{"id":25370,"date":"2023-01-20T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/?p=25370"},"modified":"2023-01-20T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T14:00:00","slug":"a-tale-of-three-prologues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/a-tale-of-three-prologues\/","title":{"rendered":"A tale of three prologues"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, we began a new evening routine. At about 7.00 pm, the whole family sits in the living room and my wife reads a chunk of Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone<\/em> to the kids (two sets of twins, 7 and 9.)<\/p>\n

This is the children\u2019s first exposure to HP and, predictably, they\u2019re liking it very much.<\/p>\n

But interestingly, they didn\u2019t immediately<\/em> fall in love. Because kids are demonstrative, it\u2019s easy simply to watch how engaged they are. More fiddling, more looking around, more playing with cushions \u2013 all those things are signs of weak or fading interest.<\/p>\n

And what I noticed was interesting.<\/p>\n

We all know the basic Harry Potter story. In the first book, especially, it\u2019s mostly: Orphan goes to wizard school<\/em>. Yes, there\u2019s a whole Voldemort story being born, but the thing that grips you in that first book is the transition from boy-in-the-cupboard to student-wizard.<\/p>\n

And the very first chapter of the very first book is, in effect, a prologue. The focus of that prologue is, initially, on the (boring, repressive, Muggle) Mr Dursley. He sees some odd things \u2013 people in cloaks, a map-reading cat, too many owls. He disapproves. He thinks about drills.<\/p>\n

Then the chapter transitions to a long dialogue between Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid. That dialogue has plenty of sparkle and interest, of course. (Hagrid is a giant with a flying motorbike, Professor McGonagall was a map-reading cat, and so forth.)<\/p>\n

But?<\/p>\n

My kids were losing interest. We\u2019d told them that this was a great book and that they\u2019d love it, but they were visibly losing interest.<\/p>\n

All that changed with Chapter Two. In effect, the second chapter still has something prologue-y about it. There\u2019s still no mention of school. The actual story (Harry goes to wizard school) hasn\u2019t yet started. All that happens is we get to see Harry\u2019s strange living arrangements and we learn about a trip to the zoo.<\/p>\n

This chapter, however, did engage the kids. If the first chapter was losing its audience, the second one captured them. It did that via Rowling\u2019s plentiful humour. It did so by shocking the kids with the basic unfairness of the Dudley \/ Harry setup. It did so via the bizarre escape of a snake.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ve got a few things to say about all this. The first is that there\u2019s something quite remarkable about JK Rowling\u2019s pacing here. My own Fiona Griffiths stories are aimed at adults, and a pretty literate group of adults at that \u2013 but, by heck, I get my stories started in Chapter One. That doesn\u2019t have to mean a lay a bloody corpse out for the reader\u2019s delight (although I might), but there\u2019s certainly a drop of blood in the water, the first tickle of story.<\/p>\n

JK Rowling, on the other hand, writes for kids. Her chapters are longer than mine. And she gets her story properly underway, only in Chapter Three. That\u2019s remarkable and it\u2019s a tribute to the excellence of her writing that she gets away with it, especially here, in the opening book of the series, which couldn\u2019t rely on reputation to get its readers over humps in the road. In effect, Rowling presents three prologues to the readers in turn:<\/p>\n