This is MJ. I'm an author. I'm an artist. I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com
Welcome to skimming leaves. This is going to be episode 42 of
story over everything if I've done my job properly, which hopefully I did and
It's going to be on Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban
Which is book three in the Harry Potter series and I listened back to my notes that I recorded on this
I don't know a month or two ago
And I just dropped right into it. So
Because of that partly and because it's the habit I formed for doing these
I'm gonna go ahead and do a quick introduction to the book
Kind of fun fact type thing and then I will let myself transition into the actual like almost gut reaction
Presentation of my thoughts on the book as a whole
That follows so
Anyway, so here we go
Let's see Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban was first published in the United States
September 8 1999 by Scholastic. Hmm interesting. The book has
107,000 words according to one source and 117,000 plus words according to another source, which is very strange to me
Supposedly the average reading time is four hours and 47 minutes. I'm assuming that's a person reading to
themselves and
the audiobook version is
Almost 12 hours long which stands over and that's I think that's based on the the Jim Dale audiobook
I don't have the number in front of me. But yeah, so
Those are just kind of very basic
It's a very basic set of information about the book and while I did read this book and I will
Obviously I read the book or those of me talking about it
Well, I read the book and I hope you have read it too. If you haven't I would like to interest you in reading
The book a little bit by sharing a couple things with you about it. First of all
I don't have nostalgia for Harry Potter the Harry Potter series of books or movies actually because I didn't watch all the movies and I
Only read the first two books as a kid. So there's really no nostalgia there for me
however, as a grown man as a consumer of stories as somebody who
As an aspiring writer wanted to get literary and therefore I
consumed quickly the Hobbit
the Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Simarillion the Chronicles of Narnia, which are actually very very very well written books
And some other stuff like a concerted effort of hey
I want to read these things and understand from them and learn, you know, basically graft new graph
I want to read these things and absorb craft stuff from them for writing my own books
I want to write in the quality level of these books. I would argue that Rowling has done that that she
These books are all competently made. I've read the entire series and it's very good
I don't have like a personal like a super strong emotional attachment to it like oh, these are my characters
I'm ride or die for these guys or whatever, but I do like them and I do like the story she tells it's a little odd
Like there's some odd choices in some places, but for the most part it's you know
it takes in here the book series took me on a ride that I did not expect and didn't really predict and I think
Maybe this book is where things start becoming a little more
or less predictable rather and more interesting and far more nuanced than I would have ever expected and
I don't know. It just like really expands the world, which is something I do talk about in the
In the following audio segment, so I won't belabor it now. I'll just share some things with you about it
So yeah as a person who?
Thought you know people who love Harry Potter were a little silly and then finally read the series for myself
I understand you know what everybody is crazy about and understand how good of a series it is
and I really am impressed by it and
Like I said, I think you know definitely
This book is really good. It's as could been
Like it quickly become became one of my favorites, which I hope I don't say later, but I'm saying it now anyway
Just a couple more things about it real quick
I'm going to try to be a spoiler free as possible. That was all broad and generic stuff
But there's some specifics. I'm going to skirt around in this information. I pulled up real quick looking up online so
According to this little thing that I found. Let's see
Okay, apparently this book sold 65 million copies
Worldwide which is very cool. Very cool for running
No wonder anyway, so
Do I want to talk about that? No, I don't
There's a crazy
Powerful aspect of magic that is introduced in this book that you can't get in a book
But it's a little bit of a mystery
There's a crazy powerful aspect of magic that is introduced in this book that did not
I did not see coming at all and apparently Rowling regrets it. So see if you can figure out what that one is
Oh, this is really cool though and I can talk about it
There's a the patronage charm is introduced in this book, which I'll just read it
It's a powerful defensive spell that conjures a silver animal guardian
The shape of the patronage reflects the personality and qualities of the caster
Which is really cool and apparently a patronus can change over time
It's almost like she made magical Pokemon
Except they're just animals
Yeah, but that's still a really cool idea
The book reveals the identity of the mysterious prisoner of Azkaban who's in the title, which you should expect perhaps
And the whole drama of the prisoner of Azkaban and what he did and didn't do
Is super interesting and I think you'll find it super compelling
It's a super powerful spell
I think it's a very powerful spell
It's a very powerful spell
The book also features several new characters such as
Professor Remus Lupin, the defense against the dark arts teacher
Professor Sybil Trelawney, the divination teacher and a seer or prophet type lady
And the Dementors, the soul-sucking guards of Azkaban who induce fear and despair in anyone who comes near them
And I don't remember if Rowling introduced the Dementors by name in book two or not
But I think she did in book three, which is something really fun I think that she does
The book supposedly contains many references and allusions to other works of literature and mythology
