Dear Luna, from Ginny and Hermione, July 15th

Regular print is Ginny writing. Italics are Hermione's commentary.

Dear Luna,

After we finished our visit with you when your father showed us that...that thing, (I'm going to go look it up in a book!) that was very lovely, we decided to walk back to the Burrow. I had side-along Apparated with Hermione, but I decided I don't like side-along Apparition much, (Your boyfriend doesn't, either, so I'm not surprised.) so we were going to take the bus and tell my dad all about it. I think that would have pleased him. But when we arrived at the bus stop, there was a creepy guy with drugs and Ginny was highly confused, so we left. Walking it was.

It was a billywig, one of the one he's using for that hush-hush project!

As we passed that creek with the rushes, we heard something rustling. Hermione had her wand out at once, though my first thought was that it was a bird. But, seeing Hermione on guard, I pulled out my wand as well. You make me sound like I'm paranoid! Don't you know there's a war on? Hermione said, "Dissendium!" and the rushes separated, but there wasn't anything there but a couple of big rocks.

We kept walking for quite a while and I put my wand back in my pocket. "I'd like to be Quidditch Captain," I said suddenly. "Since Harry's not coming back, it'll be open. I mean, I'd rather...well, you know."

"Yes, I know."

Silence. I grabbed at something cheery to say.

"Have fun with that, because I won't be there to confund anyone for you this year," said Hermione.

I had to laugh. "If you confund anyone this year, don't go out with him after."

"Well, that depends on how stupid your brother is."

"You know how he is with private moments." I sniffed. "I don't suppose there'll be much more chance for him to be obnoxious, then, is there?"

Obnoxious to whom? "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're all going away! And Harry won't be there. Even if he was, it--I--I should stay home, too."

"No, you ha--"

"What's the point of going back if Dumbledore isn't there and my brothers aren't there and you aren't there?"

"But Luna--"

"And class in the dungeons!"

"But Snape--"

"I don't know if I can ever look at that room again. That horrible man! I know he was so awful to Harry all the time, but I really hoped Dumbledore was right--"

"But Dumbledore--"

"--that Snape wasn't all bad. And then he--"

Hermione gripped her wand hard. "He killed Dumbledore."

I exploded. "I don't want to go back if you won't be there. But it doesn't matter, if you were, everything would be wrong, anyway. Bloody stupid You-Know-Who. I wish he'd died when Harry stabbed the diary!"

Hermione burst into tears. And then I burst into tears and we sank to the ground, mumbling and weeping about who-knows-what, everything, I think.

And then something small and gangly with a bulbous head flew out of nowhere and sank its teeth into my arm. I screamed. Hermione shouted, "Sectumsempra!" but it barely grazed the creature and it only backed off for an instant, a tiny bit of blood on its forehead.

I kicked away its second attack and Hermione tried, "Stupefy!"

I groped for my wand and shouted, "Reducto!" but it dodged and my spell reduced a small shrub to ashes.

Hermione gave her wand a little extra thrust: "STUPEFY!"

The spell hit the creature and it dropped like the rock its head resembled. It twitched a little, so Hermione added, "Petrificus totalus!"

We stood shaken, staring at it for a few seconds. Then Hermione turned to me. "Here," she said, and healed up the bite on my arm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said, "but I think it was making us depressed, like a Dementor." I looked it up when we got back to the Burrow. It was a pogrebin.

"Why'd you use Sectumsempra?" I asked.

Hermione shrugged. "We'd just been talking about Snape, and I needed a spell."

"It's dark magic, isn't it?" I said, thinking about the time Harry had Snape's potions book.

"Um," Hermione said, shoving her wand into her pocket. "Maybe. I don't know."

We walked back to the Burrow in silence, compulsively checking over our shoulders. But nothing was there.

We're safe and sound inside the Burrow, now. Mum wasn't too happy about the whole thing. By the time I got back, I had a notice from the Ministry of Magic for underage magic, but Dad explained I was with an adult witch (i.e., older and wiser!) and I got off.

I hope you've been well since we left you.

Love,

Ginny

P. S. Ginny neglected to mention how we began our walk from your house discussing Bill and Fleur's wedding. Apparently Viktor Krum is coming. Ginny could not resist making some impertinent remarks. And I, of course, retorted that Viktor might like Ginny the best of the party--Quidditch as a common interest, you know?--and we must therefore do all we can to keep him away from Harry. Ginny then informed me that Fred and George bought Ron a book on "Charming Witches." We debated whether or not we should steal and jinx it. If so, we might end up wreaking havoc at the wedding. We haven't yet decided on a plan of action. Any suggestions? Do try to not get bitten by the billywigs. Love, Hermione.

I should not procrastinate, I should not procrastinate, I should not...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdG6xhjom7o

Dear Luna, July 12...or something

Dear Luna,

Sorry I haven't written to you sooner. I wrote a coded letter to Harry first and it took a while. He didn't get it because Dudley threw a rock at Horatio. Hermione was surprised that Harry and I invented a code without her help. Psh.

Anyway, here is the letter I wrote before:

Once the bug issue had cleared up, Lupin and Tonks' wedding was beautiful. Small, quick, here and gone in an instant, but it was a good thing to see in the midst of all this trouble. It was a bit makeshift, especially because the preparations for Bill and Fleur's wedding are still making our house crazy, but at least we had some decorations up already, and that was a nice touch. Kinglsey and Mad-Eye and Tonks' parents and Bill and Fleur and Hermione were here. I wish Harry could have come. But anyway, as we were getting ready for the actual ceremony, Tonks was so excited her hair kept switching between pink and lavender and her eyes even changed color a couple times.

I snuck out and watched Lupin for a bit while we got the last things in place. I've never seen him look so happy, though he also looked rather nervous. I don't blame him. But when the time finally came for the ceremony, all the nervousness melted away and he looked years younger and sharper than I've ever seen him. He and Tonks couldn't keep their eyes off each other the whole time. When they kissed, everyone cheered and I thought my heart would burst with everything--them so happy, Bill and Fleur about to get married, Hermione and Ron and Harry going off somewhere or other. Dumbledore. This bright light in the midst of the darkest months in my lifetime.

We had a nice dinner reception, lots of pumpkin juice and butterbeer and firewhisky and food galore. Then we let them go and Tonks and Lupin disapparated in a hurry and we cleaned up.

They had a very short honeymoon. They came back to visit three days later. Tonks looked beyond overjoyed but I thought Lupin looked worried. I expect its everything going on. Something with the Order. Or it could just be he's worried about the full moon now that he's married. It's not for another week and a half. Poor Professor Lupin. I think it's good he's married to Tonks. He needs someone to take care of him now and then. I mean, if he's on his own, he'll just wake up in the morning somewhere completely random, possibly hurt, with nothing about him. Maybe not even his wand. I don't know what he does. It'll be good to have Tonks to look after him. Hopefully she can get wolfsbane for him and everything will be okay, even if he is still ill.

Well, I hope you are doing well. I am going to go flying soon. Perhaps I will fly by your house and say hello. Don't tell my mother.

Love,
Ginny

Dear Luna. July 13.

I'm at the Burrow now. Left home yesterday. Took my stuff to the Burrow in the morning before saying "goodbye" to my parents last night.

I never actually said "goodbye." I just left. We were together, crying, and then, I was gone. And they don't even remember.

Lunca, I modified their memories!


My parents--upstanding, hard-working, well-respected leaders in their field--have, as a result of their memory modification, quit their jobs and left the country. I made them think that their life-long dream has been to move to Australia. I made them think that now, of all times, was their only chance to do so. In a week or two, I thought, they'd pack up and leave. But no. They left this morning. I apparated from the Burrow to home at 9 am to see what they were up to--wanted to make sure the jinx had worked--and they were already gone! I hurried to Heathrow--an airport near London...oh dear, it's where the muggles' flying vehicles land and take off--and asked around. They'd bought their tickets last night and flew out on a 6-am flight this morning. Shocked, I apparated over to their offices--they'd both called in last night, dazed, and announced that they were quitting. Just like that. No explanation. The poor secretaries were so confused--and growing increasingly worried about me, since I hadn't gone to the police and didn't know where my parents were--that I had to modify their memories as well!


