Снейп жил, Снейп жив, Снейп будет жить!
10 декабря по BBC Radio 4 транслировалось радиоинтервью JKR, в котором она отвечала на вопросы Стивена Фрая.
Аудиоверсию интервью можно послушать здесь.
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Stephen Fry: And Jo, I suppose a good question to open with would be simply "Which character you find yourself identifying with most when you’re writing or when you’re reading what you’ve just written?"
J.K. Rowling: Probably Harry, really. Because I have to think myself into his head far more than any of the others because everything is seen from his point of view. But there’s a little bit of me in most of the characters I think. They say if writers that uhm...I think it’s impossible not to put a little bit of yourself into any character because you have to imagine their motivation.
SF: Did it occur to you when you were planning the books, hoping the first one would be published that so many people who have never been inside a boarding school would relate to the very particular world of an English boarding school which Hogwarts represents?
JKR: Well the truth is I’ve never been inside one either, of course I was comprehensive educated. But, it was essential for the plot that the children could be enclosed somewhere together overnight. This could not be a day school because the adventure would fall down every, every second day if they went home and spoke to their parents and then had to break back into school every... [laughs] ...every week to wander around at night. So it had to be a boarding school. Which was also logical because where would wizards educate their children? This is a place where there are going to be lots of noises, smells, flashing lights and you would want to contain it somewhere fairly distant so that Muggles didn’t come across it all the time. But, I think that people recognize the reality of a lot of children being cloistered together perhaps, more than they recognize the ambience of a boarding school. I’m not sure that I’m familiar with that. I think I’m familiar with what children are like when they’re together.
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SF: The thing is, you have created a world, it’s the sort of definition of successful fiction is to, - to have a world that somehow is circumscribed by its own rules, its own ethics, its own cultural flavor and smell and senses and you’ve done this and that’s why it’s very common to hear about children and adults dreaming that they’re in Hogwarts, dreaming that they are side-by-side with Harry and Ron and Hermione and so on. And naturally what comes as a result of this too, is you get strange warning voices from people I always imagine with steel-colored hair with a knitting needle stuck through it in a bun at the back, arguing that somehow this is dangerous…
JKR: Yes.
SF: ...for people, aside from the whole business of whether or not magic is dangerous for people which I think we can ignore because…
[JKR laughs]
SF: It seems to come from such wild chores of unreason.
JKR: It’s all part of that young ladies, 200 years ago weren’t allowed to read novels because it would inflame them and excite them and make them long for things that weren’t real and I remember being very distressed to read, when I was quite young, about Virginia Woolf being told she mustn’t write because it would exacerbate her mental condition. We need a place to escape to whether as a writer or a reader and obviously the world that I’ve created is a particularly shining example of a world to which it’s very pleasant to escape. That beautiful image in C.S. Lewis where there are the pools, the ‘World Between Worlds,’ and you can jump into the different pools to access the different worlds and that for me was always a metaphor for a library. I know Lewis wasn’t actually thinking that when he wrote it…
SF: It was a Christian metaphor for him, yeah.
JKR: Of course. But to me, that was…to jump into these different pools to enter different worlds, what a beautiful place and that for me is what literature should be. So whether you love Hogwarts or loathe it, I don’t think you can criticize it for being a ‘world’ that people enjoy.
SF: No. Precisely, I mean that is, that is why it…it exercises such a clean hold on all our imaginations, there’s…
JKR: I read an interview with you in which I was very flattered to see that you, you drew a parallel between that world and the world of Sherlock Holmes and I found that a very flattering comparison that also resonated with me because when I read the Holmes stories, it is of course...it’s a world that never really existed. And yet you can whole-heartedly believe it existed and more importantly you want it to have existed don’t you? So that’s…
SF: Exactly right.
JKR: That’s why it’s such fabulously entertaining reading.
SF: Yeah. And why Sherlock Holmes to this day still gets letters to…
JKR: Absolutely, yeah.
SF: 221b Baker Street. And of course, it is a peculiarity that you will be accused both of creating a world in which children can luxuriate in an escapist fantasy and for creating a world that is frightening…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: Because it’s so full of wickedness and danger.
JKR: Mmm.
SF: And that you could upset them. Now they can’t both…
[Both laugh]
SF: They can’t both be true! But I do think it is one of the advances in children’s literature that, that you’ve made with this remarkable series is that you have not held back from the difficult and the frightening and the treacherous and the unjust and all the things that most exercise children’s minds.
JKR: Well I feel very strongly that there is a move to sanitize literature because we’re trying to protect children, not from…necessarily from the grisly facts of life but from their own imaginations. I remember being in America a few years ago and Halloween was approaching and three television programs in a row were talking about how to explain to children it wasn’t real. Now there’s a reason why they create these stories and we have always created these stories and the reason why we have had these pagan festivals and the reason why even the church allows a certain amount of fear. We need to feel fear, and we need to confront that in a controlled environment, that’s a very important part of growing up I think. And the child that has been protected from dementors in fiction, I would argue, is much more likely to fall prey to them later in life in reality. And also, what are we saying to children who do have scary and disturbing faults? We’re saying that’s wrong. And that’s not natural and it’s not something that’s intrinsic to the human condition that they’re in some way odd or ill. [laughs]
SF: Exactly…
JKR: It’s a very dangerous thing to tell a child.
SF: And guilt is the greatest trigger for aggression that man has and if people grow up thinking they’re peculiar for having dark thoughts or for being aware of the weirder side of the world and their lives, then that’s going to make them awful human beings isn’t it?
JKR: I totally agree.
SF: Because one of the jobs of writing in a sense, is to show you that you’re not alone.
JKR: Yes. Yes it is. And certainly I discovered I wasn’t alone through books I think, arguably more than I did through friendships in my early days because I was quite an introverted child.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And it was through reading that I realized I wasn’t alone in all sorts of levels.
SF: Absolutely and it’s a central anxiety if you like, that the reader always confronts you with Harry, is that there is this extraordinary closeness he has to Voldemort, to One-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that must be named, and I think that as the series progresses and we feel “Gosh, it’s not long now, what is going to happen?” there’s a great deal of speculation and I’m not asking you to come up with any answers here but there’s a great deal of speculation as to how close this relationship is between the darkest wizard of them all, and our hero who saved the world.
JKR: Well a question I was asked a lot early on, was… “Was Voldemort really Harry’s father?” and of course that’s a Star Wars….
SF: Exactly.
JKR: [Laughs] Question really, isn’t it! And er...no, he is NOT going to turn out to be Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. He’s not in a biological sense related to him at all.
SF: No, that’s a very good answer to have. I think that one of the current front-running endings, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, as far as the betting goes is that Harry will finally defeat Voldemort at the expense of all his own powers and that he will end by going into the world as an ordinary Muggle.
JKR: [Gasps]
SF: Which is an extraordinary idea.
JKR: It’s a good ending.
SF: It is, it is a good end, you can borrow it if you like.
JKR: [Laughs] It would be super-plagiarism by about 13 million children.