Such as the grim fairy tales, the Arthurian legends, the Norse myths and the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Wild
For example the name... I can't name that person
But somebody in David Copperfield shares the name with somebody here
Yeah, there's a couple characters who have names linked to Roman mythology which is a huge spoiler
And then Sybil Trelawney, the divination teacher, her name is derived from Sybil, a prophetess in Greek mythology
Or Greek and Roman mythology actually
Which is really cool
So anyway, those are just some fun facts about the book before I go ahead and talk about it
And like I said, these were spoiler free as best as they could be
And then I'm going to get into the full spoiler talk
So again, I highly recommend the book, I think it's cool
You should definitely read the whole series
If you have Cloud Library or Hoopla, if you have access to those you can get the audiobooks for free
Or you can get them, actually I think all of the Harry Potter series is on Kindle Unlimited right now
For you to read with your eyes
I'm an audiobook person though so getting them on Cloud Library and such for free was really awesome
Or you can just buy the books outright because they're good stuff
Audible collection, if you're an audible person, depending on the length of the books, you can get one a month
And very happily, very comfortably listen to the entire series
Which is, I don't know, seven times, I'm going to guess
It's like 70 or 80 hours of entertainment
Which, depending on how long it takes you to consume your audio, that could take a week
No, not a week
That could take a couple of weeks or a couple of months to enjoy
So anyway, I highly recommend it
And now I recommend that you listen to the rest of this episode
So I'm picking up on a pattern that Rowling is doing
And honestly, sneak peek, I already started Goblet of Fire, which is book four of the Harry Potter series
So in Prisoner of Azkaban, I see that she does a recap
Just like in the beginning of Chamber of Secrets, she did a bit of a recap
Introducing people who are new to the series to the story so far, essentially
And I think it's done in a fairly naturalistic way
I don't remember how it was done in the Prisoner of Azkaban
But except for like, perhaps Sirius Black appearing on the Muggle News
And that, you know, from the narrator, warranted comments about how he was actually a wizard
And he'd been accused of this, and it was this many years ago
And involved Harry's parents and Harry and Harry's the wizard, Voldemort, you know
Basically, it does a really neat recap
I think the Goblet of Fire recap is even better and smoother
Which is interesting, but I'll talk about that more when I discuss Goblet of Fire
So I found...
I found it interesting that, I guess, kind of spoilers for the Prisoner of Azkaban
It's kind of a weird, offbeat book
So this is my third Harry Potter book
And I like it the best so far
The last, I don't know, couple chapters or so did something very interesting that I didn't expect
It made sense and I think it's a good book
And it almost made it seem like it was a...
It's not a heist movie, or book, but it almost made it feel kind of like a heist book
Where there was a heist-stake sneaking and stealth and we have to plan things just so
Kind of aspect to it that was pretty interesting
And, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the way that played out specifically wasn't as exciting as it could have been
Hold on, hold on, it wasn't as exciting as it could have been
The stakes were high, but again, I'm trying to avoid spoilers in these casual book chats
But it could have been higher, it could have been a lot worse
And it just almost seemed more like, oh, this is kind of lovely
It's kind of lovely getting to see this plan come together and see these threads pulled together
And see these really open loops closed that had been shown to us throughout the book
Throughout the story, so that was pretty interesting
I like how extreme Harry gets tonight, I guess a minor spoiler
I would say Voldemort doesn't really show up in this book specifically
Which I was under the impression that he was in every single book
I kind of feel like he's going to be in every book after this as a major player
And I think it gets worse
Which, anyway, that comment, I will not explain that comment right now
But anyway, I thought it was really interesting that he wasn't really in it
And I kept kind of waiting for him to show up
And in an interesting way, it almost seemed like the threat
Like, so there's these things called Dementors, which are these Azkaban prison guards
And the reason the book is called The Prisoner of Azkaban, one of many
Is that a prisoner has escaped from Azkaban, that's Sirius Black
Well, that's Sirius Black and he's a serious problem
And it's interesting how evil and wicked the Dementors are
And what it is that they're supposed to do
It's, I like, morally repugnant
And it's shocking that that would be something in the world of Harry Potter
Like, there's the defense against the Dark Arts
They expose the Hogwarts students to some of the Dark Arts stuff
That's because it's an ugly reality that the Wizarding World isn't just, you know, refilling
It's not just every flavored beans and plates of sandwiches that magically refill themselves
It's this dark side, there's werewolves, there's vampires
There's, I mean, for crying out loud
We saw somebody feasting on the corpse drinking the blood of a unicorn in one of these books
So, I mean, there are dark and evil things and there is real legitimate danger
And that's kind of all offset by the fact that you have this very positive, very happy, very
Wonderful and fantastical world that Harry gets to live in
It's kind of even more interesting because the... excuse me
The Muggle World, the world where Harry starts off each book living with the Dursleys
Is in some ways worse than the Wizarding World that has all these dangers
And it's alarming, it's shocking to me that that could be the case
And I think that goes to... I think that's a credit to Rowling
And how awful she's able to make the Dursleys
And the thing is, they're not...
