Dispatches from the sunburned wastelands

We finally went to watch the new Harry Potter movie last night. Funny thing, the whole theatre was full of grown-ups. You don't often see mom & dad going out to see a kids movie these days. Must be the evil spell that author J.K. Rowling is said to have cast over anything to do with Harry Potter - people flock to buy the books, and see the movies, in droves. I must say that I'm starting to find the movies (and books) a tad repetitive and, well, boring (pause here for the blog reader's horrified outcry). No, I'm serious - there are oodles of better written children's fiction out there, just waiting to be "discovered" the way the Harry Potter books was. The stories are also becoming grimmer and more depressing with every new book. J.K. Rowling must have hated her school years very much.

I'm now waiting for another children's classic that's been adapted for the big screen - C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. The first film, "The lion, the witch and the wardrobe", based on the book of the same name, comes out today. I remember reading the book in its Afrikaans translation when I was eight or nine. I enjoyed it very much. (it was only much later that I realized the books were meant to be 'Christian' books, full of hidden meaning and religious subtext...But I never saw it like that when I read it). Although these are also bleak books, with a definite good vs evil thread throughout (having been written just after the 2nd world war), I think they'll stand the test of time better than a lot of modern day children's fiction, you-know-who included.

Posted by HannesB at 4:40 AM Comments