SF: This is your problem, isn’t it? you’re not allowed to read anything…
JKR: No, I’m not.
SF: Written by anybody else, just on the off-chance. Well let’s think about the world that you’ve used in terms of its tradition if you like, from little Cornish Pixies to you know, Kelpies and you know, mentions of particular types of plant like Mandraga and so on.
JKR: Mmm.
SF: These are all real and a lot of children will, of course, imagine that you’ve made them out.
JKR: I’ve taken horrible liberties with folklore and mythology. But I’m quite unashamed about that because British folklore and British mythology is a totally bastard mythology you know. We’ve been invaded by people, we’ve appropriated their gods, we’ve taken their mythical creatures and we’ve soldered them all together to make, what I would say, is one of the richest folklores in the world because it’s so varied. So I feel no compunction about borrowing from that freely but adding a…
SF: Absolutely.
JKR: But you’re right yes, that children…either they know, obviously they know that I didn’t invent unicorns but I’ve had to explain frequently that I didn’t actually invent hippogriffs. Although a hippogriff is quite obscure, I went looking because when I do use a creature that I know is a mythological entity…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I like to find out as much as I can about it. I might not use it, but to make it as consistent as I feel is good for my plot. Very little on hippogriffs, I could…
SF: It’s the map isn’t it, is the Here Be Hippogriffs.
JKR: Yes, exactly. Here Be Hippogriffs, yes.
SF: Yeah, like Heffalumps in Pooh.
JKR: But they don’t seem to have been closely observed by medieval naturalists.
[Both laugh]
JKR: So I could, I could take liberties.
SF: And presumably they are, as the name would imply, and this brings us on to your other love which is language itself at its most basic level…
JKR: Arcade.
SF: Of words and derivations that hippogriff is of course a mixture of the Welsh Griffin and the Greek Horse Hippo.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: Which is a perfect example, as you say, of the bastardization of our English folklore, like our language.
JKR: Like our language.
SF: It’s a perfect mixture.
JKR: Which is what makes our language so rich.
SF: Exactly.
JKR: So knobbly and textured, and I love it.
SF: Even things like Mundungus have a meaning.
JKR: Mundungus, isn’t that a fantastic word?
SF: And it means?
JKR: Foul stinking tobacco, which really suits him.
SF: Exactly. Isn’t it perfect?
[JKR laughs]
SF: Now do you actually troll through books of rare words or OED or things or…
JKR: Erm...
SF: Or are they just things that you somehow, you’ve got a good memory for words?
JKR: I don’t really troll books. They tend to be things I’ve collected or stumbled across in general reading. The exception was Gilderoy. Gilderoy Lockhart. The name, Lockhart, although I know it’s quite a well-known Scottish Surname…
SF: Yes.
JKR: I found on a war memorial. I was looking for sort of quite a glamorous, dashing sort of surname and Lockhart caught my eye on this war memorial and that was it. I couldn’t find a Christian name, and I was leafing through the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable one night, consciously looking for stuff generally…
SF: Yes.
JKR: ...that would be useful and I saw Gilderoy who was actually a highwayman and a very good-looking rogue.
SF: Really?
JKR: And Gilderoy Lockhart, it just sounded…
SF: It is a perfect…
JKR: Perfect.
SF: Perfect.
JKR: Impressive and yet, in the middle, quite hollow of course.
SF: A [inaudible] thing, as we know he was.
JKR: As we know.
SF: So. To get down to the really important bit which is me.
JKR: [Laughs] Yes, let’s do you!
[Both laugh]
SF: I wondered if the way I’ve read the books has altered your writing of them.
JKR: I know that I’ve told you this before, there was a time when Jessica, my daughter who’s now ten, she absolutely loves the tapes and there was a time when I was writing Goblet of Fire in particular where I would settle down to work in the evening and I could hear you reading from her bedroom, which really was a mind-warping experience to be writing one book while listening to you reading Chamber or, you know, Azkaban.
SF: Yes.
JKR: It was bizarre and I felt that I couldn’t escape Harry Potter, there was no escape. I could hear him and I could see him and I was writing about him and…
SF: Yes. Certainly I have to say without just clearly meaning to be flattering that the shapes, the phrasing, the balance of sentences does make the books a delight to read in that sense.
JKR: Oh that’s really kind.
SF: It really…
JKR: That’s really good to hear.
SF: Sometimes writers have a marvelous sense of writing for the page and the words and that part of the brain that does it.
JKR: Yeah.
SF: But…but reading them out is, is terribly difficult.
JKR: See, I love writing dialogue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I really love writing dialogue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: And uhm...when I hear you reading it, it gives me a whole new sense of pleasure because of course I never read my work aloud.
SF: Mmm.
JKR: And yet hearing the dialogues spoken …
SF: Mmm.
JKR: And I always hear you speak it before I hear actors speak it, is very pleasurable because I’ve always enjoyed writing it.
SF: Each time I do a new book there’s a CD that the engineer at the sound studio produces with all the characters and it’s a…
JKR: I remember, yes.
SF: It’s always good, it’ll have to be a DVD next time.
JKR: Oh sorry!
SF: It’s so that I can remind myself of you know, what Lavender sounded like or what, you know.
JKR: Yes.
SF: What, which particular character.
JKR: Of course.
SF: You know.
JKR: Jessica wanted to know how, how you got Hermione’s voice. She thinks you’re so brilliant at doing Hermione and…and she doesn’t understand how someone with such a deep voice can do a girl’s voice. So I was to ask you that.
SF: That’s a very, that’s an interesting question. I always loved the Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter, do you remember him?
JKR: Yes. [laughs]
SF: And I noticed from a very early age, when I was ten, that when he did a woman he usually deepened his voice. So unlike trying to do a sort of falsetto, he would go [puts on deep voice] "Hello, I’m Faith Douche."
[JKR laughs]
SF: Or whatever. [Deep voice] Some strange character like that. [Normal voice] And actually for a lot of women that works well.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Not for young girls, but for grown-up women that works pretty well.
JKR: So it’s softening the voice really more than…
SF: It’s a sort of softening, exactly.
JKR: Yes. I do, I do remember being there to see you record, and you [laughs], you said to me, "It’s very hard to hiss something with no sibilant in it." [laughs]
[SF laughs]
JKR: Someone had hissed something like “Don’t do that.”
[Both laugh]
JKR: That’s another influence you’ve had on me, every time I want someone to be hissing which Snape does quite a lot, I have to check there’s actually an ‘s’ in it before I…
SF: Yes.
JKR: Before I make them do it. [laughs]
SF: Well you see that was with, with Snape and all that’s around him, he’s got three S’s himself.
JKR: Yes, right. [laughs]
SF: And his house has got an S.
JKR: Exactly!
SF: And it's got a slither and it’s…you know, the whole, the whole...
[JKR laughs]
SF: The whole snake-like work is done. Now, a question I’m sure you’re asked a lot and that is for generations now, the ideal child’s hero is Harry Potter. But that didn’t exist when you were a child. Who was the one you went hunting with, the one you…
JKR: Loads.
SF: Well, being with and, you know…
JKR: Loads and loads.
