Rowling's new book explores life after Potter, still magical By Sunandita Dasgupta

New Delhi, Dec 8 (PTI) British author J K Rowling's
latest offering will appeal to readers on two different levels
-- for fairytale lovers, it comes as a simple collection of
moral fables but for the 'Pottermaniacs' it brings back the
memories of the world of the boy wizard.

'The Tales of Beedle The Bard', which hit the stands
last week is a spin-off from the popular Harry Potter series,
with illustrations by the writer herself and "notes" from
Professor Albus Dumbledore, the venerable headmaster of the
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The compilation, which finds elaborate mention in the
final book on the boy wizard, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows', comprises five fairytales, which, Rowling informs
us, are to wizard children as 'Cinderella' to 'muggles'.

At the outset, the stories look like simple fairytales
written on the Brothers Grimm tradition, with moral views on
good and bad, virtue and vice, life and death thrown in.

But what is more evident, mainly in the 'Dumbledore
notes' is an attempt to recreate the magic. For Rowling, it is
life after Harry Potter, but not necessarily life after
Hogwarts, with the notes giving anecdotes about the magical
school and characters associated it.

She also seemed to have used the voice of Dumbledore
to take a dig at her critics who say that her stories, with
violent and scary themes, are not fit for children.

The first story -- The Wizard and the Hopping Pot --
tells us about a old wizard who used his magic pot to cure
ills of his neighbours. When his son refuses to carry on with
the tradition after his death, the pot sprouts symptoms of
horrible diseases and hops around him till he mends his ways
and comes out to help the people.

Dumbledore writes that a strong opposition came from
one particular writer 'Beatrix Bloxam', who felt the tales of
Beedle are "damaging" to children beacuse of their "unhealthy
preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such as death,
disease, bloodshed, wicked magic..."

Sounds familiar?

The Potter stories have been flayed on the same lines,
and Rowling seems to slam the critics through Dumbledore, who
mocks at Bloxam for trying to rewrite 'The Wizard and the
Hopping Pot' in a happy and sweet way. The reworking, he
informs, was detested by wizard kids.

Rowling's stories begin with the simplicity of any
fairytale but as the readers progress they find more maturity
in them. For example, the story of "The Warlock's Hairy Heart"
has no pretentions of a happy ending despite starting like any
fairytale.

The author clearly believes that children should not
be treated as delicate objects and stopped from learning the
realities that life throws up before them.

"'The Warlock's Hairy Heart" is by far the most
gruesome of Beedle's offerings," claimes Dumbledore in his
notes.

"It has survived intact through the centuries because
it speaks to the dark depths in all of us. It addresses one of
the greatest, and least acknowledged, temptations of magic:
the quest for invulnerability," says the professor.

Rowling's stories are not only magical in their
simplicity but they also try to despel some of the
misconceptions that has been associated with her 'Harry
Potter' series. She has been often accused of leading children
into a belief in magic.

But in the sane voice of Prof Dumbledore, Rowling
tries to clear such misconceptions.

"No man or woman alive, magical or not, has ever
escaped some form of injury, whether physical, mental or
emotional. To hurt is as human as to breathe. Nevertheless, we
wizards seem particularly prone to the idea that we can bend
the nature of existence to our will," the professor cautions
at the end of one story.

In another story, the professor has also tried to
explain that magic has no power to bring dead back to life.
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