The Book Club Returns...

Wow...

It's been forever, hasn't it?

I got distracted by life, had a baby, and weathered our roughest winter yet in the yurt. We're getting back into things slowly, purging out the distractions, and focusing on the good. And Our little book club is good! It gets me thinking and writing, and conversing just a bit more than I otherwise would.

Jenna's post is here: Go check it out. She has some lovely thoughts, and you can catch up on her life as well (and in more detail).

Especially interesting to me, we get to talk a bit more about divination (something Rowling doesn't really seem to respect, though there are moments in the books..). Jenna can happily anticipate having fewer "curiously clarifying" dreams when I send her the sleep pillow I've almost made (bad timing keeps delaying it)..though my hope is that it brings restfully-prophetic dreams, not the terrifying ones! But mugwort it sometimes difficult to control. (Don't worry though, Jenna, it's been blessed!)

Trelawney is a delightful fraud for the most part though, and I think Dumbledore is depriving his students by keeping her as a teacher..a guest, or a 'resident reader' would be acceptable, but a teacher?! I'm reminded of too many from my own public education..

I'm also reminded of a woman I met at a bar, a friendly, modern-day worshipper of Diane who asked why I was afraid to use magic, then 'felt my energy' and wondered why I didn't feel afraid after all...we talked for hours, but she had no interest in God-magic that comes with limitations, and goddesses tend to bore me.

I wonder if part of the issue, in Harry's world as well as ours, is that (moral issues aside) most people who can read the future don't because, as Firenze mentions a few times, they can so easily be misread or mis-applied. Or because it's generally just plain intrusive.

With Rowling's other treatment of magic though, I tend to assume it's more that divination isn't objective enough. It can't be turned into an A+B=C formula, as most of her magic appears to be. But maybe that's part of her point, too...maybe Trelawney's merely a reminder that attempting to make a formula from a mystery is impossible and makes those that attempt it look ridiculous. Actually, I like that last assumption best. Let's go with that! 

I also wonder if, as Laura mentioned in the comments on Jenna's post, a plain-old slap is more insulting in the wizarding world because of it's 'lowly' connotations, that divination might be seen in a similar light among certain wizards because it's a gift not limited to wizards, and apparently not any more common among them than it is among non-magical folks? 

What do you think? 

And welcome back after all this time!