ROLLING STONE Recommends Christmas Gifts (2): Harry Potter Deluxe Editions

My son has reached Harry Potter age, and for me that’s a reason to dig a little deeper into my wallet: Bloomsbury is publishing deluxe volumes of all seven works (five are already out), with a slipcase, in DIN A1 -format and illustrated by Jim Kay. I’m not necessarily a fan of novels with drawings, as an adult I feel too taken by the hand – novels are supposed to work without pictures. But this edition should of course be able to appeal to children who like to turn the pages of large books and lose themselves in illustrations, such as from Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade (in the “Philosopher’s Stone” to fold out or take out).

Drawings of well-known literary figures have a great appeal for me when they have long since become icons thanks to cinema actors, i.e. we associate an actually immovable image with the figures. Their newly hired illustrators are faced with a pretty nasty task. How do they manage to give important characters a compelling new look, one that differs from the ones we grew up with on screen or on television?

It often works surprisingly well. The great white shark in Suntup Press’s “Jaws” edition has been given its own new profile by drawing. So is Ned Stark in the glorious Game of Thrones volumes published by the Folio Society. Jim Kay’s “Potter” works are also suitable for making the character personnel from the cinema films forgotten, at least for a short time. Thanks to Alan Rickman’s – bravura – portrayal of Severus Snape, we actually remember the disgust as a handsome magician. Rickman’s Snape was the secret heartthrob. With Kay, he’s going back to how Potter author JK Rowling always characterized him: a weepy queer with an oily quiff.

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