Harry Potter and Why You Might Want to Just Skip the Books
Silence of the Lambs is an incredible film. Every moment, a crafted work of genius. It’s better than The Shawshank Redemption. Fight me, with fists, in the parking lot of a truck stop off US-Highway 321. Also, for the record, it’s my opinion that Ted Levine in the role of Buffalo Bill never got enough credit, out shined by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, but I suppose that’s life.
Now here’s where I’m going to lose a lot of people, I’m an unapologetic writer, I write copious amounts every day, to the point where my significant other wants to strangle me often. Books are my friends, and it sickens me when ignorant people watch movies rather than the superior books, which are the source material. When it comes to Silence of the Lambs, I refuse to read the book. I love reading all kinds of words. Fiction, non-fiction, news, poetry, doesn’t matter, I’m not preferential, but I don’t read Silence of the Lambs and I probably never will. Why? Two words: Pet Sematary.
Pet Sematary used to be one of my favorite horror films. For my money it doesn’t get any better than Fred Gwynne’s iconic performance of Judd Crandall. One day while working in a call center and answering calls from the horned disciples of Satan AT&T calls customers, I made the mistake of reading Pet Sematary. Since the day I finished that Stephen King-penned work of brilliance, I haven’t been able to enjoy the movie, sans Fred Gwynne’s amazing performance, of course. It’s just not the same. The book is infinitely better than the mediocre film, featuring a terrible child actress screaming “PAXCOW” for what feels like an unnecessary amount of time. I used to love it, now I can barely look at it.
Silence of the Lambs is sacred ground. I will not lose this film. Having read The Red Dragon thrice, I am aware, Thomas Harris is a powerhouse writer. The book for Silence of the Lambs probably destroys the film, and I just don’t want to know. I’ll remain hiding in the dark.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a fun movie, but it’s a brilliant book. One which has stuck with me since I read it fifteen years ago. I just recently got a tattoo of a Dementor on my arm, I’m thirty-two years old, I read the book in twelfth-grade. That’s how much it impacted me. Since that time, I’ve read countless high-art works of profundity. Blood Meridian, Ulysses, The Mezzanine, As I Lay Dying, Moby Dick, The Metamorphosis, blah, blah, and of course, blah. All fantastic reads, I love them. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is on the same level as all the aforementioned. It’s far more accessible and nowhere near as wordy, and I like wordy, but it contains every bit the wisdom, the beautiful abstraction, the emotional weight, it’s not a book to take lightly.
If you love the movie and haven’t read the book, I urge you to continue abstaining. While the movie is very aesthetically pleasing, it never comes close to conveying the well of emotion overflowing from the book. Just do yourself a favor and steer clear.
In the movie, the Dementors are scary cloaked figures who suck out your soul. Remus Lupin is a really cool teacher and a bad-ass looking werewolf. In the book the Dementors are a literary personification of clinical depression, used to convey the idea that depressed people, while perceived as weak, are actually incredibly strong and enduring. Remus Lupin is a werewolf, who represents a brilliant man dealing with crippling alcoholism, which turns him into an unrecognizable monster every night, and every day at work he’s disheveled and barely able to stand up straight, while his friends try their best to keep him in line, utter futility. He inevitably quits his job, as he knows it’s unsustainable.
All the following books contain other moments of comparable brilliance and are moderns works of art in their own right, but Azkaban will always have a special place at the top of the series for me, and along side my all time favorite books.
Why?
Timing. It’s the first book I ever came across that said “I know you’re sad, I know you have problems, and I know it’s difficult, but you’re ok. You’re not weak, you’re strong. You’re great. Go be your awesome self.”
Thank you J.K. Rowling, you changed my life, and I probably never gave you enough credit.