SF: Loads.
JKR: Uhm...I liked the heroine of The Little White Horse, because she was quite plain and I was plain and, and most heroines are very beautiful.
SF: Yes, yeah.
JKR: She was freckly and had reddish hair and I identified with her a lot.
SF: Eloise was a bit like that as well.
JKR: Yes, I love Eloise.
SF: I loved Eloise.
JKR: There was so many, I loved E. Nesbitt. She is still probably the children’s writer with whom I most identify.
SF: Yes.
JKR: She wasn’t very sentimental.
SF: She wasn’t, was she?
JKR: And she loved a quirky detail.
[SF laughs]
JKR: So uhm...yes, I thought she was very, very good. I think the female writers generally are less sentimental about childhood than male writers in my opinion.
SF: I think you’re absolutely right, it’s a strange thing children’s fiction. There’s the boy’s adventure style…
JKR: Yes.
SF: Which you know is, I suppose, the greatest example of them is Treasure Island.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Which is just one of the most immaculately written books of any genre.
JKR: Which is, which is a wonderful book and which I also love, yes.
SF: It is a truly great book, isn’t it? Yeah. And that really has almost no females in it at all.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: But what you’ve done is you’ve written a boy's adventure book but…
JKR: But with girls [laughs].
SF: It’s also a girl’s book. Which is actually extraordinary. And, you know, one perhaps shouldn’t over-talk about the idea of gender in it, I remember seeing in a Martin Amis novel, I think it’s the Information [laughs], the characters have an enormous row talking about this very subject. You know, they actually leave the dinner table because of talking about you know, “Women read certain types of book and men read other types of book.”
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: And that it will “Ever be thus.”
JKR: Yes.
SF: But do you find…I expect you get more letters from women, from girls, simply because girls are better at writing letters you said [laughs].
JKR: I have a theory. It was roughly 50% each and my theory is that parents were so thrilled their sons were reading that they would prompt them into writing to me in the hope that they would keep this enthusiasm going. And I occasionally had extraordinary letters from boys - very, very, very touching letters from boys. Arguably more touching, particularly when it’s a letter that’s written by someone who obviously doesn’t find writing very easy, telling me that it’s the first book they’ve ever read and they really like it.
SF: It’s a wonderful compliment.
JKR: Oh yes, it is.
SF: And an extraordinary thought, and it must make you slightly go all pink and…
JKR: It does, make me go pink and wibbly.
[Both laugh]
SF: Exactly, yes. “What good is a book,” said Alice, “without pictures and conversations” in Alice and Wonderland which is always a book I think grown-ups actually like more than children though.
JKR: I think so too.
SF: But it’s a splendid comment and a very sophisticated one which is why adults like Alice so much. I wondered if, simply the expense of the first edition of your first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, whether the issue of illustration had come up? And whether it was just “Well, this is the biggest children’s novel we’ve ever published in terms of size…”
JKR: Yes.
SF: “Length, we’re not going to add to our expense…”
JKR: No.
SF: “By getting Quentin Blake or whoever…”
JKR: No. But you’re absolutely right. That was precisely the argument. They also felt that illustrations might aim it a little bit at a younger audience than they were aiming for.
SF: Yes. I think it turned out to be quite right.
JKR: And they were right. The American edition, which is a very beautifully produced book I must say, they have very small line drawings at the beginning of every chapter, which I like. It’s just a suggestion of what’s to come.
SF: Yes.
JKR: But it’s not full-blown, full-page.
SF: Color plates.
JKR: Exactly, color plates, although I used to love a color plate. I used to flick through to find them before I read the book.
SF: Oh absolutely, absolutely. There was a smell to them, because the paper was shiny and different.
JKR: There was, a very distinctive smell.
SF: Argh! And sometimes they were frightening.
JKR: Yes.
SF: You knew the one was coming that you didn’t quite like for some reason.
JKR: Yeah.
SF: I can still remember them all, it’s weird isn’t it? While on the subject of America, you’re published there by Scholastic is the name, isn’t it?
JKR: Scholastic, yep.
SF: I remember you telling me about your first signing queue in America and…
JKR: Oh that was, yes.
SF: You had really expected a few boys to come with a scar penciled clumsily on their foreheads but you had…
JKR: There was…
SF: You had a woman in gilt.
JKR: [Laughs] That’s right.
SF: Tell us about her!
JKR: We had a woman who dressed up as the Fat Lady, complete with frame hung around her neck. That was extraordinary, and that was the closest I will ever get to being a pop star.
[SF laughs]
JKR: I walked through this door at the back of the store and there were screams, literally screams and flashbulbs going off and I didn’t know where I was. I was completely disorientated. I think as a defensive mechanism, when those events are over, I kind of shutdown and I think I have to shutdown and think that that was a very odd anomaly. And then I have to return to my office and just convince myself that this is just my world.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I find this a really difficult question to answer myself and I wrote the characters so I don’t see why you should find it any easier really but I’m going to ask. Is there any character with whom you identify particularly?
SF: The easy wisdom and slightly kind of twinkling…
JKR: Of Dumbledore.
SF: Quality of Dumbledore. I’ve always had this love of great teachers, with the first fictional character I, William Ramsey, who created was for a radio program, was an old Cambridge Don, an old...
JKR: I used to listen to... yeah.
SF: [Laughs] Can you remember an Archbishop of Canterbury called Ramsey, the last of the really sort of great and monumental primates of the Church of England, which I don’t [inaudible] of course.
[JKR laughs]
SF: And I remember seeing him being interviewed by a Malcolm Muggeridge type person who said [puts on voices] "Now, you tend to be a very wise man," he said "Am I, am I, am I wise, I wonder, am I wise, am I?"
[Both laugh]
SF: And the interviewer said, “Well, Your Grace, perhaps you could explain what you think wisdom is” “Wisdom? Wisdom. Mmm. Mmm, wisdom. I think it’s the ability to cope.”
JKR: Oh is that…
SF: Which is a marvelous definition, you know. It is…and so right, I mean it comes as you know, it’s the wisdom is the kingdom of wit, it is wit, witdom – wit-knowing, the German of knowing, wissenschaft and so on and in-wit is a marvelous...
JKR: See you are Dumbledore, look.
[SF laughs]
JKR: A sort of teacher.
SF: [Laughs] And that sense of being able to cope with things.
JKR: Yes.
SF: And it’s not how much you know.
JKR: No. Completely different.
SF: And you sense that with that, that rather marvelous, occasionally rather tired, worn quality that Dumbledore has.
JKR: Mm-hmmm.
SF: Because he has experienced so much, and he can cope but he would almost rather not be able to.
JKR: That’s it, that’s exactly right. Dumbledore does express the regret that he is, always had to be the one who knew and who had the burden of knowing.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And uhm...he would rather not know.
SF: But of all, I mean of course, Harry Potter is the one…because he’s the point of consciousness of the book. Harry is the one who undergoes all the tests, the ordeals by fire and all kinds of other things, and as with any hero, you measure yourself against him and there are times when I think I would just run away or…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: Or I wouldn’t care, I’d wave my wand even though I’m not supposed to, you know.