So they're gone. You must be wondering why I'm so upset. I wanted them to go; I wanted them to get out of England to safety. And having lived at Hogwarts most of the time for the last six years, you'd think that being away from them would be no problem.


Well, Luna, here's what I haven't told you yet: They don't even know they have a daughter.


So they're gone, really gone. And I feel like a ship, lost at sea without a map, that has suddenly also lost its anchor.


I can't describe what it was like. We were sitting by the fire in the sitting room. I said, mum, I've got something to tell you and dad, and then made tea and sat down with them on the leather armchairs. And told them everything. Mum started protesting loudly when I said I was dropping out of school to help a friend fight the most powerful and wicked wizard of our time. Dad said nothing. Mum and I started arguing about it. It wasn't that she didn't believe me. "It's too dangerous," she kept saying, shaking her head. "You'll be killed!" She said it over and over. It didn't matter what I said or did. I showed them some spells, even. It was the first time I'd ever done that since I lost the trace. I showed them my patronus and explained how it would protect me from the dememtors; I showed them my textbooks and described how each spell would keep me safe. But Mum kept saying, "You'll be killed!"


Dad hadn't taken his eyes off me the whole time. He hadn't said anything, either. But now he suddenly spoke: "Tell us about your world," he said, with that brightness in his eyes that Mr. Weasley gets when I tell him about some new muggle technology. "What's it really like?"


So I told them. Everything. About the moving pictures and staircases, quidditch, the "Slug Club," Ginny&Harry, The Quibbler, the time-turner I had third year. I told them about Dumbledore's murder, Rita Skeeter, the Ministry, Wormtail, and Percy Weasley. I told them everything. We all started crying. I stood in front of the fire place, weeping, pacing, fingering my wand, and told them that one thing I can't tell even you. They stopped crying. And Mum asked the question--the one question I try not to think of--the question with the answer I fear more than anything--

And then I turned on them and said: "Obliviate."

Then I left them forever. Mrs. Weasley was waiting for me at the Burrow with a cup of earl grey with vanilla and steamed milk. We cried in the kitchen for half an hour.

I feel so guilty.

Hope you and your father are doing well.

Love,

Hermione

P.S. Ginny sent Horatio to Privet Drive with a letter about Lupin (he's asked Ron and me to call him "Remus" now that we're of age and no longer at school, but it's still really weird) and Tonks' wedding, but apparently Dudley say Horatio before Harry did and threw a rock at him (Horatio, not Harry). Thus, Horatio has been in convalescence the last few days, and I've sent Ginny's letter to you with Andromeda. Enjoy the joy in hers. I'm sorry there wasn't any in mine.

Hermione, July 11

Dear Hermione,

It sounds like Lupin & Tonks had a marvelous day! I'm sure they'll be glad of the stories and memories they have to tell their children and grandchildren. And I'm sure they're elated that they were able to spend the day with people they love and who care about them, hi-jinks and all.

Ginny has not yet written me about the wedding - that, or Horatio got lost again. Poor Mrs. Weasley, I'm sure she must have been at her wit's end, what with the gnomes making everything muddy. However, it's no wonder than Tonks was laughing; gnome saliva has many beneficial properties, you know, and I'm sure she was feeling quite wonderful.

However, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the cockroach...I asked daddy about it, and he said it is a creature which commonly scares muggles. I shall have to find one and see why everyone has such an issue with them. I'm sure they're still quite nice.

NEVER MIND. I looked them up. And then daddy showed me one he had pinned in a collection. I must say that I have never seen a creature so intimidating and creepy...I feel like I'm being rather judgmental on the poor cockroach, but I jumped a rather good amount into the air before running into the other room when I saw it. And it wasn't moving. Nor was it as big as the one you saw.

Neville wrote me last week, telling me when he was going to Diagon Alley, and asked me if I would like to join him as Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. I think he may have asked Ginny too? The remaining members of the DA I suppose. Well, be sure to tell Ginny to let me know if she got the letter/if she's able to make it.

Things have been rather quiet at home lately. We've gotten a lot of letters for the Quibbler in support of Harry - so be sure to let him know we're behind him 100% when you see him next. And we've also gotten some rather irritated letters from Ministry supporters about Harry and our reports - so be sure to let him know they're behind You-Know-Who when you see him next. Apart from the letters though, not much has happened. Our Crumple-Horned Snorkack expedition has been postponed, due to the urgent need to speak out against the Ministry and You-Know-Who. If they have their way, I'm sure there won't be any more Crumple-Horned Snorkacks to find, anyway.

Missing everyone,

Luna.

Dear Luna. July 10.

Dear Luna,

I imagine Ginny has already written you telling the following story; nevertheless, I must write. It was absurd. You would have loved it.


I apparated over to the Burrow on the morning of Lupin and Tonks' wedding to find the place in a horrible uproar. Mrs. Weasley was having a fit; the garden gnomes had launched an attack on the kitchen, stolen all of the silverware, and taken bites out of all the food! Mrs. Weasley was in hysterics, blaming it all on Ron and the twins who had been up in the attic toying with the ghoul when they were supposed to be working in the kitchen. Doing what, I don't know; each of them is perfectly useless in that room. Anyway, Ginny was steadying Mrs. Weasley and trying to keep her from seeing Tonks chase the gnomes through the garden in her wedding dress. Poor Tonks...she tripped....and you know how the Weasleys' garden gets when it rains....



When I arrived, the first thing I saw were a gaggle of gnomes standing over a collapsed, claggy Tonks, laughing; Mrs. Weasley, screaming; Ginny clutching her mother, looking very bewildered; and the stupid boys looking down on the kerfluffle from the attic window, trying to see but not be seen.



I rushed to Tonks and to help her stand, but was promptly attacked by the gnomes! Have you ever been attacked by gnomes? They have sharp fingernails! They claw and scratch! I wished I had brought Crookshants; he'd have shown them. Ginny forced Mrs. Weasley to sit down inside, then rushed to help me. She pulled Tonks out of the way while I used locomotor mortis on each of the gnomes in turn. Tonks' hair flashed rainbow, like a nighttime neon ad in Picadilly....never mind, don't ask what that is.



Needless to say--although you'll hate me for this--we did not stuff the gnomes in bags and swing them around in circles and then over the fence. Oh no. We tied them in burlap sacks and threw them into the fen. I'm sorry to offend your sensibilities, Luna, but if gnomes had plotted to destroy your wedding day, how would you have acted?



Anyway, we were all quite covered in mud. And Tonks' dress, for all we could see, was not going to be easily salvaged. Remarkably, it was the twins who came to our rescue. They'd come up with some gadget that could duplicate clothing instantaneously--and perfectly unsullied (which geminio, unfortunately, can't do). In a minute, they'd made Tonks a pristine new dress. We thanked them and then shoved them out the door to go hang with the gents. They'd spent too much time with that ruddy ghoul. I couldn't believe they were up there when their friend Lupin was getting married!



So we kicked them out, all prepared to do some food transfiguration to replace the stuff the gnomes had eaten. Ginny and Tonks were laughing about defeating the gnomes--it's amazing, their senses of humour--and I was about to start brewing a potion (learned from our dreaded former potions master. I hate that man.) to calm Mrs. Weasley when another unthinkable happened.



There was a three-inch cocroach on the kitchen floor.



I said, "Bug!"



