Harry Potter Week: Carl Sandburg National Historic Site

In recognition of the 8.3 million Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows books sold last weekend, this week we are looking at National Park Sites that honor authors. Earlier this week we imagined the new Harry Potter book as written by Eugene O’Neill and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Today we turn our attention to America’s greatest poet Carl Sandburg.

We don’t have to imagine how Carl Sandburg would have stylized The Deathly Hollows. Why? Because Sandburg would have had no interest in lionizing an upper middle class precocious British hothead. Sandburg wrote only about the common American. He might have imagined a half-blood elitist wizard to be an inappropriate hero, especially to impressionable adolescents.

We also don’t have to imagine Sandburg’s take on Harry Potter because he authored an equivalent book, The Rootabaga Stories, which, similar to the Deathly Hollows, can be downloaded page for page on the Internet. These tales attempt to create wholly American fairy tales and originated from bedtime stories Sandburg told to his daughters.

Unfortunately, The Rootabaga Stories don’t compel the reader like the Harry Potter opuses and won’t be beelining to the cinema screen.

Click Here to Read More about Carl Sandburg NHS.

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Harry Potter Week: Longfellow National Historic Site

In recognition of the 8.3 million Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows books sold last weekend, this week we are looking at National Park Sites that honor authors. On Monday we imagined the new Harry Potter book as written by America’s only Nobel Prize for Literature winning playwright: Eugene O’Neill. Today we see Harry through the quintessential American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

How would Longfellow’s Deathly Hollows be like? It would have: a) taken epic poem form; b) been unbearably long; c) reeked of sentimentality; d) fostered a new mythology; e) been loved by children and adults en masse; f) followed easy themes; g) been queasily patriotic and uneasily offensive in parts; h) sold outrageously well; i) been roundly dismissed and panned by critics; and j) been endlessly parodied. Hey, wait a sec. I think we might have found a copy.

From the magic of Godric’s Hollow
Through the hallowed halls of Hogwarts,
Stands Harry, the troubled adolescent,
Pointing with his finger westward,
O’er the Azkaban pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset.

Fiercely the red sun descending,
Burned his way along the heavens,
‘Tis beloved Dumbledore aloft,
setting the sky on fire behind him,
Death Eaters, when retreating,
Burn the moors on their war-trail;
With Ron and Hermione at his side,
Stalwart and ready for the fight,
They shall follow fast those bloody footprints,
Follow in that fiery war-trail,
With its glare upon his features.

And Harry, the troubled adolescent,
Pointing with his finger westward,
Spake these words to Ron and Herme:
“Yonder dwells the great Dark Lord,
Voldemorte, the Magician,
armed with the mysterious Horcrux,
Guarded by his fiery Muggles,
Guarded by the black pitch-water.
We must find the remained Horcrux,
We must slay Dark Voldemorte,
We must restore the peace,
O’er the Azkaban standing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset!

“He it was who slew my father,
By his wicked wiles and cunning,
When he from the moon descended,
When he came on earth to seek me.
He, the mightiest of Magicians,
Sends the fever from the marshes,
Sends the pestilential vapors,
Sends the poisonous exhalations,
Sends the white fog from the fen-lands,
Sends disease and death among us!

Perhaps we got a little carried away with the excerpt. Hopefully, Bloomsbury won’t sue. Nevertheless, one of those four paragraphs is an EXACT duplicate of Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. Should the Longfellow family be searching for some Rowling’s royalties or should the next epic J.K. series revolve around daring Ojibwas? Hard to say.

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Harry Potter Week: Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site

In recognition of the 8.3 million Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows books sold last weekend, this week at we are looking at National Park Sites that honor authors. First up is the only American playwright to win the Nobel Prize for Literature: Eugene O’Neill.

Harry Potter rumors and spoilers are everywhere and have elicited scores of questions. Is it really the last book? Which characters die? What will happen to Harry? Well we’ve wondered what would The Deathly Hollows be like if it were written by O’Neill…

It’s been years since we last saw Harry struggling through his troubled adolescence. He’s just attended Dumbledore’s funeral and has decided to leave Hogwarts. Flash forward 15 years. The Hog’s Head, Hogsmeade. Harry’s at the bar. Head down. Full of despair. He’s here every day. An alcoholic, mired in depression. His youthful dreams now seem so distant so out of reach so naive.

He enjoys it here. The dirt floor, the smell of goat. He especially enjoys the darkness…and the company. Soon Uncle Damocles Hickman, the traveling potion salesman will be coming. His visits bring joy, free drinks, and escape. The other patrons discuss their service in the Second Wizarding War. One, a Death Eater, insults his Order of the Phoenix friend. Their discussion never ends. Their side was right, their motivations were pure. They always will be.

In the meantime Harry thinks of his past, how it all went wrong. His scar, the constant pain, the reminder, the torture. He waits. He wonders.

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