JKR: My favorite comment about Harry at the time of the first book was, it was a schoolboy who was interviewed on television and asked why he liked Harry, the character, so much and he said “He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on a lot of the time, and nor do I.”
SF: [Laughs] Oh that’s so good.
[Both laugh]
SF: I suppose there are times when you, you know, and I think I mentioned this to you when I first read the Order of the Phoenix, was [inaudible] is so cruel to him, I mean…
JKR: Well Phoenix I would say, in self-defense, Harry had to…because of what I’m trying to say about Harry as a hero, and because he’s a very human hero and this is obviously, there is a contrast between him as a very human hero and Voldemort, who has deliberately de-humanized himself, and Harry therefore did have to reach a point where he did almost break down and say he didn’t want to play anymore, he didn’t want to be the hero anymore and he’d lost too much and he didn’t want to lose anything else. And so that, Phoenix was the point at which I decided he would have his breakdown.
SF: Right.
JKR: And now he will rise from the ashes, strengthened.
SF: It is such a primary energy, particularly with children and we lose it I suppose, at our peril, the outrage at injustice which is one of the primary sort of major forces in all the books, isn’t it?
JKR: The feeling of the twelve-year-old boy that they’ve been unfairly accused, the burning sense of outrage, you’re right, we shouldn’t lose that.
SF: Yes.
JKR: But we do, often.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: Adults do.
SF: Yeah. No, that’s quite right.
JKR: I think the thing that I find most extraordinary is…I don’t know how many characters I have in play now…how do you find voices for them?
SF: It’s not a simple thing to answer. I mean, so often they’re there and I hope that generally speaking, I’ve…if not given exactly the voice you imagine that it’s somewhere in that area. I mean there are characters like Tonks which for some reason I just instinctively felt she had that slightly sort of Burnley, you know sort of Jane Horrocks sort of accent.
[JKR laughs]
SF: And it just seemed to fit her exactly and I think…
JKR: It does, yeah.
SF: Yeah, and I think yeah, the producer had the same idea in her head, that it should be that.
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: And yet you did…there’s no kind of “Put wood in coal.”
JKR: No.
SF: And “About tat” kind of northern writing in it, it’s just something that’s there and I’m sure it’s just as I’m conscious with you sometimes, that you, you’re writing a smallish character that, use a turn of phrase that makes me think “Now that sounds like a Cockney," or "that’s….that’s an older character or that’s a younger character.”
JKR: Because you knew that Hagrid was West Country.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And that was the only thing I wanted to warn you before you started reading them and my plane was delayed. That was the first time we ever met. And I got there and one of the first things you said to me was “I’ve done Hagrid as a kind of Somerset.”
SF: Yes.
JKR: And I was “Oh, thank goodness for that” because I thought if you make him Glaswegian, I would have to…
SF: [Laughs] No!
JKR: That was the only character I felt protective about, accent-wise.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: What I really enjoy about your reading is, the accents aren’t intrusive. I don’t feel as though you’re in any sense giving a sort of virtuoso performance of “These are as many accents as I can do, or different voices.” You don’t form a big barrier between the listener and the story I feel. Do you know…
SF: I do exactly.
JKR: Do you know what I mean?
SF: That is precisely what one…you know, what I aim for, is not to get in the way of it.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Is for people not to hear the voice after a while. You know how when you’re reading, sometimes you lose it and you find you’re having to go back and…
JKR: Yes.
SF: Because you’re too aware of the letters and the words and then you can read a whole chapter and not be aware of having turned over a page.
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: And you know, the print and the paper have not been there.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: And it should be the same with my voice when they’re listening, you know, that the first paragraph or so, but then immediately their mind is in the world of the Dursleys and of Hogwarts and the Knight Bus and everything else and they don’t notice me doing it. And [inaudible] the producer and Helen are very good at making sure that I don’t over-project a voice or you know, overdo something. And the only other problem is the pacing, you know…
JKR: Yes.
SF: I think it’s so important to refresh a page.
JKR: Yes, yes.
SF: You know? Because otherwise it can get a bit lulled and…
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: But you mustn’t overdo that either.
JKR: So I... [laughs] I don’t feel I should almost push you that much further but, are there any scenes that you have particularly, or that you can remember enjoying reading?
SF: Well the uhm...you know the whole creepy stuff at the climax of Order of the Phoenix you know, in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic and so on. I love the fact that it was so frightening and scary and dramatic and I loved, you know, building up the tension and so on of the strange glass orbs and what, what they’re going to mean and then getting stuck behind the doors.
JKR: There are a few children who have told me that they took it in much better when you read it to them, than when they read it on the page and I think that’s because with Phoenix, because people had had to wait three years for it, they raced through it.
SF: They read too fast, the leaped ahead and they lost the…
JKR: Really raced it, exactly. And then…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I’ve had readers say to me “I’ve read it again and there’s a lot more than I thought,” “Well that’s because I think you read it in about an afternoon, didn’t you?” So listening to you, I think has really, yes, given them a sense of where they are.
SF: Is it really true that you’ve got it all planned out?
JKR: Yes, it is really true.
SF: Astonishing.
JKR: Yes, I do know what’s going to happen in the end, and occasionally I get cold shivers when someone guesses.
SF: Yes.
JKR: At something that’s very close. And then I panic and I think “Oh is it very obvious?” and then someone says something that’s so off-the-wall I think “No, it’s clearly not that obvious!”
SF: Good!
JKR: I always leave myself latitude to go on a little stroll off the path, but the path of it is what I’m essentially following. So much that happens in 6 relates to what happens in 7, and you really sort of skid of the end of 6 straight into 7.
SF: Really? Yes.
JKR: You know, it’s not…it’s not the discreet adventure that the others have all been.
SF: Right.
JKR: Even though you have the underlying theme of Harry versus Voldemort, in each case…well you know better than anyone…there has been an adventure that has resolved itself.
SF: Yes, exactly.
JKR: Whereas in 6, although there is, there is an ending that could be seen as definitive in one sense, you very strongly feel the plot is not over this time and it will continue.
SF: Yes.
JKR: It’s an odd feeling. For the first time I’m very, very aware that I’m finishing.
SF: The tape is in sight.
JKR: The end is in sight, yeah.
SF: It’s extraordinary.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Uhm…you’ll always write because it’s a need you have, do you imagine you will write for children next time you write something new?
JKR: Uhm…there is a…
SF: Will you write for the children who were children but are now adults?
JKR: [Laughs] Yes.
SF: Who were your first generation! [laughs]
JKR: I don’t know. Truthfully I don’t know. I am…there is another children’s book that’s sort of moldering in a cupboard that I quite like which is for slightly younger children I would say. But there are other things I’d like to write too. But I think I need to find a good pseudonym and do it all secretly because…
SF: Yes.
JKR: I’m very frightened, you can imagine.
SF: Oh, absolutely.
JKR: Of the unbearable hype that would attend a post-Harry book and…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: Not sure I look forward to that at all.
