Harry Potter 7 Predictions

To get my brain working about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (only 53 more days!), I checked out Mugglenet.com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7 based on a recommendation from a blog. Mugglenet.com is a HP fan site which was started in 1999 by a 12 year old homeschooled kid. It has grown into a big site, and a bunch of them (5!) decided to write a book with their predictions. It was decently written, with all the big issues covered, and evidence to support their theories clearly delineated by topic. It was a fun read, and I am eager to get my hands on this final volume. Yesterday, when I was at Barnes and Noble ogling the Lost dvds, I pre-registered for HP so that I can pick it up at 12:01 am on July 21st, or go in first thing that morning.

So, I am going to jot down a few of my predictions:

1. Snape is loyal to the Order of the Phoenix. After the death of Dumbledore, his cover is complete and his is in deep with the Death Eaters and Voldemort. But, he will redeem himself and be instrumental in Voldemort's downfall.

2. One of the Weasley boys will be killed. This will cause Percy to reconcile with his family.

3. We're going to get some information about Harry's parents' families. Mugglenet talks about how important Lily's eyes will be. They also theorize that Snape was in love with Lily. Harry, we have learned several times, looks just like his father, except that he has his mother's eyes. Maybe this will trigger some kind of response in Snape? Looking at Harry, he will remember Lily?

4. Peter Pettigrew aka Wormtail will save Harry's life in someway. Harry once saved his life by persuading Sirium and Lupin from not killing him. This will come back to help Harry in book 7.

These are sparse theories. I plan on reading books 5 & 6 before 7 comes out to remember all the details and to connect the threads.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns

When I was at the library last week, the just released book by Khalid Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was sitting on the Best-Seller Express display, luring me to partake. Best Seller Express is a way for the library system to both make some money and make popular books more available to the reading public. You pay a small fee--$3--and you get the book for 10 days. Because of the fee, they are a lot easier to get a hold of. Going the standard route would mean placing myself at the end of an almost 1000 person waiting list. And, when I contributed a few bucks to the library, I got a free Best Seller Express coupon. Perfect! My only dilemma was rather I should get some other reading done first and check it out after our vacation, or just go for it now. On Friday when I was there with the kids, I saw it sitting there, all new and shiny. Then, I went back on Saturday to get it. It looked like a never opened book, pages crisp and binding tight. I spent the weekend reading it.

Reading this book right after Wild Swans, and boy, I am depressed about the state and status of women across the world. A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of two Afgahni women over the 30 year period of tumultuous historical changes. From pre-Soviet days to the Soviet invasion and occupation, then on to the Taliban and post-Taliban, fledging democracy days.

Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy business man in Herat and a maid in his household. Her mother tragically commits suicide when Mariam is 15, and she is forced into a marriage with Rasheed, a shoemaker in Kabul who is three times her age. His only desire is for a son, and when Mariam is unable to carry a pregnancy to term, their marriage turns both cold and ugly.

After 18 years of marriage, some neighbors are killed by a bomb. Their surviving daughter, the smart, spirited, and defiant 14 year old Laila, is brought into Mariam and Rasheed's household, and soon, he decides to marry her. Her options are limited, and she agrees, mostly to provide a cover for her recently discovered pregnancy. In a spontaneous, clandestine, and rash burst of passion, she and her childhood friend Tariq consummate their relationship on the eve of Tariq and his family's departure to Pakistan.

As the story develops, the core becomes the friendship of Mariam and Laila as they stand together against the tyranny and abuse of Rasheed. His beatings are commonplace and brutal. The story is full of tragedy and shattered dreams. They plan an escape, but fail and are brought back to a full measure of Rasheed's rage.

The climax of the story occurs when Tariq returns (Rasheed has faked a witness to his death to prevent Laila from leaving), Rasheed erupts, and attempts to strangle Laila. In her defense, Mariam used a shovel as a weapon to fatally strike Rasheed. But, there is no escape from the long grasp of the Taliban, and she decides to confess her crime in order to save Laila. She is condemned to immediate execution. The portion of the book is my favorite. Mariam goes to her death in peace, grateful and happy for the chance to share love and friendship with Laila and her two children. In these relationships, she has been able to love and be loved, and she is content with that. It caused me to reflect on the way that my relationships with other women have been such a blessing and gift to me.

Laila is ever after haunted by the memory of Mariam. In her dreams, she hears the familiar hiss of the iron and the crisp snap of the sheets, but when she enters the room from where the sound is coming, there is no one there. After the downfall of the Taliban, she and Tariq return to Afghanistan and she goes to Mariam's home city of Herat to see when she lived and to pay homage to her. In so doing, she is able to connect with Mariam, provide a sort of reconciliation between Mariam and her estranged father, and to find a measure of hope for both herself and her country.

