Falldog

I’d been warned by those who’ve seen more of Heroes than I have (as of tonight, the series’ debut on British terrestrial TV, that would be more than two episodes) that it doesn’t really kick in until the end of the second episode. They weren’t kidding, though I enjoyed the ride up to the ohmigod cliffhanger they’d talked about. An airy, measured (the Mrs would say slow) pace, really interesting characters, and decent writing (a little hung up on its themes here and there, maybe – but for every character who banged on about their destiny, there was one who was just caught up in the sometimes brutal realities of the life they’re stuck with now).

There have been a heap of comics that pose the question “What would it really be like if someone woke up in the real world with superpowers?”, but it’s refreshing to see a TV show telling this story for the first time. What’s more promising is that the writers haven’t just rested on that alone for the concept: there’s clearly loads more going on, and many more stories to tell besides those of the characters dealing with their new abilities – which would almost certainly have become tedious before very long.

I’m pleased that I’ve enjoyed it as much as my friends who’ve seen it thought I would. I’m just going to have to keep my lug-holes shut now, to make sure nobody spoils any of it for me.

Which brings me to Harry Potter (NO SPOILERS!). We saw new movie The Order of the Phoenix last week, which I hugely enjoyed. This book is the first I hadn’t even attempted to read, so I came to the film totally fresh. The book before, The Goblet of Fire, I tried to read about a dozen times, but I could never get past the teeth-grindingly dull Quiddich World Cup at the beginning. Now, since seeing the new film and witnessing the release of the final book, I’ve been faced with a difficult decision: read books six and seven before the next film and so get up to speed, or don’t read them, enjoy the films for what they are, but spend the next three plus years trying not to find out what happens to Harry in the end.

I should point out I’m not hugely bothered. The HP stuff is fun, on the whole, but the books are generally turgid: I just can’t get behind either JK’s clunky prose or the evident love of the author for the world she’s created. It’s a rod for her own back, really. I can’t imagine for a minute the HP books became the phenomenon they are because she’s a good writer; their success, I’m sure, is down to a mix of the hugely detailed world of Hogwarts and some inexplicable mass delusion of the part of the reading public. (I honestly believe that there is a similar drive behind both the fervour surrounding Potter and the national meltdown following the death of Princess Di. They are, to me, equally inexplicable in any rational sense, but both tap into some desperate society-wide infantilism: eager dreams of a world in which you can learn to be a wizard, and the terrible mourning over the death of a magical princess. But anyway…)

I get the feeling the wordcounts for the Potter books spiralled out of control not just because her editors were too scared to dare tell JK to write more concisely (or, heaven forbid, just better), but also because JK’s confidence in her own abilities was not so great as to avoid cramming in every little detail of her world, again and again, in every book, just to cover all bases with regards to what people may have liked before.

Anyway, I digress. I think that diatribe makes my decision a bit easier. I shall not bother with the books (I’m knee-deep in du Maurier at the moment, and I’d rather spend my precious reading time with her at the moment), and I’ll just wait for the movies. In the meantime, having the ending spoiled would be irksome, but not the end of the world.

I know about Dumbledore in book six, by the way.

[swipes finger across throat]