Mrs. Weasley screamed. Tonks got out her wand. "Epoximise," she said, and....the cocroach was not stuck to the floor as it should have been. The spell hit it in a jet of yellow light, but the bug just scuttled away underneath the counter! At that point, I think we all were screaming. Ginny ran for a shoe and Mrs. Weasley climbed on top of a chair. Tonks and I took turns pointing our wands and shouting at the brogdignagian insectoid fiend: "Confundo!" "Fera Verto!" "Ducklifors!" "Immobulus!" "Deprimo!" "Incarcerous!" "Confrigo!" "Lacarnum Inflamare!" "Petrificus Totalus!" Desperate for anything that might stun the cocroach with its stupid exostelaten's inherent impervious charm.......we had no brilliant ideas, but kept screaming and scampering away from the bug. Mrs. Weasley dumped the potion I was brewing on it; Tonks, holding her white dress' hem above the floor, tried trap it under a bowl, but it shoved the bowl off its back! Ginny reappeared with a sneaker wrapped in toilet paper and began whacking the bug enthusiastically...until it ran towards her. Then she screamed with the rest of us.

Three wands and one TPed sneaker were pointed at the bug. Four females in their best dresses stood on the kitchen counter, holding each other and gasping. Finally I remembered a spell we hadn't used yet. I don't know where it came from....I hadn't heard anyone try to use it for years.... "Peskipiksi Pesteroni!"

And it actually worked! The cocroach vanished!

Apparently Professor Lockhart did know one spell that worked. He just tried to use it on pixies when it was meant for cocroaches! Not that there's much of a difference between the two.

Besides this adventure, everything went off splendidly. I'll let Ginny tell you all the sappy stuff about the wedding. If she hasn't already.

Wish you'd been there,
Hermione

Dear Ginny, July 9

Dearest Ginny,

I'm wondering what we are going to do next year without the DA Meetings.
I think I'll miss it a bit. I think DA Meetings felt like spending time with friends.

I know that you've liked Harry for just about forever, and I have a question for you. When you know that Harry has important things to do and can't be with you, how do you keep it together? I'm sorry if I'm prying too much. You don't have to tell me.

I'm just wondering because, well, would you like to have tea sometime? It may be easier to talk to you about this over tea and pudding and scones. I've never talked about this sort of thing before. I've never had this problem before. I'm suspecting that Wrackspurts may have burrowed into my mattress. I think I'll beat it out tomorrow.

Did I tell you that I saw a Dementor on Stoatshead Hill a couple nights ago? I didn't have my wand with me and I've felt all out of sorts ever since. I've been having rather unpleasant dreams ever since.

I also am starting to suspect that I may have encountered a creature I've never heard of before. One that makes it hard to sleep and eat. This morning I didn't even feel like having any pudding.

Perhaps I'm overreacting.

Have you been playing much Quidditch this Summer? I suspect Harry will be coming to the Burrow soon, for Bill and Fleur's wedding. I'm rather looking forward to the wedding as well. I've started planning my outfit. Do you think a Sunflower would be festive? If you need a break from all the wedding plans, feel free to sneak over here anytime. Daddy is starting a fascinating new project, and I'm sure he'd be pleased if you wanted to help us.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go help him now. I hope you're doing well and that I'll see you soon! I'll send Ellowyet over with a fresh Dirgible Plum Tart for you.

Love,
Luna

Dear Hermione, July 7

Dear Hermione,

If I get you on a broom doing a sloth grip roll, that'll be a story to tell my grandchildren, if I ever have them. Can you imagine Ron's face?

The twins have been spending a lot of time with the ghoul, too. I think they're trying to transform it. I got a peek in once. It's dreadful. They've made its hair red. I guess it felt like it didn't fit in with the Weasleys?

Yes, the basilisk was rather traumatizing, but it seems so very long ago. When so much is going on now, it feels odd even thinking about way back when I was eleven and twelve.

You haven't heard anything conclusive about Lupin and Tonks? Well, they do have to keep it quiet, but I thought you'd know. They're getting married tomorrow, here at the Burrow. I'll send this by express owl and you can apparate here for the wedding. It's at 2pm. Hardly anyone will be there, so I'm sure they'd be thrilled if you came. I wish Harry could come.

Anyway, thanks for offering to play Quidditch with me. We don't have to fly, we can do something else fun. I think I would like to be Quidditch captain, but I'd rather Harry was. I'll do my best at it anyway. Maybe, when everything is normal again, I'll try for the Holyhead Harpies.

I hope to see you tomorrow, if only for an hour.
Love,
Ginny

Dear Ginny. July 6.

Dear Ginny,

You’ve been looking at old pictures. Good grief. My hair. Your freckles! I hope you don’t cover them up for Bill and Fleur’s wedding. They’re so cute. Besides, Harry thinks you have nice skin.

What has Ron been up to? Last week, he wrote me a letter about how he was having tea with the ghoul in the attic every afternoon. Making it Earl Gray. I mean, really. I suppose he’s trying to mysterious or something equally insipid and idiotic, but brewing loose-leaf Earl Grey for a ghoul?

Just hang on five more days, and I’ll come to the Burrow. I plan on having all my projects done before then so I can spend all my time helping you and your mum get ready for the wedding. And yes, I’ll play quidditch with you. You can show me how to do that turn-upside-down-and-hang-on-the-broom-with-one-hand-to-avoid-the-bludger move without actually falling off. Who knows? If we sneak out at night when your mum hasn’t come up for any more chores for us to do yet, we might get to play a lot—so much that maybe by the time Harry comes next month, I’ll be so good and that he and I will beat you and Ron! It’ll be like last summer….never mind. We can’t really get last summer back. But it’ll still be good.

Just think—you could be quidditch captain in the fall. The first female Gryffindor captain in history! Or maybe I’ve got it wrong…hold on, I’ll look in Quidditch Through the Ages….

Huh. It’s not in there. But I did find the name of that move…the “sloth grip roll.”

Don’t shortchange your experience with the basilisk. It wasn’t minor; it was very traumatizing for everyone involved, especially for you. And it ought have traumatized you. If a twelve-year-old kid came out of that completely nonplussed, there’d be something wrong.

And don’t spend too much time alone. We need to stick together, now more than ever.

Five days! Five days!

With love,
Hermione

P.S. I don’t know which is worse, either. But he loves you, Ginny, I swear. That’s a fact.

P.P.S. So when are Lupin and Tonks getting married?!? Different Order members tell me different things!!

P. P. S. S. Don’t forget that since I won’t be at Hogwarts this year, we have to do something fun for both of our birthdays this summer. Put on your thinking cap of mellifluous jollity. Oh dear, that’s not how one should use “mellifluous.” Oh well. It sounds nice.

Dear Hermione

The letter which Hermione hasn't opened yet.


Dear Hermione,

I was looking at a few pictures of Harry. I don’t know what’s worse, being a little girl worrying about whether or not he’ll ever like me or being a grown up girl knowing he DOES like me and is trying to protect me by being away. I know you and he and Ron aren’t going back to Hogwarts.

I was looking at some picture from our first few years at Hogwarts. We were all so little then. Harry was rather cute. Everything seems so petty now. Even the basilisk seems minor compared to…well, whatever is going to pull you away from school has got to be pretty bad, and Ron’s been doing all kinds of strange things. You-Know-Who in a diary was bad enough. Now he’s the flesh.

With Dumbledore dead and you and Harry gone, and all my brothers gone, it’s going to be so strange at Hogwarts. I’ve already got my things, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to going. Everything is getting heavier. Everyone is acting different, and there’s the Order and all.

Well, I am looking forward to playing Quidditch again. That’s enough, perhaps.

I hope you’re doing well. I can’t wait until you come to the Burrow. Preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding are making the whole place wild. I savor my time alone.

Love,
Ginny

My Dear Hermionie...

(This is a follow-up letter to Hermione's letter to Luna in which she talks about LOTR)

(And for anyone's reference, Ellowyet = Luna's Owl, Horatio = Ginny's Owl, Andromeda = Hermione's Owl)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My dear Hermione,

Ellowyet does have quite the habit of chiding Horatio for his klutzy and hyper-active behavior. I really should talk to her about that. I don't want her to hurt poor Horatio's feelings. She rather likes Andromeda though. I think she would enjoy having some tea and field mouse with Andromeda.