I liked this description from Publishers Weekly on Amazon:

Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters.

My only regret is that I read it too fast.

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Paul and Eve

Today, I read the first essay in Sisters in Spirit. It was so so awesome and made me so happy. It was an analysis of Eve and the story of the Garden of Eve and the fall. I have been fascinated with Eve for a long time, for many reasons, but one of these is that for me, she is an example of a woman in scripture whom I really like, and in some ways, she stands in as a substitute for Mother in Heaven, since we know so little about her. Anyway, the author, Jolene Edmunds Rockwood, had some amazing insights.

She begins the essay by looking at the ways the story of Eve and the fall have been utilized to justify the subjugation of women, starting with Judaism and the written text of the Midrash and the Torah. For example, under Jewish tradition, women are honored as mothers, but must worship in separate quarters so as not to distract men, an allusion to Eve as temptress. Women and girls are not allowed to study Torah. She quotes: "let the words of the Torah be destroyed by fire than imparted to women." Because Eve was formed from Adam's rib, she "was a secondary creation and thus was subject to and inferior to Adam" and thus are not suited to study scripture.

She then discusses the Pauline epistles that use references to Eve and the Garden of Eden. By contextualizing Paul as a learned Jew, tutored under the hand of a great Jewish scholar and well-versed in the Midrash and Torah, the statements he makes about women (and which always manage to infuriate me) are contextualized. Rockwood claims that he is still relying on his Jewish learning in some of these statements. "Paul's advice on issues involving women was usually a mixture of Christian principles boldly sprinked with Jewish customs." She discusses several passages, including one from 1 Timothy 2. She explains that these verses are full of traditional Jewish interpretations. For example: "I suffer not a woman to teach, not to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." Because Adam was created first, which grants him superiority, women should not attempt to teach men.

I have never really thought about how Paul's Jewish learning shaped his views on women. This rings true to me. In April, my book group discussed Chaim Potok and The Promise. The female characters were very flat and seemed unrealistic. The books were about men. About men studying Talmud, about men negotiating the secular and sacred divide. The women, at least as portrayed by him, were very much on the sideline. According to Rockwood, this is a common Jewish tradition, that goes back to the early Jewish writings on Eve. Paul was shaped by that as part of his cultural beliefs. That is reflected in what he writes.
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Wild Swans

Wild Swans by Jung Chang chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese women--the author's grandmother, mother and herself--from the early 1900's though the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao. This is an amazing book in that it embeds the personal stories of this family in the tumultous and horrific historical conditions of the time. Like The Lost in this regard, I find that this is a great way to learn history.

The changes that China endures through the time period recorded here are incredible. Er-Hong, the grandmother, is born in 1909, a period when foot-binding is still common. However, within only a few years, this practice is obsolete. Her first "marriage" at age 15 is to a warlord as a concubine. After the marriage ceremonies, she is sent to live in a large home, with a bevy of servants, but no sign of her husband for 6 years. This is fortunate in a way since she still lives close to her parents and doesn't have to live under the thumb of her husband's other wives and concunbines. When he returns for a few days, she becomes pregnant with the narrator's mother, De-hong. A short time later, Xue, her warlord husband dies.

She goes on to find a wonderful older man. Dr Xia is 65 years old, but he falls in love with the 25 year old Er-Hong and wants to marry her, much to the dismay of his family. Some of his children are older than she is, and they are furious that he wants to marry a former concubine. With the strict formalities on familial order and status, they will become subjected to a much younger woman. One of the sons shoots himself in protest. But, Dr Xia remains committed to marrying Er-Hong and caring for her young daughter. They marry, but family contention continues in full force as Dr Xia's children and grandchildren begin to bully both Er-Hong and De-Hong. When De-Hong, as a little girl, is pushed into the bottom of a deep well, Dr Xia has had enough and he takes his wife and her daughter and moves away. Away from his family. Away from his business and home. And into poverty to start life anew as a 65 year old man.

The story goes on. De-Hong grows up and as a teen-ager witnesses the conquering of the Kuomintang by the Communists. She becomes a fierce and committed follower of Communism, believing wholeheartedly in their ideology and their ability to make Chinese society a better place. In fact, after the Communist victory, they are able to quickly get the economy up and running, the peasants are grateful for the added benefits they see, and I thought that the Communists, at least as portrayed here, were a better alternative to the extravagent, cruel, and excessive Kuomintang. (Who, with Chiang Kai-Shek went across the sea of China to found Taiwan.)