They're not as evil as they could be
It's not the Manson family, but it is...
Or and, perhaps not but, it is a remarkably realistic depiction of what an abuse of home life
Would look like for a kid in Harry's position
And not only is that sort of family dynamic all too real, it's all too common I would say
I'm not going to pull statistics to talk about how many abusive homes there are
And I'm not going to say there's an epidemic of child abuse in this country or any other
But it's a fact of life that children are abused and ill-treated by their own families
And when I say that I mean their own nuclear families, their mother, their father, their siblings
But also by secondary or tertiary relatives as well who you would call...
Or who you might call extended family
And I've heard of different countries, Haiti, India, for example
That they will... Like if a parent dies and a child or children are orphaned
They are taken in... I've actually heard this from somebody in the Philippines as well I believe
That they will be taken in to live with one of their relatives
But they will basically become like a servant to the relatives
And the severity of that and how awful that is for the person
Believe it or not, because we live in a world of nuance and...
I don't know, uniqueness or singularity... Not singularity, that's the wrong word I'm looking for
We live in a world of nuance, it depends, it varies family to family
It varies culture to culture, some cultures are tolerable or tolerate things that are more severe than others
And certain families within those distinct cultures have their own micro-cultures
Which tolerate more or less abusive and terrible behavior
But I was shocked at the end of the book
And it's funny because it kind of gets book-end-end
But when it's book-end-ed at the end of the book
It's a much happier thing and you feel, or I felt more positive about it
Anyway, I felt in a lot of ways like Harry's life with the Dursleys in the Muggle world is worse
Than what he experiences at Hogwarts
And I can't quite tell how long the term is he gets out
Well, I don't know when he goes back, but it's sometime in the summer
He goes back to the Dursleys and then September 1st is when term starts at Hogwarts
So, I live in the US, I feel like that's only like a two-month break maybe they get mad
Maybe three at the most
So it's good for him that it's a boarding school and he gets to get away from the Dursleys for so much of the year
But regardless, and honestly that kind of makes it feel weird that you end the book at the end of the term essentially
And then the next book starts off in the middle of the summer or a couple weeks before he goes back to Hogwarts
It almost feels like it's not enough of a break
But then again, the highlights that are covered that make up the plot of the books
That's structured in such a way that you're not, you're skipping over most of the year
So it's really like he has these terrible breaks that he has to go back to the Dursleys
Anyway, as much as I am struggling to place Harry Potter strictly in a genre
It's more or less fantasy and I don't want to ruin all the cool fantasy stuff by dwelling on how horrible the Dursleys are
And the very real facts of child abuse all over the world
So I will swerve away from those and I will again try to be mostly spoiler free because this is a casual book chat
And maybe I'll just go into like a thing and I've already spoiled the fact that Voldemort's basically not in this book at all
So what will I talk about?
I'll talk about the fact that it's funny that Hermione and Ron and Harry are all skeptical of their divination teacher
And divination I guess would be divining the future, trying to use tea leaves and crystal balls and things like that to find the future
And they have this teacher who predicts that Harry is going to die and she's very serious about it, it's very dire
And it kind of freaks him out in the beginning but then as time goes on they just believe in this woman less and less and less
And it's really funny to see how that develops and it turns into a complete gag
I mean it's not an ill formed gag, it's a very well constructed gag
And basically the one time she has an actual accurate vision of the future
You're not entirely sure that she's in control of herself, which is kind of funny
And maybe that's the appearance of Voldemort, who knows
So I thought that was pretty interesting
I was thinking about this book and I was thinking I actually like Snape, he's actually an interesting character, he's kind of cool
I kind of like the things that he's doing, he seemed very friendly with one of the professors, Professor Lupin
Who's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, which is the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've seen in these three books
Because Quirrell and Lockhart were not good
And I mean that on multiple levels, and then now this guy Lupin is good, he's really excellent and he was a lot of fun
Sometimes Rowling's naming conventions bother me because it feels like that's too obvious
And it was funny, I was telling my daughter about some of the thoughts I have because she's reading through these at the same time pretty much
And I think she was snickering when she didn't see because I was predicting some things
Because I've seen this movie years ago, probably when it first came out or so
And then I said based on my knowledge of books and whatever, these are my guesses for what's going on
And I was like semi right on some things, but just my memory was foggy and then my prediction was off
But it was still fun to speculate, and I was able to speculate based on the names
Which, like I was thinking then again about what is Snape's name, and he's part of House Slytherin
And his name is Snape, and Snape rhymes with snake, it just has one letter, a K to a P
And Cerberus, he's a severe snake man, and he's a severe teacher who is from House Slytherin, favors House Slytherin
And all that stuff, so that might be the extent of his name, but I was honestly really, I basically turned against him
At like the 60% point, somewhere about three quarters or less through the book
I basically turned around and I thought I do not like this man, and I was never disappointed with his severity
Although maybe that was mostly from him being played in the movies by, I can't remember the name of the gentleman who played him
But he died a couple years ago, and I really enjoyed him in that role, almost as much as I enjoyed him as Hans Gruber in Die Hard
But we're not going to talk about Die Hard, so anyway, I just thought it was really interesting
How I was feeling so positive, and I even told her when I was a quarter or third, maybe half way through the book
I really like Snape, it's funny, but he seems like an okay, he's helping Lupin, he's trying to be responsible
He's trying to do the right thing, even he gets the chance to play the hero in this book
And from his perspective, he really is being heroic, but the prime motivator that causes him to dislike Harry
And mistrust people in certain ways, and just this incident that happened to him while he was a student at Hogwarts
It really changed my perspective on him and made me think, this guy's kind of a...
