Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Revisited)

A few weeks ago my daughter Sunny made a quick trip from Salt Lake to Los Angeles and back. To increase the odds of staying awake at the wheel for the long drive, she bought an audio copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to listen to. I should point out here that all of our family members are big fans of the Harry Potter books and most of us have read them more than once. Being the nonconformist that I am, I didn’t want to be just another Harry Potter reader though, so I collected all seven volumes of the series in the Bloomsbury Deluxe edition. Bloomsbury is J.K Rowling's publisher in the UK and I say old chap, the language is quite different in several instances. Good thing I had the Internet to look up the British meaning of all those English words! But back to the point: After listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Sunny said to my wife Robyn, “Mom, you’ve got to listen to this - it was like I’d never read it before.”

The Harry Potter audio books are narrated by Jim Dale and he does an absolutely fantastic job. I listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban long ago, but still remember being enthralled by how much the narration added to the story. I logically assumed that Sunny was just taken by the audio and that was why she enjoyed this format of the Deathly Hallows so much more than the printed version. Ah, but not necessarily so.

Robyn is always listening to audio books on her MP3 player. She burns through about 4 to 5 books a week so adding the Deathly Hallows was no big deal. Barely a disk or two into it however, she approached me with a puzzled look on her face and said, “I know I read this book when it came out but I honestly can’t remember half of what I’m hearing. It’s like reading a whole new book.”

Now if I would have said that, no one would have been surprised. I used to have a very good memory but age has taken its toll. The little (and sometimes big) mental lapses can be rather embarrassing in business and social settings, but when it comes to entertainment, I’ve concluded that memory loss is a benefit and will eventually save me lots of money. I own shelves of books and DVD’s that will be brand new to me again someday. But again I stray from the point.

Even though Sunny paid the big bucks to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD, she has been very generous in sharing it with additional family members. To date, Sunny, Robyn, Laurie and now I have all listened to the book. In my case however, this is only partially true. I started the book on CD in my car but soon found myself needlessly driving around in order to listen to it so I pulled the Bloomsbury Deluxe off the shelf and read the rest of it. I’m absolutely positive it was the exact same book I read when it was first released but for some reason, much of the story was unfamiliar to me. It was like a whole new book I’d never read before!

Not willing to accept the possibility that all four of us have become daft in the three short years since Deathly Hallows was released, we’ve discussed the matter at some length and arrived at the following conclusion: The final book in the Harry Potter series was greatly anticipated and in our haste to see how it ended, we rushed through the pages in such a hurry that very little of the story stuck. This time around, we were able to relax and absorb the details, and enjoy a much richer reading experience as a result.

Which leads me to the point I wanted to make when I started this post: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a great book the first time around but even better the second time ... at least I think that was the point I wanted to make ... now I'm not so sure I remember.