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Stephen Fry: And Jo, I suppose a good question to open with would be simply "Which character you find yourself identifying with most when you’re writing or when you’re reading what you’ve just written?"
J.K. Rowling: Probably Harry, really. Because I have to think myself into his head far more than any of the others because everything is seen from his point of view. But there’s a little bit of me in most of the characters I think. They say if writers that uhm...I think it’s impossible not to put a little bit of yourself into any character because you have to imagine their motivation.
SF: Did it occur to you when you were planning the books, hoping the first one would be published that so many people who have never been inside a boarding school would relate to the very particular world of an English boarding school which Hogwarts represents?
JKR: Well the truth is I’ve never been inside one either, of course I was comprehensive educated. But, it was essential for the plot that the children could be enclosed somewhere together overnight. This could not be a day school because the adventure would fall down every, every second day if they went home and spoke to their parents and then had to break back into school every... [laughs] ...every week to wander around at night. So it had to be a boarding school. Which was also logical because where would wizards educate their children? This is a place where there are going to be lots of noises, smells, flashing lights and you would want to contain it somewhere fairly distant so that Muggles didn’t come across it all the time. But, I think that people recognize the reality of a lot of children being cloistered together perhaps, more than they recognize the ambience of a boarding school. I’m not sure that I’m familiar with that. I think I’m familiar with what children are like when they’re together.
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SF: The thing is, you have created a world, it’s the sort of definition of successful fiction is to, - to have a world that somehow is circumscribed by its own rules, its own ethics, its own cultural flavor and smell and senses and you’ve done this and that’s why it’s very common to hear about children and adults dreaming that they’re in Hogwarts, dreaming that they are side-by-side with Harry and Ron and Hermione and so on. And naturally what comes as a result of this too, is you get strange warning voices from people I always imagine with steel-colored hair with a knitting needle stuck through it in a bun at the back, arguing that somehow this is dangerous…
JKR: Yes.
SF: ...for people, aside from the whole business of whether or not magic is dangerous for people which I think we can ignore because…
[JKR laughs]
SF: It seems to come from such wild chores of unreason.
JKR: It’s all part of that young ladies, 200 years ago weren’t allowed to read novels because it would inflame them and excite them and make them long for things that weren’t real and I remember being very distressed to read, when I was quite young, about Virginia Woolf being told she mustn’t write because it would exacerbate her mental condition. We need a place to escape to whether as a writer or a reader and obviously the world that I’ve created is a particularly shining example of a world to which it’s very pleasant to escape. That beautiful image in C.S. Lewis where there are the pools, the ‘World Between Worlds,’ and you can jump into the different pools to access the different worlds and that for me was always a metaphor for a library. I know Lewis wasn’t actually thinking that when he wrote it…
SF: It was a Christian metaphor for him, yeah.
JKR: Of course. But to me, that was…to jump into these different pools to enter different worlds, what a beautiful place and that for me is what literature should be. So whether you love Hogwarts or loathe it, I don’t think you can criticize it for being a ‘world’ that people enjoy.
SF: No. Precisely, I mean that is, that is why it…it exercises such a clean hold on all our imaginations, there’s…
JKR: I read an interview with you in which I was very flattered to see that you, you drew a parallel between that world and the world of Sherlock Holmes and I found that a very flattering comparison that also resonated with me because when I read the Holmes stories, it is of course...it’s a world that never really existed. And yet you can whole-heartedly believe it existed and more importantly you want it to have existed don’t you? So that’s…
SF: Exactly right.
JKR: That’s why it’s such fabulously entertaining reading.
SF: Yeah. And why Sherlock Holmes to this day still gets letters to…
JKR: Absolutely, yeah.
SF: 221b Baker Street. And of course, it is a peculiarity that you will be accused both of creating a world in which children can luxuriate in an escapist fantasy and for creating a world that is frightening…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: Because it’s so full of wickedness and danger.
JKR: Mmm.
SF: And that you could upset them. Now they can’t both…
[Both laugh]
SF: They can’t both be true! But I do think it is one of the advances in children’s literature that, that you’ve made with this remarkable series is that you have not held back from the difficult and the frightening and the treacherous and the unjust and all the things that most exercise children’s minds.
JKR: Well I feel very strongly that there is a move to sanitize literature because we’re trying to protect children, not from…necessarily from the grisly facts of life but from their own imaginations. I remember being in America a few years ago and Halloween was approaching and three television programs in a row were talking about how to explain to children it wasn’t real. Now there’s a reason why they create these stories and we have always created these stories and the reason why we have had these pagan festivals and the reason why even the church allows a certain amount of fear. We need to feel fear, and we need to confront that in a controlled environment, that’s a very important part of growing up I think. And the child that has been protected from dementors in fiction, I would argue, is much more likely to fall prey to them later in life in reality. And also, what are we saying to children who do have scary and disturbing faults? We’re saying that’s wrong. And that’s not natural and it’s not something that’s intrinsic to the human condition that they’re in some way odd or ill. [laughs]
SF: Exactly…
JKR: It’s a very dangerous thing to tell a child.
SF: And guilt is the greatest trigger for aggression that man has and if people grow up thinking they’re peculiar for having dark thoughts or for being aware of the weirder side of the world and their lives, then that’s going to make them awful human beings isn’t it?
JKR: I totally agree.
SF: Because one of the jobs of writing in a sense, is to show you that you’re not alone.
JKR: Yes. Yes it is. And certainly I discovered I wasn’t alone through books I think, arguably more than I did through friendships in my early days because I was quite an introverted child.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And it was through reading that I realized I wasn’t alone in all sorts of levels.
SF: Absolutely and it’s a central anxiety if you like, that the reader always confronts you with Harry, is that there is this extraordinary closeness he has to Voldemort, to One-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that must be named, and I think that as the series progresses and we feel “Gosh, it’s not long now, what is going to happen?” there’s a great deal of speculation and I’m not asking you to come up with any answers here but there’s a great deal of speculation as to how close this relationship is between the darkest wizard of them all, and our hero who saved the world.
JKR: Well a question I was asked a lot early on, was… “Was Voldemort really Harry’s father?” and of course that’s a Star Wars….
SF: Exactly.
JKR: [Laughs] Question really, isn’t it! And er...no, he is NOT going to turn out to be Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. He’s not in a biological sense related to him at all.
SF: No, that’s a very good answer to have. I think that one of the current front-running endings, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, as far as the betting goes is that Harry will finally defeat Voldemort at the expense of all his own powers and that he will end by going into the world as an ordinary Muggle.
JKR: [Gasps]
SF: Which is an extraordinary idea.
JKR: It’s a good ending.
SF: It is, it is a good end, you can borrow it if you like.
JKR: [Laughs] It would be super-plagiarism by about 13 million children.
SF: This is your problem, isn’t it? you’re not allowed to read anything…
JKR: No, I’m not.
SF: Written by anybody else, just on the off-chance. Well let’s think about the world that you’ve used in terms of its tradition if you like, from little Cornish Pixies to you know, Kelpies and you know, mentions of particular types of plant like Mandraga and so on.
