In thinking that adults who are over excited by Harry Potter need to get a life?

[booge]

well?

If they would only allow Ralph Fiennes (sp) to have his own face as Voldie, every woman in the non-wizarding community would switch to the dark side.

Point taken, mummydospells, but what about the whomping willow: a direct rip-off of the willow tree in Tom Bombadill's forest. Either rip-off or 'homage'.

Whomping willow may well have been inspired by the willow in Tom Bombadill's forest (prefer 'inspired' to 'rip of' ) but I'm sure I've come across attacking trees in other books. Isn't there one in an Enid Blyton book? I'm sure I remember something from my childhood reading but it is more than 30 years ago so the memory is a bit vague! Not much in literature is new or unique these days.

You are probably right. I suppose what gets me is that the books are good enough to make me read them (v. clever plots and a nice conceit) but bad enough to be a disatisfying read (thin characters, leaden prose, derivative.
It's not that I am jealous of someone younger than me you has got migghtily successful and rich doing somethin I'd like to do but haven't the talent for! Oh, no!

I wouldn't say they were a bad read. You have to remember that, despite what lots of adults maintain, they are children's books therefore won't have the depth and complexity of characters, etc, that you'd find in an adult book. If you want badly written, try the Lemony Snickett Series of Unfortunate Events. My nephew urged me to read those as he said they were as good as Harry Potter. The stories were okay but the style of writing irritated me and the characters were downright annoying! Not a patch on Harry Potter.

YABU - they are harmless fun

i love harry potter and his fiendishly wizardly charms

ooops i'm new to all this
could be a bit early for gin!!

I am so glad the general consensus is that I am being unreasonable as I have to be so eminently reasonable in RL. I still think you're all suckers though!!

I tell you when I fell out of love with HP. It was when all the hype and merchandising got to work. The stories used to be a brilliant escape from real life. You got on the hogwarts express and left privet drive a long way away. But now the whole bloody creation has been pulled into land-of-muggle and it's no longer an escape. Kids aren't free to use their own imaginations when reading it.

Jonah - it's never too early for gin!

ahh yes its past the 12 o clock watershed,I'm off to the leaky couldron