Your parents seem rather intuitive on wizarding matters for muggles. I would rather like to meet them. Perhaps I could interview them and get a muggle opinion on Harry Potter? I think that would do very well in an issue of The Quibbler. And do muggles call You-Know-Who by name?

Speaking of The Quibbler, my father is doing quite well. Thank you for asking. We're going to be in Scandinavia for a couple of weeks before the start of term, as someone wrote us with fresh evidence of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack population there. I've been ordering most of my supplies for this term, since the ministry has been watching Diagon Alley and the surrounding area very closely. It just isn't safe to go out in the city anymore.

I feel as if there is something not-quite-right about Dumbledore's death. Apart from the fact that he was murdered, of course. I don't think it can be as simple as it seems. I suspect nargles are involved in some aspect. I miss Dumbledore. It's rather strange to think about how such a marvelous wizard is just gone now. Do you know how Harry's doing? They seemed awfully close and I just hope poor Harry is taking it all right. He's had enough to deal with without having another person he was close to dying.

Ginny's spoken to me a couple of times about Harry, but she isn't very vocal about her emotions. It's only when she's extremely overcome that she's really told me how she feels. I don't think she'd be very vocal about any stress of concerns she has either. She's a lot like Harry in that sense. They both do their best to be strong to protect everyone they're close to.

This British muggle seems to know a bit too much about the wizarding world. Did the Ministry every modify his memory? It seems they may have failed in their jobs there. Hobbits sound like rather friendly creatures. I've never met one, but I hear they're very hospitable. Did you know that a hobbit got an acceptance letter to Hogwarts? Apparently she was having great luck with some natural magic in growing her plants at an alarming rate. I don't know if she'll be attending yet, but I doubt it with the prejudice the ministry has been showing lately. Daddy's going to run an article on it in the next issue of The Quibbler, and ask all our subscribers to mail howlers to the Ministry, demanding her rights to attend Hogwarts and be issued her own wand.

I'm going to miss you, Harry, and Ron a lot this year (I can only assume they aren't returning either). I'm going to miss the DA meetings. It was rather like having friends, you know. I don't think Ginny wants to return, and to be honest, I don't know how Hogwarts will be without Dumbledore. But we still have Professor McGonigal, and I'm sure she'll do wonderfully as headmistress.

Now to your musings about the muggle book. If poor Sam had to push Frodo into the fire? Well, the entire world would be saved, but Sam wouldn't be able to live. And by that I mean that he would shut down and shut himself off from the world. Sam would be the greatest hero of all time. But I think he would slowly descend into the recesses of his own mind, destroying himself. Eventually, he may even become what he set out to destroy. It's an ending that is plausible, but not proper. I don't think that can rightly be the end. For everything to really be all right, Frodo must live, sacrificing his deep connection to this ring. It will be very difficult and painful. He may come out of it barely alive. But he must come out alive. I don't think there can be another end.

And dear Hermione, it is just a book after all. And the ending is already written. No matter how much you may worry and stress over the conclusion, the story will conclude the way it was written to.

I'm sure you will feel better once you've read Ginny's letter. Treat yourself to some pudding, and rip open the envelope. Pudding will help it go down. I'm also sending a Butterbeer cork bracelet for you. The last thing you need right now is an attack by nargles.

Hermione, do you have any suggestions for curing the results of a dementor attack? I went up to Stoatshead Hill last night, and I forgot my wand so I couldn't cast a patronus. I've been feeling out-of-sorts ever since. And I had a terrible dream about Neville...and I haven't felt at all right since. I made a new pair of Dirigble Plum earrings, but they don't seem to be helping at all.

When you arrive at the Burrow, we can have a cup of tea and some pudding. Although I understand if you need to stay in hiding and remain unseen. In which case, I shall have a cup of tea and some pudding and think about you. If you need a pair of Spectrespecs to aid you in your journey, just let me know. We still have a few old copies of The Quibbler lying around that have the Spectrespecs in them.

With Love,
Luna

(P.S. Beware of giving your tella-shell a cold by not keeping it warm enough. It's been rather rainy here lately, and I don't know what the weather is like over there.)

Dear Luna

(Although posted by Vanessa, this is by Elaine)

–I was posed with this question: How does fiction reveal truth? I decided to write a blog post in which the form reflected the content. For those of you who don’ t know, two friends and I have been role-playing as Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, and Hermione Granger from J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” novels. We pretend to be in some nebulous time after the books end. But in this letter, it’s early July, just after the end of the sixth novel. And so I, Hermione, write the following letter to my friend Luna.–

Dear Luna,

Oddly enough, Horatio arrived just as Ellowyt did, so they’re hanging out on the balcony right now with Andromeda, chattering on about who knows what. I suppose you would know. Watching Horatio collide with the window and hearing Ellowyt chide him in her high, breathy voice made my day.

You asked how my summer has been. Luna, you’ve no idea what it’s like, being here. Mum and Dad are clueless. I haven’t told them much. I told them that the headmaster died, so the school was in transition. I didn’t tell them that a teacher killed him, or that said teacher works for a dark wizard. They do know about Voldemort, though—I told them about him years ago, before any of this really started—and about Death Eaters. When I told Dad about how Mr. Malfoy put that diary in Ginny’s cauldron, he instantly knew that Malfoy’s with Voldemort. Sorry, You-Know-Who. I forget.

How’s your dad? The latest edition of The Quibbler was excellent. Your column on the wrackspurts’ war effort was especially fascinating. The coverage of Dumbledore’s death and funeral were touching. Touching isn’t the right word. But you know. People in wizard photographs move, unless they’re dead. And that picture of Dumbledore…he wasn’t moving.

I’m putting off reading Ginny’s letter, if you can’t tell. Not that I’m afraid of what she’ll say—I’m afraid of what she won’t.

Rather like me with my mum, I’m sure. Neither of us says much. But Mum took the last four weeks off, says she wants to spend more time with me this summer. And when I’m planning what I’m planning!

I’m reading this book my parents have. I read it a million times as a kid, before I knew I was a witch, and I hadn’t picked it up again until now. It was written by a British muggle in the 1950s, but I think he must’ve had wizarding relatives or something, because he knows too much. It’s a book about these little people called “hobbits” who live in a world called “Middle Earth.” They have furry feet and like to eat six meals a day. Yes, they like pudding. I think you’d like them. They garden and play checkers and run around outside all day. And then everything goes wrong—an evil being, an immortal, inhuman sorcerer, makes a magical gold Ring into which he pours all his cruelty, his malice, his will to dominate all life, even until the ending of the world. The evil sorcerer was killed, but not entirely: his soul lived on in the Ring.

Oh, Luna, if only I could tell you everything. If only you knew how much we Hogwarts students are like hobbits in the Shire. You ask, again, if I can tell you anything more about what happened the night Dumbledore died. I can’t. I’m sorry. I promised. But I can tell you this—I’m not going back to Hogwarts in the fall. You probably already figured that out.

It’s weird, thinking I’m not going to be at school in the fall. I’m reading constantly, just as if I were—and not just muggle novels, but every book of spells, potions, history, whatever I can get my hands on. I’ve been apparating around the country collecting books. Did you know there’s a wizarding library under a pub at Oxford? I stumbled on it when I was really hungry after copying down runes all day at Stonehenge. The pub’s called “The Eagle and Child.” Ironically, that’s where the muggle who wrote those hobbit books had a writing club with some other muggles.

So although I’m still reading, studying, planning….I’m not getting a grade. It’s strange. I came across a boggart when I went to Snowdon last week—I’d contacted a witch who had a six hundred year-old book on patronuses (patroni?) and psychology that I want to read—and anyway, it wasn’t McGonagall telling me I’d failed all my exams anymore. It was….well, I can’t really tell you. It was Dumbledore telling me something else, something that I’ve been so worried about for the last four weeks I can’t sleep. Something about defeating You-Know-Who. I can distract myself from it when I’m, you know, off reading runes at Stonehenge or Avebury or something. But then I try to sleep….and I can’t not be terrified that the worst, the absolute worst, might be true.