I want to do a seperate post on all the gender stuff that this book is saturated with. The lives of these women are fascinating, and the intersection of Chinese history and politics and how it shaped gender roles and relationships is so interesting. Starting with the egregious practice of foot-binding with the author's grandmother, women seem to be simply appendages to their husbands. Under Communism, this changes somewhat and old traditions that subjugate women are altered, but in a distorted way. More on this later.

De-Hong marries a Communist official about 10 years her senior. Early in their marriage, she sees that he is more committed to the Communists and their ideals than to her and her health and happiness and is bitterly disappointed.

“My father’s devotion to communism was absolute. He felt he had to speak the same language in private, even to his wife, that he did in public. My mother was much more flexible; her commitment was tempered by both reason and emotion. She gave a space to the private that my father did not.”

On a march through the jungle to arrive at their new home in Chengdu, he refuses to allow her to ride in the government jeep although she is very sick. She later miscarries and has to be hospitalized. But, allowing her to ride with him shows favoritism and nepotism and these are the traditions of Old China that must be knocked down. When she is pregnant and sick again, her mother spends one month travelling to come and visit and take care of her. Because of rules and because being pampered by your mother's cooking and care is considered bourgeois, after one month, she is forced by De-Hong's husband and her cell leader to leave and spend another month travelling back home to Manchuria. Chang says that her mother was never able to forgive her father for these and other similar incidents.

One of the other fascinating sections of the book is about Mao and how his policies shaped life for a generation of Chinese people. His main objective seems to be the preservation of his own power. His revolution exists to eliminate any capitalist tendencies and borgeois traditions. He claims that his is a revolution for the peasants and laborers, but it seems that he likes them only insomuch as they don't question him. He distrusts any intellectuals, professionals, artists, and others who show independence of thought and action. time and time again, he crushes any intimation of criticism of his policies, the government, or any thing that may appear to foster thinking. Books are burned, public denunciations, that are often opportunities for settling personal vendettas and operate based on rumor and terror rather than actual fact, are conducted with public beatings. And all this culminates in the Cultural Revolution.

By this time, the author's father realizes that Mao is misguided and disagrees with the tenets of the Cultural Revolution. He is not willing to stand and kowtow to Mao and his policies any longer and despite his wife's begging, sends a letter to chairman Mao with his grievances listed. The one thing about Jung's father: he is a man of integrity. He stands up for what he believes in, no matter what the cost. He is taken for investigation and is renounced as a class enemy. He is relocated to the countryside for re-education and for hard labor. Her mother is also assigned to the country, as are the older children in the family.

Even through all of this, Jung is conditioned to see Mao as a god, as infalliable. All her frustrations are directed to other sources. It's Madame Mao. It's the Tings and other local leaders who abuse their power. She goes on a pilgrimage as a 15 year old with her friends to see Mao. This means waiting for a month in Peking to eventually see him in a motorcade for a mere few seconds.

As a university student studying English, she eventually starts to see the despicable and tyrannical Mao.

After Mao's death, the country begins to open up, and based on her intellect and desire, Jung ends up being one of the first Chinese to leave the country to study in a foreign country.

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Lost Season Three Highlights and Predictions

Before I watch the Lost season finale, I wanted to document my theories on what will happen tonight.

We will find out that Juliet is not a traitor to the Losties, only to Ben and the others. She will not backstab Jack. But, she will be killed tonight (I really hope not!) by Ben or another Other.

I know that there will be a few more casualities tonight. And I'm not sure who. But, these are my guesses: Charlie, Richard (we will find out that although he doesn't age, he can be killed), and Naomi.

And, I was inspired reading someone else's list of the top Lost moments of this season. So, here are mine (and I"m sure I will add some more after tonight's episode.)

• Seeing John Locke's father on the island, taken captive by the others. "Dad??"
• The opening scene from the season premier. Juliet getting ready for the book group, and then the plane crash. Realizing that the Others lived in some weird kind of suburban spin off.
• And Juliet and her whole backstory in Not in Portland. Watching her husband Edmund getting hit by the bus! So freaky. My second favorite episode of the season.
• John Locke getting pushed from the window, falling 9 stories, and landing on his back. John Locke getting shot in the chest and falling backwards in the open pit Dharma graves. (How's this for a crazy theory: John Locke lives after getting shot by Ben. How? The bullet enters his body right where his kidney was. If his kidney had been there, he would have died. He owes his life to his conniving father??)
• Sawyer killing Cooper. Wow--that was an intense scene.
• John Locke meeting Jacob me. "Help me..."
• And my favorite episode of the season so far: Flashes Before Your Eyes where we find out what happened to Desmond when we turned the fail safe key in the hatch, where we meet that crazy lady Mrs Hawking, and when we see a flashback that isn't a flasback. Brilliant.