JKR: Mmm.
SF: These are all real and a lot of children will, of course, imagine that you’ve made them out.
JKR: I’ve taken horrible liberties with folklore and mythology. But I’m quite unashamed about that because British folklore and British mythology is a totally bastard mythology you know. We’ve been invaded by people, we’ve appropriated their gods, we’ve taken their mythical creatures and we’ve soldered them all together to make, what I would say, is one of the richest folklores in the world because it’s so varied. So I feel no compunction about borrowing from that freely but adding a…
SF: Absolutely.
JKR: But you’re right yes, that children…either they know, obviously they know that I didn’t invent unicorns but I’ve had to explain frequently that I didn’t actually invent hippogriffs. Although a hippogriff is quite obscure, I went looking because when I do use a creature that I know is a mythological entity…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I like to find out as much as I can about it. I might not use it, but to make it as consistent as I feel is good for my plot. Very little on hippogriffs, I could…
SF: It’s the map isn’t it, is the Here Be Hippogriffs.
JKR: Yes, exactly. Here Be Hippogriffs, yes.
SF: Yeah, like Heffalumps in Pooh.
JKR: But they don’t seem to have been closely observed by medieval naturalists.
[Both laugh]
JKR: So I could, I could take liberties.
SF: And presumably they are, as the name would imply, and this brings us on to your other love which is language itself at its most basic level…
JKR: Arcade.
SF: Of words and derivations that hippogriff is of course a mixture of the Welsh Griffin and the Greek Horse Hippo.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: Which is a perfect example, as you say, of the bastardization of our English folklore, like our language.
JKR: Like our language.
SF: It’s a perfect mixture.
JKR: Which is what makes our language so rich.
SF: Exactly.
JKR: So knobbly and textured, and I love it.
SF: Even things like Mundungus have a meaning.
JKR: Mundungus, isn’t that a fantastic word?
SF: And it means?
JKR: Foul stinking tobacco, which really suits him.
SF: Exactly. Isn’t it perfect?
[JKR laughs]
SF: Now do you actually troll through books of rare words or OED or things or…
JKR: Erm...
SF: Or are they just things that you somehow, you’ve got a good memory for words?
JKR: I don’t really troll books. They tend to be things I’ve collected or stumbled across in general reading. The exception was Gilderoy. Gilderoy Lockhart. The name, Lockhart, although I know it’s quite a well-known Scottish Surname…
SF: Yes.
JKR: I found on a war memorial. I was looking for sort of quite a glamorous, dashing sort of surname and Lockhart caught my eye on this war memorial and that was it. I couldn’t find a Christian name, and I was leafing through the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable one night, consciously looking for stuff generally…
SF: Yes.
JKR: ...that would be useful and I saw Gilderoy who was actually a highwayman and a very good-looking rogue.
SF: Really?
JKR: And Gilderoy Lockhart, it just sounded…
SF: It is a perfect…
JKR: Perfect.
SF: Perfect.
JKR: Impressive and yet, in the middle, quite hollow of course.
SF: A [inaudible] thing, as we know he was.
JKR: As we know.
SF: So. To get down to the really important bit which is me.
JKR: [Laughs] Yes, let’s do you!
[Both laugh]
SF: I wondered if the way I’ve read the books has altered your writing of them.
JKR: I know that I’ve told you this before, there was a time when Jessica, my daughter who’s now ten, she absolutely loves the tapes and there was a time when I was writing Goblet of Fire in particular where I would settle down to work in the evening and I could hear you reading from her bedroom, which really was a mind-warping experience to be writing one book while listening to you reading Chamber or, you know, Azkaban.
SF: Yes.
JKR: It was bizarre and I felt that I couldn’t escape Harry Potter, there was no escape. I could hear him and I could see him and I was writing about him and…
SF: Yes. Certainly I have to say without just clearly meaning to be flattering that the shapes, the phrasing, the balance of sentences does make the books a delight to read in that sense.
JKR: Oh that’s really kind.
SF: It really…
JKR: That’s really good to hear.
SF: Sometimes writers have a marvelous sense of writing for the page and the words and that part of the brain that does it.
JKR: Yeah.
SF: But…but reading them out is, is terribly difficult.
JKR: See, I love writing dialogue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I really love writing dialogue.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: And uhm...when I hear you reading it, it gives me a whole new sense of pleasure because of course I never read my work aloud.
SF: Mmm.
JKR: And yet hearing the dialogues spoken …
SF: Mmm.
JKR: And I always hear you speak it before I hear actors speak it, is very pleasurable because I’ve always enjoyed writing it.
SF: Each time I do a new book there’s a CD that the engineer at the sound studio produces with all the characters and it’s a…
JKR: I remember, yes.
SF: It’s always good, it’ll have to be a DVD next time.
JKR: Oh sorry!
SF: It’s so that I can remind myself of you know, what Lavender sounded like or what, you know.
JKR: Yes.
SF: What, which particular character.
JKR: Of course.
SF: You know.
JKR: Jessica wanted to know how, how you got Hermione’s voice. She thinks you’re so brilliant at doing Hermione and…and she doesn’t understand how someone with such a deep voice can do a girl’s voice. So I was to ask you that.
SF: That’s a very, that’s an interesting question. I always loved the Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter, do you remember him?
JKR: Yes. [laughs]
SF: And I noticed from a very early age, when I was ten, that when he did a woman he usually deepened his voice. So unlike trying to do a sort of falsetto, he would go [puts on deep voice] "Hello, I’m Faith Douche."
[JKR laughs]
SF: Or whatever. [Deep voice] Some strange character like that. [Normal voice] And actually for a lot of women that works well.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Not for young girls, but for grown-up women that works pretty well.
JKR: So it’s softening the voice really more than…
SF: It’s a sort of softening, exactly.
JKR: Yes. I do, I do remember being there to see you record, and you [laughs], you said to me, "It’s very hard to hiss something with no sibilant in it." [laughs]
[SF laughs]
JKR: Someone had hissed something like “Don’t do that.”
[Both laugh]
JKR: That’s another influence you’ve had on me, every time I want someone to be hissing which Snape does quite a lot, I have to check there’s actually an ‘s’ in it before I…
SF: Yes.
JKR: Before I make them do it. [laughs]
SF: Well you see that was with, with Snape and all that’s around him, he’s got three S’s himself.
JKR: Yes, right. [laughs]
SF: And his house has got an S.
JKR: Exactly!
SF: And it's got a slither and it’s…you know, the whole, the whole...
[JKR laughs]
SF: The whole snake-like work is done. Now, a question I’m sure you’re asked a lot and that is for generations now, the ideal child’s hero is Harry Potter. But that didn’t exist when you were a child. Who was the one you went hunting with, the one you…
JKR: Loads.
SF: Well, being with and, you know…
JKR: Loads and loads.
SF: Loads.
JKR: Uhm...I liked the heroine of The Little White Horse, because she was quite plain and I was plain and, and most heroines are very beautiful.
SF: Yes, yeah.
