★★★★★ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by JK Rowling
I knew I was in good hands from the first paragraph
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
JK Rowling
I knew I was in good hands from the first paragraph
My parents gave me this, the first Harry Potter book, for my birthday, in 1999, I think. I remember because I was in biz school at the time, beginning on an MBA degree. My accounting professor, a delightful man and one of the very few accountants I've met never to say to me, "I'm not a typical accountant" (It is fascinating, is it not, that "I'm not a typical accountant" is the most typical accountant thing on Earth an accountant can say, so uttering this sentence conveys the opposite of its straightforward meaning), was also a fan and we discussed the books.
Sometimes you pick up a book, and you know immediately that this is an author into whose hands you can place yourself with confidence, knowing that she knows how to tell a story. J.K. Rowling was obviously such a one. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone begins with a brief character sketch of the Dursleys. In just two paragraphs the characters of Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley, in all their comically banal evil, are laid bare.
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.
Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbours. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
It still annoys me that, in the movies, Petunia Dursley has dark hair. I suppose I will continue to stew about this until the day I die. And maybe after that, if there is indeed an afterlife -- perhaps that will be my personal Hell.
The third paragraph introduces Harry. The action begins right after that, with a cat reading a map. This, the first book, leans hard on comedy. And it's good comedy -- I found Philosopher's Stone very funny. It isn't until Chamber of Secrets that things begin to feel serious.