So that’s when I pick up the hobbit books again. You’ll tell me, I know, that I should get out my quill, ink, and parchment, and write you or Ginny a letter, but I can’t tell Ginny what I’m thinking. I just can’t! It’s like this wall has come down between us in the last four weeks. She’s so scared, but she won’t say it…and I can’t tell her not to be scared, because it’d be a lie.

I wish I could tell Mum.

Anyway, so that’s when I pick up the muggle novel. I just finished the second book in the trilogy. The two main hobbits, Frodo and Sam, are carrying the Ring into Mordor, the evil sorcerer’s stronghold, where they can finally destroy it by casting it into the fire from whence it came. But right as they’re about to enter Mordor, they get attacked by a giant spider, and Sam thinks Frodo is dead. When some goblins show up, Sam takes the Ring and hides, determined to press on and destroy it in spite of his grief. Then the goblins discover that Frodo really isn’t dead—the spider’s venom has just made him unconscious—and so Sam is furious with himself and decides he must go rescue Frodo. And so Sam carries the Ring into Mordor.

Luna, Sam is a gardener. He hasn’t studied magic like I have. And he’s not even four feet tall. But he presses onward, on his own, into Mordor. He has courage and loyalty that I just don’t have.

I know how the third book ends. Sam rescues Frodo, and they get all the way to Mount Doom where they can destroy the Ring. At the last moment, Frodo—who’s obsessed with the Ring at this point—refuses to throw it into the fire. There’s a scuffle involving a very creepy creature that ends with said creature biting the Ring off Frodo’s finger and tumbling into the fire with the Ring.

There’s a horrible moment that I’m dreading reading when Frodo nearly falls into the fire, too. And I can’t help but wonder—what if he had fallen in? What if Frodo had been unable to give up the Ring? What if, to save the world, it had been necessary for Sam to push Frodo into the fire?

You’ll tell me that while it may be necessary and honorable to sacrifice oneself to save others, it’s never necessary to kill another person to save everyone. But what if it is necessary for one person to sacrifice him or herself, and he or she doesn’t know it? What do you do, if you—

Never mind. I ought to burn this letter. But if I do, I’ll feel even more alone than I do now.

Luna, I wish we could have tea and talk in person. But you’re tied up at home with your dad’s restoration project, and I’m terribly busy, too. I’ll be going to the Burrow in another week, so you’ll have to send Ellowyt there with your next letter if you don’t write back directly.

I’m sending Andromeda back with Ellowyt today. Thanks so much for agreeing to take her for now. I don’t know what I’d do with her otherwise. She’ll likes you and will enjoy being at Hogwarts again. You and Ginny will take good care of her.

Ginny. I should read her letter. Have you heard from her? Has she said anything?

Well, I should go. I’m writing a new undetectable extension charm. None of the existing ones are good enough; I can’t fit enough stuff in a hand-held bag for three people. I need to have it done before I go to the Burrow.

Hope this letter finds you and your dad well.

With love,

Hermione

P.S. I saw a golden snidget yesterday in the Yorkshire Dales! I took a picture of it on my—well, you call it a “tella shell” but it’s not a shell, it’s a cell phone. I’ll have to show you sometime since I can’t exactly send it to you. No, I’m not going to explain; it’d take another whole letter.

10 Novels for Lazy Beach Days

Requirements: Must be happy, easy to read, thoroughly engaging, and quite clean.
In no particular order.

1) The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. Vish Puri, owner and operator of Most Private Investigators, Ltd., knows a few things for certain: violent crime is rising in a Delhi transformed by Western influences; someone is trying to kill him; the only honest lawyer in town is being framed for murdering a servant girl who wasn’t murdered at all; and women cannot be detectives. Hall’s lush descriptions of Delhi enchant the reader; his intricate, masterful weaving of his main plot and several perfectly complementary subplots keep the reader quite happily ensconced in the deceptions and dangers of modern India. Beware the Punjabi curse words; the glossary of Punjabi words at the back is very helpful except when the word in question is an f-bomb, Punjabi-style. Enjoy that amusing syntax of the Indian characters’ English; the quirky dynamic between mother, son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter in Puri’s home; and Puri’s aptly descriptive nicknames for his employees, such as “Torchlight” and “Facecream.” Possibly one of the all-around-best mysteries I’ve ever read. Five stars.

2) Roverandom by J. R. R. Tolkien. After a puppy named Rover is separated from his little boy at an English beach, an evil wizard transforms Rover into a stuffed animal! Rover travels to the moon and to the depths of the ocean searching for a good wizard to turn him back into a real dog so he can go home to his little boy. Adorable, brilliant, and short. Children’s books aren’t written like this anymore. Five stars.

3) Flabbergasted by Ray Blackston. A contemporary Christian chick-lit novel….except that it’s told from a male, Texan stock-broker’s perspective, which makes the genre’s many clichés funny all over again. Ridiculously funny. In one of the novel’s early highlights, the South Carolina church’s single’s group goes on a beach retreat. The guys, sprawled over their two-small cabin’s floor trying to sleep, get buzzed by mosquitoes. In the middle of the night, one particularly brilliant young man decides it’s a good idea to grab the insect repellant and spray it in the air at the bugs. It succeeds and the mosquitoes vanish. But the next morning, the guys awake to blue spray paint all over them, their stuff, and the rented cabin’s interior. Joy comes with the morning. Four stars.

4) Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler. Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino save the world again from Neo-Nazis who are using Atlantean artifacts to destroy the world, much like the original Nazis did with Judeo-Christian relics in Indiana Jones. Keep in mind that Pitt and Giordino pre-date Jones—they’ve been defeating evil villains who plan to use ancient artifacts to destroy the world since the 1960s, while Indy’s only been in action since 1980! A fun, fun, fun novel, my personal favorite of the series. It’s also one of the cleaner of the Dirk Pitt novels…and the one in which Giordino gets the girl! Four stars.

5) The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. Ok, so I don’t know what a “determined chin” looks like, but I do know that Tuppence, the girl who sports said chin, is one of Agatha’s most fun female sleuths. She and her partner (turned fiancé turned husband), Tommy, completely out of work in the declining British economy in 1922, decide to put an ad in the Times: two young adventurers, willing to do anything and go anywhere, provided it’s reasonable and the pay is good. You can imagine the rest. Four stars.

6) The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. Precious Ramotswe is rather happy with being a “traditionally built” woman in her upper thirties, the daughter of one of the best men in Botswana, and the sensible, resourceful owner of the only private detective agency in Botswana. As a mystery novel, McCall Smith’s work is an oddity, is it is more character-driven than plot-driven. Like real-life private and police detectives, Mma Ramotswe works several diverse cases at once and sometimes none at all, allowing the main plot to be structured around the ebb and flow of a quiet life on the edge of the Kalahari desert. McCall Smith’s descriptions of Africa and its people are intoxicating in their simple beauty. The novel feels effortless in spite of its perfect characterizations and atmosphere; I often wondered about McCall Smith’s editing process and wished that I could replicate it. A delightful novel whose delightful characters will bring you back for more. I’ve read four of its sequels so far. Five stars.

7) Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. Not the greatest mystery Peters has ever written, but the highly amusing first book in a riveting saga that takes three generations of the Emerson clan from 1870s through the horrors (and antics) of World War I espionage to the 1930s. Peters’ intelligent, self-reliant, strong-willed, and yet very Victorian Amelia Peabody is one of the best female narrative voices I’ve read (better than Agatha Christie’s Anne Beddingfield); Amelia and the bellicose Radcliffe Emerson’s repartee at times rises almost to the height of that of Beatrice and Benedict. Peters’ prose is magnificent; through the course of the novel, the reader will learn a great deal about Egyptology, archeology in general, British Egypt, and Victorian society. Five stars.

8) Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan. Twelve-year-old Perseus Jackson—afflicted by ADD, dyslexia, mean bullies, a crippled best friend, and a concatenation of very strange events that make him think he’s gone mad— just wants to live an ordinary life with his adored mother, but the Fates clearly have other plans. Percy discovers he’s the son of Poseidon, the Greek sea-god, and that nearly god, demigod, or monster wants to kill him for something he didn’t do. Oh, and his very existence is a mistake, which helps a Jr. Higher’s self esteem a lot. But throughout Percy’s adventures/misadventures, he makes some great friends, learns some mean swordplay, and learns how to sacrifice his own desires to help others. Greek mythology in modern America. So much fun. And it just gets better. Four stars.

9) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling. On orphaned Harry Potter’s eleventh birthday, a huge, bumbling, and endearing man named Hagrid tells Harry his true identity: he’s a wizard! Moreover, his parents, a wizard and witch, did not die in a car accident, but were murdered by the most powerful and wicked wizard of the 20th century. Hagrid takes Harry along for a joyous, wonder-ful romp through a magical London and to the now legendary Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rowling’s first novel’s plot is basic Hero’s Journey stuff; the “mystery” Harry and his new best friends Ron and Hermione must solve is a bit elementary. But Rowling’s skilled ensconcing of important clues to events later in the series even in the first installment would make Charles Dickens proud. Also noteworthy, an Ivy League grad student just published her successful doctoral thesis…proving that Harry and Ron wouldn’t have even survived The Sorcerer’s Stone without Hermione. Tons of fun and surprisingly profound; don’t miss it. Four stars.

10) The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. Have not yet read this novel; it’s next on my own list! Turning from the Botswana he grew to know so well during regular trips to the country as an adult, McCall Smith now writes about his native Edinburgh, Scotland; its quirky inhabitants; their various amusing foibles… and occasionally violent actions against their fellow human beings.

See you at the beach!

My First Kiss

Yes. It's true. I saw him on Saturday while I was sitting outside Starbucks with my friend. He was picking up pizza and cookie dough with his family. I discussed the cookie dough with him. When I saw him at church on Sunday, he appeared quite pleased to see me two days in a row. (And, at the end of the day, as he left, he said something about not being able to see me the next few days. But anyway...) After service, I was out front talking to him about something or other. I honestly can't remember what I was saying. But all of a sudden he leaned forward and kissed me right on the mouth. There was a great uproar and I think I walked away to tell all my friends. My mom made some comment about not being able to say I've never been kissed anymore. I gave in to a momentary appreciation of his cuteness.

Of course, it's not really going to work out. He seems to be quite the player. As soon as he kissed me my sister accused him of cheating, I know he has a thing for my best friend, and later another friend warned to back off for fear of a cat fight. It's really too bad. We had so much going for us. I mean, it's a slight drawback that he won't graduate from high school for another sixteen years, but a face like that is worth waiting for, isn't it?

Say Anything

I know this is kind of 'double posting' but if you wanted to read my little review on the movie Say Anything, I wrote it here:
http://confessionsofafilmlover.blogspot.com/2010/07/say-anything.html

Summer Book Review: Cast in Shadow by Michelle Sagara

Touted as both a wildly original fantasy novel and a solid police procedural, I was crazily excited to read this book. My two favorite genres combined into one book!

Not really.

There’s only one scene—a magical autopsy that’s pretty cool—that’s anything like a police procedural. The book is structured more like a thriller than a mystery novel, as Sagara’s cop protagonist Kaylin Neeya more stumbles upon clues rather than uncovering them. Yes, down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid, and that’s totally Kaylin and her partners Severn and Tiamaris (a dragon who can turn into a humanoid figure. Totally fun!). And the tension between Kaylin and Severn ever-present in the novel’s substrata propels the emotion forward.

The world Sagara creates is vivid and dangerous, not at all reeking of The Lord of the Rings like many fantasy novels on the market (Eg: Terry Brooks’, R. A. Salvatore’s, and Margaret Wies and Tracy Hickman’s novels. If you don’t believe me, pick up five random books by different authors in the fantasy section at Borders and see what percentage have elves, orcs, and hobbit-like characters in them. It’s called “high fantasy” but I think it’s cheating. My sister tells me Sagara writes “high fantasy” as well.). But Sagara uses the first half of the novel to describe the world, not the develop the plot. Which makes the first two hundred pages—and believe me, you feel each of the two hundred—torture. Once you’ve made it through the first half, however, the plot flies and one will have I-just-can’t-put-it-down syndrome.

My sister tells me the series gets increasingly better as it goes, a lá Harry Potter, so I’ll probably read the next book. Yes, the second half of Cast in Shadow totally made up for the first half.
And, best of all, I can rate the novel PG for violence and occasional mild swearing! That doesn’t happen every day.

Four stars
****

Summer Book Review: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Fun, but predictable and bland. Two siblings—the fourteen-year-old son and twelve-year-old daughter of a Nubian father and a white mother—are separated after their mother’s tragic death and suddenly reunited on the night that their father basically blows up the British Museum. Don’t worry, the Rosetta Stone-turned-shrapnel reassembles itself…like magic. Because it ‘s ancient Egyptian magic!

Carter and Sadie are apparently descendents of the Pharaohs and thus have great magical powers. And Sadie’s cat—reminiscent of both Ramses Emerson’s feline partner-in-crime Bastet and Hermione Granger’s too-intelligent kitty Crookshanks—turns out to be Bast (or “Bastet”), the cat goddess, whom Carter and Sadie’s father Julius sent to protect his children. Although the “revelation” that Muffins was actually a goddess was, well, hackneyed, the antics that result are the best parts of the novel. Bast must protect Carter and Sadie, right? Well, that includes protecting them from giant steel balls (which pass for modern art in NYC). After she pounces on the priceless piece of “art” and makes it disintegrate, she tells the children, “It was a ball! You never know with balls!” At another point, the adolescents must turn themselves into birds. Bast applauds their first successful transformation: “Good job! You look delicious… I mean wonderful!” The silly scenes birthed from the irony of two humans turned into birds and the cat goddess turned into a human are the best parts of the novel.

But the novel is rife with plot elements as predictable as the whole Muffin=Bast "exposé." If you’ve read the first Percy Jackson novel, The Lightening Thief, you’ll be able to predict every single major plot twist in The Red Pyramid (Except for two, one of which I predicted about 150 pages before Riordan actually revealed it. The other, however, was a complete shock.). Riordan’s creative enough to give us a pimpled, wedding-dress clad satyr named Grover (who loves enchiladas) who, trapped in a cave by Polyphemus, must forever weave and unweave his bridal veil in an effort to postpone his wedding with the vicious Cyclops until help arrives (that was in Sea of Monsters, the gloriously hilarious second Percy Jackson book). So I don’t understand why Riordan has to resort to the same old plot.

Moreover, while Percy’s quirky, snarky narration made Riordan’s first series a standout among young adult literature, Riordan’s choice to use both Carter and Sadie’s POV in his narration ultimately makes the novel fall flat. Riordan has Carter and Sadie speak the story in turns into a tape-recorder during a car trip after the story takes place. So we switch, every two chapters, from a level-headed, American, teenage guy’s voice to a disrespectful, quasi-British, preteen girl’s voice. Carter’s a much more engaging narrator, partly because his “obnoxious” sister really is a bit obnoxious. And Sadie sounds more like someone trying to sound British than someone who is British. That’s probably Riordan trying to dumb down the Englishness for a readership of American kids who don’t watch BBC like I do…or it’s Riordan not knowing what he’s doing. That said, the narrative device would work if Sadie wasn’t obnoxious and Carter so bland.

