the excellent jim dale and what is truly scary in harry potter

As you may know, we watched all the Harry Potter movies over the holidays.  Then we watched them again when I was sick a week later.  Which led, of course, to the books, or, to be precise, the audiobooks.  And I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that audible.com does not have the Harry Potter books.  What madness is this?  I’ve been getting audiobooks from audible.com for a decade, since they were new and shiny and no one knew what I was talking about when I said I downloaded books from the internet, and I can’t remember ever being so…confused…as I was as I stupidly kept typing “h-a-r-r-y-p-o-t-t-e-r” into audible’s search function, assuming I must have made a typo, because HOW could they not have Harry Potter???  That’s just wrong, just impossible, just, just inconceivable!

But it doesn’t.  In fact, the only option for listening to the Most Excellent Jim Dale reading the HP books is to purchase them as CDs (how antediluvian!) or to download them from itunes for $35-50 each book.  Shocking!

Luckily, the libraries in our two nearest towns seem to have copies of the books on CD.  Unfortunately, the only CD player we have (besides the computers themselves which do not have good sound for such a thing) is in the car.  And, as the car is older than my audible.com membership, the CD player is a bit dodgy, to say the least.  We’ve been checking out the disks of each book from both libraries, hoping that if disk 3 from library A is too scratched for our player to read it, the same disk from library B will work.  It’s absurd, but oh well.  You do what you have to.

We’re half-way through this one. It’s marvelous.

Suddenly riding in the car is a delight!  We can’t wait to have to go somewhere.  Thirty minute drive to run an errand?  Terrific!  An hour each way?  Fantastic!  Listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter is so riveting and enjoyable that going somewhere in the car has become one of our Most Favorite times of the day.

I know I’m late to the party and probably everyone already knows how stellar Mr. Dale’s performance is (he won a Grammy for it, I think), but just in case you’ve not listened to these books, let me tell you, Mr. Dale is a marvel.  There must be a hundred characters in the series and each has a distinct voice.  I’m serious!  Emotions are conveyed, words are clear, Mr. Dale hits every sentence just outstandingly well. We have cried, laughed out loud, jumped with surprise—and we already know the stories!

Mr. Dale, how do you do it?

Rowling’s books themselves are, of course, top notch literature, if you ask me.  I’m convinced they’ll be around in hundreds of years, if we’re still alive and reading books (or implanting them into our brains or whatever) because they are just that good.  But wow, Mr. Dale really performs them masterfully.  If you haven’t already, I highly recommend going to the library and checking out a copy of Sorcerer’s Stone just to see what I’m talking about.  But don’t go to audible.com.  You’ll be disappointed.

But enough about that.

On another, but still Harry-related, note, several people have asked how it went, watching all the movies with a six and nearly-eight year old.  So, I’ll tell you, Luc did have a few moments that disturbed him.  But I’ll bet you a hundred bucks they aren’t the moments you’d think.

Luc was, for example, very upset that the basilisk dies at the end of Chamber of Secrets.  That’s right, the big terrifying snake-creature that is trying to kill Harry?  It didn’t scare Luc, but the fact that Harry kills it (in self-defense!) upset my little guy.  “But I liked the snake!  He was cute!” he said, face all scrunched up. So we had to make up a different ending where the basilisk loses some teeth (because the venom is important later in the story) but is actually released into the wild by Dumbledore where it can live free and not be trapped in the pipes of an old castle any more.  So there was that.

And there was parseltongue, which Luc really doesn’t like the sound of.  Whenever anyone spoke parseltongue, Luc covered his ears.  This was in any of the movies, not just Chamber of Secrets where it is featured it so heavily.  Spooky, hissy, talking: not okay with Luc.

He also didn’t like it when anyone got cut, for example, when Harry gets cut in the graveyard at the end of Goblet of Fire to put his blood in the cauldron to bring the Big V back to life, or when Dumbledore cuts his own hand to open the passageway in Half-Blood Prince.    Luc was very concerned about these wounds and wanted to know if Madam Pomfrey had band-aids and whether the characters would be okay.  Cutting.  Not okay with Luc.

But the real diving-for-the-covers-to-hide moments: Luc HATES it when anyone kisses.  Ha!  That’s right.  Luc hides his face when there are any moments of awkward attraction between boys and girls.  I find this hilarious, I have to admit, but Luc says, “It isn’t funny!” and so I try to pretend I’m not laughing.   I mean, I don’t laugh, but I don’t know how convincing I am.  “They’re just kissing, it’s okay!” I say.  We’re talking chaste stuff in HP!   Poor Harry!  He leans in for a little snog with Cho and Luc yells out, “I hate this part! Fast forward!” Sophie rolls her eyes.  Poor Harry never gets any action with Luc around.

In comparison, I thought for sure the skeleton-like people that crawl out of the water to get Harry in Half-Blood Prince would be too scary and I fast-forwarded, much to Luc’s annoyance.  But on a second viewing, he insisted he watch the whole scene undisturbed by his mother, and he was fine.  “They just look like bones with skin over it,” he said, “Like the Thestrals.  Those aren’t scary.  Even Luna isn’t scared of them.”  Hmm, okay, well how about being upset by Dumbledore’s death?  “He had to die.  It was like Obi Wan having to die in Star Wars.  The old teacher guy always dies.”

Well.  You can’t argue with that.

So, there you have it.  You never know what is really troublesome to someone else.   Assume nothing!

I do wonder if either Sophie or Luc will lose interest in the audiobooks as we progress through them.  The later books are pretty involved.  We’ll see.  I think I’ll have to listen to them by myself whether the kids want to or not.  Jim Dale has me hooked.  Again.