JKR: She was freckly and had reddish hair and I identified with her a lot.
SF: Eloise was a bit like that as well.
JKR: Yes, I love Eloise.
SF: I loved Eloise.
JKR: There was so many, I loved E. Nesbitt. She is still probably the children’s writer with whom I most identify.
SF: Yes.
JKR: She wasn’t very sentimental.
SF: She wasn’t, was she?
JKR: And she loved a quirky detail.
[SF laughs]
JKR: So uhm...yes, I thought she was very, very good. I think the female writers generally are less sentimental about childhood than male writers in my opinion.
SF: I think you’re absolutely right, it’s a strange thing children’s fiction. There’s the boy’s adventure style…
JKR: Yes.
SF: Which you know is, I suppose, the greatest example of them is Treasure Island.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Which is just one of the most immaculately written books of any genre.
JKR: Which is, which is a wonderful book and which I also love, yes.
SF: It is a truly great book, isn’t it? Yeah. And that really has almost no females in it at all.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: But what you’ve done is you’ve written a boy's adventure book but…
JKR: But with girls [laughs].
SF: It’s also a girl’s book. Which is actually extraordinary. And, you know, one perhaps shouldn’t over-talk about the idea of gender in it, I remember seeing in a Martin Amis novel, I think it’s the Information [laughs], the characters have an enormous row talking about this very subject. You know, they actually leave the dinner table because of talking about you know, “Women read certain types of book and men read other types of book.”
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: And that it will “Ever be thus.”
JKR: Yes.
SF: But do you find…I expect you get more letters from women, from girls, simply because girls are better at writing letters you said [laughs].
JKR: I have a theory. It was roughly 50% each and my theory is that parents were so thrilled their sons were reading that they would prompt them into writing to me in the hope that they would keep this enthusiasm going. And I occasionally had extraordinary letters from boys - very, very, very touching letters from boys. Arguably more touching, particularly when it’s a letter that’s written by someone who obviously doesn’t find writing very easy, telling me that it’s the first book they’ve ever read and they really like it.
SF: It’s a wonderful compliment.
JKR: Oh yes, it is.
SF: And an extraordinary thought, and it must make you slightly go all pink and…
JKR: It does, make me go pink and wibbly.
[Both laugh]
SF: Exactly, yes. “What good is a book,” said Alice, “without pictures and conversations” in Alice and Wonderland which is always a book I think grown-ups actually like more than children though.
JKR: I think so too.
SF: But it’s a splendid comment and a very sophisticated one which is why adults like Alice so much. I wondered if, simply the expense of the first edition of your first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, whether the issue of illustration had come up? And whether it was just “Well, this is the biggest children’s novel we’ve ever published in terms of size…”
JKR: Yes.
SF: “Length, we’re not going to add to our expense…”
JKR: No.
SF: “By getting Quentin Blake or whoever…”
JKR: No. But you’re absolutely right. That was precisely the argument. They also felt that illustrations might aim it a little bit at a younger audience than they were aiming for.
SF: Yes. I think it turned out to be quite right.
JKR: And they were right. The American edition, which is a very beautifully produced book I must say, they have very small line drawings at the beginning of every chapter, which I like. It’s just a suggestion of what’s to come.
SF: Yes.
JKR: But it’s not full-blown, full-page.
SF: Color plates.
JKR: Exactly, color plates, although I used to love a color plate. I used to flick through to find them before I read the book.
SF: Oh absolutely, absolutely. There was a smell to them, because the paper was shiny and different.
JKR: There was, a very distinctive smell.
SF: Argh! And sometimes they were frightening.
JKR: Yes.
SF: You knew the one was coming that you didn’t quite like for some reason.
JKR: Yeah.
SF: I can still remember them all, it’s weird isn’t it? While on the subject of America, you’re published there by Scholastic is the name, isn’t it?
JKR: Scholastic, yep.
SF: I remember you telling me about your first signing queue in America and…
JKR: Oh that was, yes.
SF: You had really expected a few boys to come with a scar penciled clumsily on their foreheads but you had…
JKR: There was…
SF: You had a woman in gilt.
JKR: [Laughs] That’s right.
SF: Tell us about her!
JKR: We had a woman who dressed up as the Fat Lady, complete with frame hung around her neck. That was extraordinary, and that was the closest I will ever get to being a pop star.
[SF laughs]
JKR: I walked through this door at the back of the store and there were screams, literally screams and flashbulbs going off and I didn’t know where I was. I was completely disorientated. I think as a defensive mechanism, when those events are over, I kind of shutdown and I think I have to shutdown and think that that was a very odd anomaly. And then I have to return to my office and just convince myself that this is just my world.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I find this a really difficult question to answer myself and I wrote the characters so I don’t see why you should find it any easier really but I’m going to ask. Is there any character with whom you identify particularly?
SF: The easy wisdom and slightly kind of twinkling…
JKR: Of Dumbledore.
SF: Quality of Dumbledore. I’ve always had this love of great teachers, with the first fictional character I, William Ramsey, who created was for a radio program, was an old Cambridge Don, an old...
JKR: I used to listen to... yeah.
SF: [Laughs] Can you remember an Archbishop of Canterbury called Ramsey, the last of the really sort of great and monumental primates of the Church of England, which I don’t [inaudible] of course.
[JKR laughs]
SF: And I remember seeing him being interviewed by a Malcolm Muggeridge type person who said [puts on voices] "Now, you tend to be a very wise man," he said "Am I, am I, am I wise, I wonder, am I wise, am I?"
[Both laugh]
SF: And the interviewer said, “Well, Your Grace, perhaps you could explain what you think wisdom is” “Wisdom? Wisdom. Mmm. Mmm, wisdom. I think it’s the ability to cope.”
JKR: Oh is that…
SF: Which is a marvelous definition, you know. It is…and so right, I mean it comes as you know, it’s the wisdom is the kingdom of wit, it is wit, witdom – wit-knowing, the German of knowing, wissenschaft and so on and in-wit is a marvelous...
JKR: See you are Dumbledore, look.
[SF laughs]
JKR: A sort of teacher.
SF: [Laughs] And that sense of being able to cope with things.
JKR: Yes.
SF: And it’s not how much you know.
JKR: No. Completely different.
SF: And you sense that with that, that rather marvelous, occasionally rather tired, worn quality that Dumbledore has.
JKR: Mm-hmmm.
SF: Because he has experienced so much, and he can cope but he would almost rather not be able to.
JKR: That’s it, that’s exactly right. Dumbledore does express the regret that he is, always had to be the one who knew and who had the burden of knowing.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And uhm...he would rather not know.
SF: But of all, I mean of course, Harry Potter is the one…because he’s the point of consciousness of the book. Harry is the one who undergoes all the tests, the ordeals by fire and all kinds of other things, and as with any hero, you measure yourself against him and there are times when I think I would just run away or…
JKR: Mmm.
SF: Or I wouldn’t care, I’d wave my wand even though I’m not supposed to, you know.
JKR: My favorite comment about Harry at the time of the first book was, it was a schoolboy who was interviewed on television and asked why he liked Harry, the character, so much and he said “He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on a lot of the time, and nor do I.”