If you want a witty, easy-to-read, PG-rated novel populated by snarky teenagers, mythic figures, and enough magic to make The Wizard of Oz in Technicolor look as insipid as ordinary suburbia, read The Lightening Thief and its excellent sequels, not The Read Pyramid. Better yet, pick up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone if you haven’t yet. Or reread The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Two Stars
**

Summer Book Review: The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I’m always up for a riveting mystery-thriller; having heard this novel’s praises repeatedly sung as a enthralling new addition to the genre, I bought it for my family’s Hawai’i vacation.

Indeed, Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novel is a riveting mystery-thriller. But it’s not beach reading. The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is an intense tale of family intrigue, commercial corruption, sexual abuse, and serial killers. I’d say the novel is for the seventeen-and-up crowd only; I’m not surprised the film version is (I hear) grotesquely violent and quite unrated. In short, sensitive minds should not read this book. The novel exposes the evil and brutality rampant across Sweden—each section of the novel begins with a startling statistic about sexual abuse in Sweden today—and, in the process, evokes the same rage and disgust in the reader that Aeschylus did by describing Iphigenia’s murder in ancient Greece.

Did you know that 18% of women in Sweden have been threatened by a man at least once? Did you know that 46% of women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man? That 13% of women in Sweden have been subjected to aggravated sexual assault outside of a sexual relationship? That 92% of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police?

I know now. Larsson ensures his readers know not only the numbers, but also how it feels to live in such a country.

Larsson chose his novel’s Swedish title—“Men Who Hate Women” –for a reason.

As an exposé of a society’s injustices, The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is the best I’ve read. As a mystery novel, unfortunately, it’s not quite up to standard. It’s an Agatha Christie-style murder. The crime takes place on an island from which no one can escape; the setting of Larsson’s Tattoo limits who could have committed the murder as in Christie’s And Then There Were None. But while Agatha tricked me, Stieg failed to deceive. I knew the great secret from the beginning.

On the other hand, as a character study, it’s again one of the best I’ve read. The novel’s greatest fascination is its protagonist—Lisbeth Salander, the twenty-five-year-old, anti-social, bi-sexual, liberally-tattooed hacker genius who responds to the oddities of ordinary life and the atrocities of Swedish society in the most bizarre ways.

(spoiler alert!)

What does she do when her “guardian” rapes her? Go to the police? Flee the country? Buy a gun and shoot his head off? No. She buys a video camera, which she tapes inside a backpack as any good PI (which she is) can. She buys tattoo equipment and a taser. She returns to his house—i.e., asks for a second rape—and tapes the second rape. Then she returns a third time to taser him, chain him to his bed, and tattoos his crime on his stomach. She forces him to watch the video and then blackmails him. She’s quite willing to post a video of herself being raped on youTube to get what she wants: Freedom.

To what depths has Swedish society fallen, when this is the way a woman responds to injustice?

(spoiler over)

Lisbeth’s behavior is completely unpredictable. Which makes her extremely likable, in spite of her five-year-old’s moral sensibility. Actually, most of these characters have infantile moral standards. Mikael Blomkvist, a forty-something journalist hired to solve the mystery, has sex with three different women throughout the novel, for instance. Oh, and he’s divorced. And a rotten father. But he’s sympathetic—the novel opens with him being convicted and incarcerated for a bogus libel charge. He’s immediately the underdog journalist defeated by the commercial superpower. As his daughter says, who doesn’t like a guy who’s willing to go to jail for what he believes in?

And who doesn’t like a girl like Lisbeth Salander?

Weighed down by oppressive scenes of violence, a plot line rife with sexual abuse, 664-pages of bland English prose translated from (I hear) a vivid Swedish, and a dozen or so carefully-placed f-bombs, the novel derives all its charm from its excellently-drawn main characters. And that’s a lot of charm, considering The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and the last book of the trilogy, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest have both bivouacked on Barnes and Nobles’ top-ten bestsellers list for the past two weeks.

Four stars
****

The Rest Is...

“All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down.
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?
…………………….
I should be glad of another death.” —“Journey of the Magi” (1935). T. S. Eliot.

I know how it feels to die.

Nothingness encroaches, pressing upon your throat with Everything’s weight. It is as if the galaxy has imploded upon you. Gravity’s only thought is to flatten and squeeze you into an infinitesimal jot of Nothing.

Forget breathing. You cannot anyway. Forget screaming. You cannot—you cannot breathe. Forget weeping. Forget making any noisy protest against Fate or Gravity or Nothingness, any cry for pity, any expression of regret. No one will hear you. The rest is…

I know how it feels to die. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 production of Hamlet, directed by Bill Rauch, taught me how it feels to die. In Act V, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s script, four characters perish: Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet. All poisoned. Hamlet’s last words are, “The rest is silence.” Fortinbras enters, sees the carnage, and bids soldiers carry Hamlet to the stage. He will hear Horatio’s story and honor Hamlet; for “had he lived, he might have proved most royal.”

Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet ends with Hamlet choking out his final line. Then, a stern-faced, regal Fortinbras receives his immediate coronation and orders a lavish military funeral for Denmark’s dead prince. Fortinbras may rule Denmark, but Hamlet won.

Bill Rauch’s Hamlet ends with Hamlet—the son of a deaf king—speaking his final line and signing the words in American Sign Language. Yet the word “silence” never passes his lips. Unlike Branagh’s Hamlet, who barely chokes out the last word before dying, Dan Donahue’s Hamlet dies with the final word. Hamlet signs “silence” and then dies in silence. Then, a camou -clad Fortinbras kicks over Claudius’ chair and prances about the stage, spitting Shakespeare’s words in a ridiculous accent. In Rauch’s modern production, if Horatio could be a hobo, than Fortinbras could be Borat. This Fortibras shows anything but respect for Denmark’s royal dead. Fortinbras rules Denmark. Hamlet lost.

The light dims. A spotlight illuminates only Hamlet. The King his father, still in military uniform, steps into the lit circle and takes his son’s body in his arms. The deaf King’s head lowers. And we are deaf to his weeping as the spotlight shrinks around the father and his son until death’s oblivion swallows them.

Is this how it feels to die?

Is the whole world made deaf by Death, so that no one can hear one’s dying cry: “This is not what I wanted”?

Does Death destroy everything that is good in the world? Prompt incest, condemn a sensible young woman to madness, make Denmark a prison for Danes and home for tyrannical Swedes?

Is Death invincible?

What is, besides silence and nothingness and Death?

If “the rest is silence,” what is there before “the rest” that is “silence,” but noise, the harbinger of life?


“For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a wimper.” —“The Hollow Men” (1925). T. S. Eliot.

Shasta

The Cascades and Sierras are blanketed in snow. Shasta, this June, is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen it. It transcends the green-gold hills—white, blisteringly white. I feel like some primeval being looking down upon it. For the first time, I understand why the Native Americans worshipped it as a god. The Mountain is godlike, like Achilles, but beautiful as no demigod could ever be. Achilles, ever stained with his foe’s blood, killing and killed by the sword, was nothing against the Mountain.

No wonder they worshipped Shasta.

Yet here I am, above the Mountain. Its volcanic fires and fumes have died; they cannot harm me here. Man has conquered the Mountain. But not the wind or rain. The sky—no longer the earth or sea—is the domain I fear. Zeus’ domain.

Who is Zeus: a demon affrighted by the Holy Spirit; a figment of man’s collective consciousness; or the fellow subordinate of Jehovah? Who is Jehovah: not a mountain-god or sky-god or galaxy-god, but a Beyond-God? God beyond God, Light beyond light, Being beyond being…and, incidentally, non-being?

I am—quite literally—in the sky; by natural forces, human ingenuity, and God’s mercy, I am suspended between earth and Space, between finitude and Infinity, between nothing and Everything. Between earth and Space, in the air, Zeus’ principality, whom must I fear but Prince Zeus?

Except that as man has conquered Shasta, Jehovah has conquered Zeus. Jehovah brought His Everything, His Being, His Infinity into my awkward two-by-three cranny in an airplane representing under one hundred souls, teetering on Tartarus’ edge, just west of the Sierra Nevada’s spring snow.

