerer's Stone, in that order because that was the order they were available and I was too impatient to wait. So my initial experience with Mr. Potter was a little out of sequence.

To address Wolfgang Iser's comments the expectations that Rowling sets up for us and the expectations for me as a reader are not quite the same. It is hard to separate knowledge we know from pieces of information that is presented to us. I agree that Rowling modifies our expectations throughout the series. She is wonderful at plot and character development. She leads us down many paths and while we think we are headed south, only she knows that we are actually wandering east. After the first two books we expect to see development between Ron, Harry, and Hermione. We expect Voldemort to return. We don't know how or when, but after two failed attempts we expect him to try again in the next book. We think that we have figured Rowling out. She has presented to us two very different but fantastical ways for him to return. First through the Sorcerer's Stone, and then through Riddle's Diary. To me as a reader this was the first time I had ever seen this potential. I still can't name a time that I know of where a character has literally used a lecherous book to return to power and strength. We don't know what she will present to us next, but we think that whatever it is we as a reader will figure it out.

I feel that some expectations that she raises are fulfilled much later in the series, while some are addressed more immediately. We expect the relationship with the Dursley's to change, and it does, but we also expect to see Voldemort again in the next book and we don't quite. His presence is always felt, but he does not try to return to power in the third book. I think Rowling gives us some failed expectations, though we don't quite realize it yet, to let us interpret Harry Potter on our own level. I think this is important because it helps us as a reader try to figure things out on our own and it also draws us in closer to the story, and helps to engage us more as readers.