Today was the day that the new, illustrated version of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone was published, as far as I can see to pretty much universal acclaim. So obviously that means that I hate it.
I had misgivings when a colleague told me they were bringing one out.
"What does the world need it for?" Was my first reaction, so I was probably disinclined to like it from the start. Then I saw some of the work from it, and I really wish I hadn't.
The first picture I saw, long before the book was published was a picture of Harry looking about 7. It's to my mind a plump, rosy cheeked boy, looking nothing like the mistreated, under fed child that Petunia Dursley grudgingly allowed to sleep in her under stairs cupboard. Since then I've tried to ignore the fact that the book was going to be published, until today, when I could ignore it no longer and it has lived up to my worst fears. I'm sorry to say it, but it's horrid. Horrid, horrid, horrid.
Why should I be so mean? Well I honestly don't like to. Let me first say that there has been an awful lot of hard work that has gone into the book, different styles of illustration, double page spreads, full portraits of the characters little illustrations sitting within the text, so I have to say a big well done for the work that has happened. Jim Kay is a very talented illustrator, which makes my criticism hard to reconcile. I just think it is all wrong
Because there are different styles of illustrations the book is disjointed. It looks like two, three or more artists have collaborated together to create the book and because of that it looks a mess. Some of the illustrations have echoes of Ralph Steadman, others of Hans Holbein, and it just doesn't look right. To my mind it looks like there was no ahesive concept about the overall style of the book. Some pictures look to have been lovingly painted, others just thrown in because they were needed, looking half finished. I know this isn't true, it's a deliberate style decision, but for me it just doesn't work.
To me the strongest pictures in the book are the landscapes. These actually tend to work rather well, there is a rather lovely one of a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest, which springs to mind and some rather decent ones of Hogwarts Castle itself. Another strong point is a lovely illustration of dragon eggs and a spread showing some of the different types of troll.
For me though, these high points are rare gems. The illustrations of the characters are a different matter entirely.
Now it may be that because I have read the books so many times I have a distinct view of what each character looks like (and that is nothing to do with the equally dire films) but because I am able to use my imagination I use the written descriptions and well you know the rest. In this book there are simply characters I am not familiar with.
Snape looks like a cross between Mark E Smith and Gollum with a sprinkle of childcatcher thrown in for good measure; Dumbledore looks like a dirty old man directly descended from a mixture of the famous portrait of Henry VII and Albert Steptoe, someone who would touch children rather than teach them; Ron looks odd, like his face has been stretched on a rack for a fortnight; Hermione like a sullen child who needs a damned good telling off; McGonagall looks bovine, certainly not the strict, clever witch from the text. I could go on, but I'm getting angrier just thinking about it.
I haven't updated this blog in over a year, but this has made me so genuinely upset that it's keeping me awake so I had to write down some of the thoughts I had about it. There will be many Potter fans who will love the book because it's Potter and everything about it is amazing. I love Potter and because of that fact, I hate this book.
JK Rowling gave us all a gift when she created the world of Potter. It feels like that gift has been taken away from me, and given to somebody else; someone with a different view of what that world looks like, and it's a view that I disagee with. Unfortunately I now can't get the illustrators view of the world out of my head. It's like my version of the world has been null and voided; because it's an official book, this is what the characters do look like and now I'm forced to change my impressions to another person's point of view.
The book is acting like a rather large dementor, sucking my happy thoughts of Potter, my own images of that beautiful, strange and exciting world out of my head, leaving only negativity there. It's colouring my view of Rowling's world and making it somewhere I don't care for visiting again.
There's a reason why some books should never be illustrated. This, I fear, is a rather fine example in point.
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