Certain readers have actually said they’re actually going to avoid this site come July 21st because they’re certain I’m going to spoil the ending of J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will go on sale just after midnight. They need to brace themselves for shocking news. The media world en masse is going to spoil the ending. You can disconnect your TV and your computer and wear earmuffs on your way out to your rented cabin in northern Idaho with your car radio shut off, and Harry’s fate will find you out.
As N.Y. Times “Paper Cuts” blogger Dwight Garner wrote this morning, “The journalistic onslaught is…just… beginning.” I especially like this quote from a recent Stephen King column about the book’s final chapter: “The only thing we can be sure of is that `Deathly Hallows’ won’t end in a 10-second blackout.”
The Deathly Hallows Wikipedia page says that hallows “is a word usually used as a verb, meaning ‘to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate.’ However, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the word hallows appears as a noun. Hallows can refer to saints, the relics of saints, the relics of gods, or shrines in which the relics are kept. Since the essence of these saints or gods were often considered present at their shrines and in their relics, hallows came to refer to the saints or gods themselves, rather than just their relics or shrines.”