Christ is the Prince of the Air. May the name of YHWH be praised.

Summer Book Review: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

This is the first Hercule Poirot mystery and the first Agatha Christie book I read that was narrated by Hastings. May I say I love Hastings? This first book gives a good picture of Poirot at his most innovative and most eccentric. I noticed something that was important and felt proud of myself, but I didn't guess who did it (though I rarely do). Suspicion rotates through all the characters appropriately, and I thought it was a mystery very well done. I like Hastings!

Five Stars
* * * * *

Summer Book Review: Sad Cypress

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie is indeed sad. I felt sad for the characters, empathized with the emotional injustice of the situation, and was only moderately consoled by the potentially happy ending. I disliked the writing style, which was noticeably different than the other Agatha Christie's I'd read at the time, and found the mystery a bit unbelievable. It seemed the murder had gone to greater extents than necessary and those greater extents were the clinching clues. I also thought the murderer was ill-informed and thus the motive was kind of pathetic. Certainly not my favorite of Christie's mysteries.

Two Stars
* *

Summer Book Review: The Man in the Brown Suit

The first Agatha Christie book I've ever read, The Man in the Brown Suit, has a lot going for it. I like the twists and changes in the characters and I liked the young heroine. I have not read any other Agatha Christie books with a young heroine yet. She was smart, precocious, romantic, and adventurous. Overall, the book felt as much like an adventure novel as it did a mystery novel, but the mystery was distinct and satisfying. This novel showed a mastery of detail research--I was completely convinced that Ann Beddingfeld was the daughter of a professor obsessed with prehistoric men. It was quite fun and I loved the romance. Of the Agatha Christie books I've read this summer, The Man in the Brown Suit is certainly the most romantic.

Five Stars
* * * * *

Flying After a Day of Real Work

The cool air flowing over me like a constant drink of fresh, sweet water, cooling the sweat that coats my body—sweat from real work. The warm presence of thirst in my mouth. The wind rushing past my ears, drowning out the sounds of the clamoring world. The blowing past my face, the cutting, pressing, refreshing air of—

When the bike stops clicking and only whirs.

When the incline dips, turns into a real hill—

When the road turns ahead.

And the passing air keeps whipping at me, caressing me, lifting me.

It’s the burning, hateful climb up that makes the racing, breathing, living flight down so immeasurably blissful.

Unbaited Cabbages

Athena and I just spent two glorious weeks immersing ourselves in Shakespeare! We read plays, acted them out, wrote papers, watched movies, went to Ashland, and even dueled our peers.

Ahhh, so wonderful. I never knew the Ashland Festival existed before this experience. And I declare to everyone: You must go this summer! Find a way! Hamlet and Henry the Fourth, Part 1 must be seen. The other plays that are preformed are also very good, but Hamlet and Hal are the best.

We were spoiled rotten. Our group meet the leads from every Shakespeare show: Miriam (Countess Olivia, Twelfth Night), John (Prince Hal, Henry the Fourth), Anthony (Shylock, Merchant of Venice), and Dan (Hamlet, Hamlet). We got to hear from each of them about their preparations for their parts, their experience, philosophies about theater, and so much more. John told us about a young woman who once had to do a 7 second quick change in the dark in very small space, and took us on a tour of the theaters. We met with a leading costume designer for Hamlet, and oh my word, all the intense preparation that goes into the production.--ahh, Savers we love you well.

The Elizabethan theater is in the open air, and we got rained on at least twice. Almost didn't get to see the duel between Hal and Hotspur, but they fought wonderfully. John told us that both he and the other actor are sporting great bruises from that night. The Angus Bowman theater was built in the 70s and the stage is incredible. Anything a director wants to happen on that stage can be done. The flooring is able to be manipulated in so many ways, it's ridiculous! Each play has its own amazing and completely unique set. John told us that often the crew only has two to three hours to do a complete change over from one play to another. It only takes two-three hours for Hal's England to be transformed to Shylock's Venice--good grief!

This experience has only wetted my appetite for more. I want to go back and watch, and help, and perform. I don't know exactly why I should be one to have such an incredible time. I know that it was only through completely undeserved grace. If I've learned anything, I think that I've learned my age. I'm not too old, and I shouldn't stop trying.

Sophomore Reflections

I must admit, this has been a very strange year.

I left my Torrey group to swim in the pool of general education.
Because I wanted to take Bible classes. And get my Bible Minor.

First of all, I really do love my Bible classes. And I really enjoy having many classes so my brain has the opportunity to take a break by switching subjects.

But I do miss my group. I haven't seen some of them since the end of the Fall Semester. And I miss the discussions; even though I hardly got to voice my opinion and it felt like half the time what I said was ignored.
But I think some of that in unavoidable in having a group discussion with 15 people. Everyone has something to say; not everyone will be able to talk.

On a positive note, I'm really loving my major. I never thought I wanted to be a teacher growing up (even though I always cheated when we played Life so I would get the Teacher career and the $100,000 salary). Since I've been observing Elementary classes I've been getting really excited. I love kids. And I love teaching them and working with them and helping them in whatever capacity I can.

And I feel like I'm finally getting settled into school. It seems like 2 years is a while to get "settled" and get into the swing of things, but it was like that in high school too. Freshman year, you're just confused and doing all you can to make sure you aren't given the wrong label and you're trying not to miss some vital piece of information. Sophomore year, you get more used to things and now that you've done it before it's a bit easier. By the end of your Sophomore year, you don't really care what people think of you anymore; the people who are close to you love you anyway.
At least that's what it was like for me.

~ Persephone

And so it goes...

(names have been changed)

The Kingdom/Republic of Nyssa met tonight for the last time; now each citizen will embark on their own adventures.

I am really struggling right now. I will miss everyone, but I am still very selfish. I knew that I couldn’t talk about how wonderful our group was. In my mind, I never really got to say what I wanted and that no one really understood me when I opened my mouth to speak in session. I felt like I could communicate well enough in a one-on-one conversation but when it came to the group, I always failed.

Penelope told me that she and Odysseus were so glad to get to know “the real Terpsichore” this semester: Penelope through the play and Odysseus through our shared English class. I admit that I did get to know them both better in both circumstances, but I am sad that it took two years and a separate communion to make that relationship. This sentiment was actually duplicated in that it took me two years to become Facebook friends with Treebeard. I feel terribly neglectful, that I haven’t cultivated relationships well. Part of me thinks that the relationships should just grow on their own, another part says that others need to work to pursue me, and the third knows that I need to be the one in pursuit. Perhaps it’s a combination of the three. Or more the last two than the first. I definitely need to be more conscious and motivated.

But I do admit that good things have come from my involvement in Nyssa. I found myself very intimidated by the people in my group and the instructors. I am the youngest in my family, and I learned from a young age that I could not argue with my quick-witted, very smart older brother. Instead of joining in the arguments, I would shut down; I would let everyone else talk and make noise because eventually it would die out and something firm would come out—it was worth waiting for the end result and what led up to it was hot air. I felt that way when I came to Torrey. Everyone was passionate, loud, and so contentious; silently, I would sit for great portions of session, and when I spoke it was always insufficient—it seemed like I never said what I wanted to say, that people didn’t understand or I gave up before I could communicate the point: it was both our faults. But I think it was good for me to be forced into such a group—it helped me learn to stand up for myself. I still don’t talk very much, but I know that if I want to say something, I have to say it with confidence, that I have to grow up and meet the challenge rather than constantly victimize myself.

I still feel sorry for myself a lot. I still feel inadequate, that others are smarter, that others have more authority, more passion, more drive, more accomplishments, more things about them that constantly remind me that they are better than me. But I also know that I have to put in the effort to be better than I currently am. That I am no longer the little girl who came to Empire of Torrey without any expectations. I still don’t know where I’m headed, but I actually care about where I’m going and getting there well. And now, two years later, I have good company to help me get there.