Random thoughts

Thursday 11 August 2005. 2005!!! Can you believe it? It is already 2005!

Today I was thinking how painful the moment will be when I will finish my studies in Leicester...I've been here since September 1999 (with a 9 month interruption). I've been here more time than in Thessaloniki when I did my first degree. But I don't know why, it seems much less time...Perhaps because I was always feeling that I am in transition, that my staying in Leicester had an expire date...

What I definitely need though is a long holiday. A very long one. On a remote village on the mountains or on an island. And I also need the time to stop. I need a break, a break from time passing. Time has to stop for a while, because it passes so fast that I don't have the time to count it. I need a 'time stopper'; where can I find one?

I also need to go offline as soon as possible. In 1999 I did not know what an e-mail or a website was. In 2005 everything is about, from and through e-mails and websites. I spend more time online than offline. My laptop has become the extension of my mind (Marshall McLuhan, I wish that machines were only extensions of body as you said, but it is worse!).

But first I need to finish that thesis. I just hate it right now. I will never again mention the phrases 'everyday life' or 'archaeological monuments'.

That's for now. I am not in the mood for more. What pisses me off is that when everyone else is on holidays, I have to stay put and continue working...More is less after all...

Harry Potter and the 'death of the author'

It's been a week since I finished reading 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', the 6th Harry Potter book of J.K. Rowling. It's been also a week since I registered in the Leaky Lounge, the forums of the Leaky Cauldron website of Potter fans.

Those of you, who follow the books and the story and have read the last book, have seen how much J.K. leaves open in this book. Is DD (Dumbledore) dead? Is Snape evil? What does the prophecy mean? Who will die in the 7th and last book? What happened in the cave? What happened in the tower? Is there a DD-Snape plan?

I do not consider myself an authority in Harry Potter literature, but nevertheless I have developed two pretty strong theories on the meaning of the prophecy and the 'cave-tower plan' of DD. Now, I won't go into details, because it would be a looooong post...I have been sharing my thoughts on the 'Unfogging the Future' forum of the Leaky Lounge, where I admit I met the most brilliant people in story plotting...Absolutely amazing!!! I have pretty much forgotten details of the first five books, but some of the users are able to bring the smallest details on the table .

And I don't want to hear again that naive comment that Harry Potter books are for children. Since when children's literature is just for children? The mythology, philosophy, metaphysics, symbolism, and discourse analysis that go in those books could stimulate tens of master dissertations and phd theses. You have to see some of the posts there. There is more deep and informed thinking than some academic papers.

What has been clear to me is that having to think about holes and gaps in my thesis helped me to think about the plot in the Harry Potter's book. And thinking about the possible plot in the book has helped me to see how the gaps and the holes of my thesis can be filled.

Pottermania has, also, made scandalously evident how dead the the 'death of the author' is. Harry Potter is being written in thousands of ways every day. Nevertheless, in this case, the thousands of authors look up at the details and canons of the J.K. Rowling's original story, to find credit or trash their own storyline. J.K. Rowling still has the 'truth' of Harry Potter: her truth is not the only one out there, but it is the only 'real' and 'authentic' one, that everyone respects. The rest of the 'truths' get credit only if they support the intentionally missing parts of Rowling's story; and their credit will be further confirmed or disposed, when the next book will come out. The author is dead, but this death is the only 'real' one, because the author of the original story was the only who 'really' lived. The rest of the authoring, the fans' authoring, neither lives or dies; it just exists and stops existing. And it gets value when it crosses the original author's thinking. Millions of interpretations exist, but every one of them exists to become the 'real', the one, the only one.

The author is dead, but at least he has lived and died.