The kindest, most respectful thing I can say is that I'm very disappointed that what happened affected him in such a way
And I'm surprised that it seems like he has such a fussy or finicky personality
And that's the real motivator of why he is the way he is, or at least that's what Rowling has revealed at this point in the book series
And the story overall, and it's surprising and disappointing, I really don't like it
He seemed cool to me before that big revelation
Things not always being what they seem, I think might be, if it's not a theme, or if it's not the theme
It's a theme or a thematic element in this particular book, so I don't...
I kind of know some stuff about the rest of the Harry Potter story, and I think that might be related
Or like some setup is being done for that, perhaps? I'm not 100% sure
But it's interesting that, I don't know, that could be what it's about, it might not be what it's about
Which is a very silly statement to make, it's not profound at all
But this is a casual book, yeah, so I don't really feel the pressure to perform and give you amazing insights
A quick addendum before I let myself officially finish the episode
One of the things that I found remarkable about this book, and it really hit me somewhere in the beginning
Probably right before Harry went off to Hogwarts, which is something I mentioned in the beginning of this casual book chat
Because I talked about how it's kind of book-ended by, you feel one way about Harry and his situation with the Dursleys
And then by the end of it you feel kind of the same way, but there's some optimism
And it comes down to, I think, this interesting element which is shared with Spider-Man, of all things
The Spider-Man comics, well, yeah, the Spider-Man comics, I'm not going to say the movies except for maybe the Rami McGuire movies
But there is a sense that despite...
In spite of everything that Harry has in the Wizarding World, in spite of all his power and the prestige and the fame of being the boy who lived
He's still just a boy to the Dursleys, and none of his magic, none of the magic in his life
That he experiences at Hogwarts or with the Weasleys or anywhere else
Really matters when it comes to his life with the Dursleys or at the Dursleys
He's just Harry
That's all he is in the Muggle world, for now at least
And none of the great power and the accomplishments help him to overcome or rise above what he faces
I don't know if I would call Harry a role model or if he's just somebody that a young reader can identify with
Really any reader can identify with, as I mentioned previously
But I really think it's special and wonderful that he faces these challenges
And when it comes down to it, when it comes down to dealing with the Dursleys
He and you and I have the same recourse
We can kind of exhibit long-suffering, we can bear with the situation
Keep a stiff upper lip if you want to be British about it
Or we can break down and have a tantrum or freak out or give in to our baser instincts
And really sink to the level of these people who are challenging us in these particular ways
And I think it presents a really interesting moral choice and question
But also it just makes him so much more relatable
And I think it adds a lot of sympathy to his character arc, to his struggles, and to his story
And I think that's really special, I think there's a magic in that, so to speak
Which is that despite all the fantastical elements, the mundane down-to-earth things still matter
And they still hurt
It's almost like an affirmation that, you know what, yeah, you're special, people care about you
You have, you know, whatever you have in your life that's good or sets you apart is great
But at the end of the day, you're still a person and you can still be hurt by others
And there's a comfort in that, I think there's a comfort in that
It's very human and it's very humane and very, I don't know
I just think there's a comfort in saying, you know, this too shall pass but this too shall endure
And if you're going to live life you're going to suffer
But you don't have to be miserable about it, to some extent
I think that's part of what's being said here, and I like it, I just find it really endearing
I hope you enjoyed that, go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have
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