UPDATE

Ok, now I've watched it. We had friends over on Wednesday night and ate sushi and bananas foster from the grill and watched it. When the rattlesnake jumped out of the mailbox in the final scene, we went back and watched all the flashbacks, which we now found out were flash forwards. (When we saw the funeral home, Andy immediately started anagramming it. Hoffs Drawlar. Too bad he didn't figure it out: Flash Forward!)

I woke up the next morning with Lost on the brain, thinking through all the scenes, trying to figure out who was in the coffin. And I spent quite a bit of time on my favorite Lost analysis sites trying to piece at least a little bit together of what happened.

The episode was phenomenal. Brilliant. Amazing. I love Lost. I am thinking that we need to get the DVDS and start from the beginning this summer. I mean, we have 8 freaking months until it's on again.

My favorite parts from the finale:

Hurley barreling down the hill in Roger Workman's Dharma van to topple the Others who were holding Jin, Sayid, and Bernard captive. Sayid tripping one of the thier captors with his feet, and then breaking his neck, with his feet!

Seeing a transmission from Penny in the Looking Glass. I so wanted Desmond to see her.

What do I make of Jack's references to his dad being alive? When we know that his dad was dead in the pilot episode? Hmm. Is jack in some kind of parallel universe? Has Desmond changed time and space each time he has intervened with fate to save Charlie?

And Charlie! Oh, that final scene with Charlie was amazing. Him floating back into murky waters. What a great scene!

And the whole contrast between jack and charlie is fascinating. Charlie, the former heroin addict, now a true hero. He knew that drowning was his destiny and he was totally at peace with it. He may have been able to escape, but he sacrificed himself for the good of the Losties. I feel like he found his true self and that it's all right for him to die. And it's my theory that all the losties have to do that on the island. But, then there's "future"-Jack. Now a druggie. Totally bitter. and a supposed hero. but not really. And still totally lost.

The night watching the finale, I was convinced that Jack's flash forward was a potential future, but not the only one. I don't want to believe that that's how Jack is going to end up. He can't. Such a ugly future.

Andy kept calling Mikhail a cyborg. I wonder if he blew himself up with the grenade or is he still alive somewhere out there. So freaking crazy.

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Book list

The last little while my list of books to read in the near future has grown.

I am still in the midst of Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem--and What We Should Do About it. It is slow reading for me, with my very limited legal knowledge. I just got to a chapter on schools and religion and that is a little more familiar territory for me.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is the selection for my ward's June book group. I have read it before, but it's been a while, and since I suggested it, I feel like I need to read it throughly.

We are going to Denver in June for a gathering with AJ's family. Happily, his mom and sisters all love to read, so we are going to do a lunch together and discuss Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. And so the guys don't feel left out, we are adding The Alchemist for a completely inclusive (at least for adults, that is) discussion.

And then, in a very happy turn for my summer, a friend and I are putting together a reading list to work on Mormon women's history. We are starting with Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith and Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society.

Oh, and I can't forget The Price of Motherhood. FMH just announced that they lined up the author Ann Crittenden to discuss the book online with them. I read this a few years ago, and loved it. Although it made me so so mad. But, I'd like to reread it.

I'll be posting notes as I go. But, can I just say, I love books!!!
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Dissent and Alternative Voices

A confluence of several things the last few days has gotten me thinking about dissent.

First, the protesters at BYU's commencement. I am thrilled that a protest to Cheney was organized and carried out at BYU. BYU is not a monolithic entity and appendage to the GOP. Not completely, anyway, and those students who organized the protest and arranged for an alternative commencement are to be commended. I am proud of them. I wish I could have attended my sister's graduation so that I could participate. I am also glad that BYU is not showing only a wholehearted open armed welcome to Cheney to the world at large.

On the other hand, I find the responses to the protesters distasteful. The SL Trib reported that passersby yelled out "traitors!," "losers!" and "we'll be praying for you!" (suggesting that protest is some kind of sin). Someone also said that the protesters were disrespecting BYU and its graduates. To that, I heartily disagree. BYU should not be in the business of churning out GOP faithful, and by showing disagreement, students were showing that there are differences in political ideology there. Another comment reflects Mormon predisposition to support authority, in all its forms : "I support the office of vice-president."

