seeds of critical distance

[bronze_ribbons]

From notes to some non-fandom friends yesterday morning - stuff I might turn into longer musings someday:

I.
Rowling's worldbuilding has never been consistent (the best explanation I've seen of Potterverse magic comes from someone [rexluscus] who pointed out that it's very much "Roger Rabbit" in execution -- JKR's habitually gone for effect rather than consistency, which is why Pensieves make no damn sense even though they're nifty)... but then again, Conan Doyle's continuity lapses have provided Sherlockians with fodder for decades (and I'm generally less keen on the post-Reichenbach stories meself). I fancy Rowling's our era's equivalent of Doyle in terms of emotional reach, staying power, and multiplicity of interpretations/revisionings/appropriations/what-have-you.

II.
I somehow keep forgetting that crape myrtles do typically bloom this time of year. Last night I was looking at diary entries from July 2002, and I was in high happiness about them back then as well. There's definitely a proper distance to appreciating the blooms -- they're uneven and scraggly if you're close up to them, but from down the street or on the porch, they're perfect masses of bright pink and purple fluffiness.

There's probably an appropriate analogy in there regarding the reading of certain texts.