SF: [Laughs] Oh that’s so good.
[Both laugh]
SF: I suppose there are times when you, you know, and I think I mentioned this to you when I first read the Order of the Phoenix, was [inaudible] is so cruel to him, I mean…
JKR: Well Phoenix I would say, in self-defense, Harry had to…because of what I’m trying to say about Harry as a hero, and because he’s a very human hero and this is obviously, there is a contrast between him as a very human hero and Voldemort, who has deliberately de-humanized himself, and Harry therefore did have to reach a point where he did almost break down and say he didn’t want to play anymore, he didn’t want to be the hero anymore and he’d lost too much and he didn’t want to lose anything else. And so that, Phoenix was the point at which I decided he would have his breakdown.
SF: Right.
JKR: And now he will rise from the ashes, strengthened.
SF: It is such a primary energy, particularly with children and we lose it I suppose, at our peril, the outrage at injustice which is one of the primary sort of major forces in all the books, isn’t it?
JKR: The feeling of the twelve-year-old boy that they’ve been unfairly accused, the burning sense of outrage, you’re right, we shouldn’t lose that.
SF: Yes.
JKR: But we do, often.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: Adults do.
SF: Yeah. No, that’s quite right.
JKR: I think the thing that I find most extraordinary is…I don’t know how many characters I have in play now…how do you find voices for them?
SF: It’s not a simple thing to answer. I mean, so often they’re there and I hope that generally speaking, I’ve…if not given exactly the voice you imagine that it’s somewhere in that area. I mean there are characters like Tonks which for some reason I just instinctively felt she had that slightly sort of Burnley, you know sort of Jane Horrocks sort of accent.
[JKR laughs]
SF: And it just seemed to fit her exactly and I think…
JKR: It does, yeah.
SF: Yeah, and I think yeah, the producer had the same idea in her head, that it should be that.
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: And yet you did…there’s no kind of “Put wood in coal.”
JKR: No.
SF: And “About tat” kind of northern writing in it, it’s just something that’s there and I’m sure it’s just as I’m conscious with you sometimes, that you, you’re writing a smallish character that, use a turn of phrase that makes me think “Now that sounds like a Cockney," or "that’s….that’s an older character or that’s a younger character.”
JKR: Because you knew that Hagrid was West Country.
SF: Yes.
JKR: And that was the only thing I wanted to warn you before you started reading them and my plane was delayed. That was the first time we ever met. And I got there and one of the first things you said to me was “I’ve done Hagrid as a kind of Somerset.”
SF: Yes.
JKR: And I was “Oh, thank goodness for that” because I thought if you make him Glaswegian, I would have to…
SF: [Laughs] No!
JKR: That was the only character I felt protective about, accent-wise.
SF: Yeah.
JKR: What I really enjoy about your reading is, the accents aren’t intrusive. I don’t feel as though you’re in any sense giving a sort of virtuoso performance of “These are as many accents as I can do, or different voices.” You don’t form a big barrier between the listener and the story I feel. Do you know…
SF: I do exactly.
JKR: Do you know what I mean?
SF: That is precisely what one…you know, what I aim for, is not to get in the way of it.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Is for people not to hear the voice after a while. You know how when you’re reading, sometimes you lose it and you find you’re having to go back and…
JKR: Yes.
SF: Because you’re too aware of the letters and the words and then you can read a whole chapter and not be aware of having turned over a page.
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: And you know, the print and the paper have not been there.
JKR: That’s right.
SF: And it should be the same with my voice when they’re listening, you know, that the first paragraph or so, but then immediately their mind is in the world of the Dursleys and of Hogwarts and the Knight Bus and everything else and they don’t notice me doing it. And [inaudible] the producer and Helen are very good at making sure that I don’t over-project a voice or you know, overdo something. And the only other problem is the pacing, you know…
JKR: Yes.
SF: I think it’s so important to refresh a page.
JKR: Yes, yes.
SF: You know? Because otherwise it can get a bit lulled and…
JKR: Mm-hmm.
SF: But you mustn’t overdo that either.
JKR: So I... [laughs] I don’t feel I should almost push you that much further but, are there any scenes that you have particularly, or that you can remember enjoying reading?
SF: Well the uhm...you know the whole creepy stuff at the climax of Order of the Phoenix you know, in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic and so on. I love the fact that it was so frightening and scary and dramatic and I loved, you know, building up the tension and so on of the strange glass orbs and what, what they’re going to mean and then getting stuck behind the doors.
JKR: There are a few children who have told me that they took it in much better when you read it to them, than when they read it on the page and I think that’s because with Phoenix, because people had had to wait three years for it, they raced through it.
SF: They read too fast, the leaped ahead and they lost the…
JKR: Really raced it, exactly. And then…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: I’ve had readers say to me “I’ve read it again and there’s a lot more than I thought,” “Well that’s because I think you read it in about an afternoon, didn’t you?” So listening to you, I think has really, yes, given them a sense of where they are.
SF: Is it really true that you’ve got it all planned out?
JKR: Yes, it is really true.
SF: Astonishing.
JKR: Yes, I do know what’s going to happen in the end, and occasionally I get cold shivers when someone guesses.
SF: Yes.
JKR: At something that’s very close. And then I panic and I think “Oh is it very obvious?” and then someone says something that’s so off-the-wall I think “No, it’s clearly not that obvious!”
SF: Good!
JKR: I always leave myself latitude to go on a little stroll off the path, but the path of it is what I’m essentially following. So much that happens in 6 relates to what happens in 7, and you really sort of skid of the end of 6 straight into 7.
SF: Really? Yes.
JKR: You know, it’s not…it’s not the discreet adventure that the others have all been.
SF: Right.
JKR: Even though you have the underlying theme of Harry versus Voldemort, in each case…well you know better than anyone…there has been an adventure that has resolved itself.
SF: Yes, exactly.
JKR: Whereas in 6, although there is, there is an ending that could be seen as definitive in one sense, you very strongly feel the plot is not over this time and it will continue.
SF: Yes.
JKR: It’s an odd feeling. For the first time I’m very, very aware that I’m finishing.
SF: The tape is in sight.
JKR: The end is in sight, yeah.
SF: It’s extraordinary.
JKR: Yes.
SF: Uhm…you’ll always write because it’s a need you have, do you imagine you will write for children next time you write something new?
JKR: Uhm…there is a…
SF: Will you write for the children who were children but are now adults?
JKR: [Laughs] Yes.
SF: Who were your first generation! [laughs]
JKR: I don’t know. Truthfully I don’t know. I am…there is another children’s book that’s sort of moldering in a cupboard that I quite like which is for slightly younger children I would say. But there are other things I’d like to write too. But I think I need to find a good pseudonym and do it all secretly because…
SF: Yes.
JKR: I’m very frightened, you can imagine.
SF: Oh, absolutely.
JKR: Of the unbearable hype that would attend a post-Harry book and…
SF: Yeah.
JKR: Not sure I look forward to that at all.
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