Second, this week, a friend and I had lunch with a former BYU faculty member who was fired from her position there in the 90's because of one public statement about abortion. She equated her position then to that of Mitt Romney now. She then moved here and began teaching at a local college. After leaving BYU under awful circumstances, she stayed active in the church. It was only a few years ago when she felt compelled to discontinue her church activity. The way she described it, she was concerned about her 12 year old daughter and the messages the church had for her. And she felt like she could no longer reconcile her political beliefs with her church experience. She was a wonderful woman, and we enjoyed visiting together. But, after leaving, I felt sorrow that an articulate, intelligent woman such as her had come to the point in her life where she felt so divided that she could not, in good conscience, maintain a life as both a Mormon and a scholar. I long for role models that have managed to combine the two into one cohesive (not bi-polar) identity.

I've also been thinking about dissent since watching the PBS documentary on the Mormons. I haven't finished watching it yet (hopefully tonight I can watch the last hour). But, with the belief that we are the "only true and living church upon the face of the earth", dissent (and questioning authority) is not encouraged and often not tolerated. In a book about the separation of church and state, I read this:

It would be wrong for the government to coerce someone whose conscience was right about her religious faith, argued New England Puritan John Cotton. But, an erroneous conscience needed to be corrected, by force if necessary, and it would be truly dangerous to allow people who suffered from an erroneous conscience to propagate their sinful views among the innocent and unsuspecting public.

This made me think of the attitudes of many members of the church.

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Chaim Potok and Place

For our book group this month, we read Chaim Potok's The Promise. I also read The Chosen. I read these books years ago as a teen-ager and it was great to revisit them. The themes in both are similar. I was especially taken with the inner conflict that the two main characters Danny and Reuven face in trying to reconcile the conflicts they feel between their Orthodox Jewish background and the secular world. Both are intelligent young men who have dedicated their lives to studying the Talmud. But, they also feel drawn to study other things as well: for Danny, Freud is forbidden; for Reuven, his method of understanding the Talmud through text emendation is seen as borderline apostate. By the end of The Promise, neither one has completely managed to incorporate these two somewhat conflicting parts of their intellectual quests into one complete whole, but the tone is optimistic: they are on the right paths for them, they will find a way to meld two disparate worlds within themselves.

After the discussion about the book was over and several of the women had gone, the husband of the host joined us. He talked about his reaction to watching the second half of the PBS documentary on the church, which led to polygamy, and questions of gender and priesthood and on and on. I should have left at 11. I shouldn't have stayed. It was a discussion I didn't want to get into. He described the commentators on the PBS program "pseudo-intellectuals" and "fringe intellectuals." He felt that they didn't accurately represent the rank and file of the church. I'm not sure why he used the qualifier "pseudo". I really loved the talking heads they had on Monday night. And the idea of fringe intellectuals: so negative. Crazy people who are talking about things that don't matter, talking about ideas that no one cares about that have no relevance to anyone. That frustrated me. I haven't seen the second half, but I'm sure, 100%, that my reaction will not be like his.

Then there were conversations about why women don't have the preisthood (with the explanation of the inherent deficiencies of men who need the priesthood to make up for their inherent lack of spirituality), the idea that women are naturally nurturers, etc etc. I made a few contradictory comments, but didn't have the heart to engage in a full on debate.

For one, I have a problem thinking and talking quickly on the spot to make a coherent argument. But, for another, I don't want to let it all out. To be "that woman". To be labeled in some sort of negative way. I know I shouldn't care what others think, but I find it difficult not to. In our ward, I haven't met any intellectually kindred spirits. I have met a lot of great women though. My children play with theirs, and we have good conversations too. I like every single one of the women that were there last night who believe things that I do not. I don't want to make certain beliefs about gender some kind of litmus test for whom I am friends with. But, I also question who I can be really close to in my ward. I came home sad and feeling a little lonely. In my past two wards, I've had all kinds of friends, but those circles have also included women who I feel free to discuss anything with and who have pushed me in intellectually new directions. I will probably grow in other ways with the women in my ward now.

This all ties back to Chaim Potok and finding a place of my own. It's not easy to navigate between disparate worlds. I know my schisms are not nearly as wide as many others', but I long to find a sense of unity and wholeness between Mormon, mother, academic, feminist. This morning, my wonderful neighbor called to see if my kids could come over to play with hers. I gladly dropped them off and headed to the library. When I couldn't find what I wanted, I went to the nearby Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. I saw it on a compilation of feminist writing recently and added to my list to read. I love the title and long to find my own place, so I decided to treat myself to it.

This all also relates to those who leave the church because they cannot reconcile their intellectual and religious beliefs. I met a woman last week like this--I need to finish writing about that experience--but I always feel sad when a intellectual feels that the church is no longer a good place for them, or when the church feels like that intellectual does not belong in the church. I don't want to have to choose between one side or the other.
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