Last weekend, my daughter thrust Somerset Maugham's great novel at me and said, "You should read this, Dad." She does that a lot and I therefore always have a small stack of books to get through, but I did start reading Of Human Bondage, and I love it. But with all the hoopla about the final Potter film being released NOW! it does occur to me that Harry Potter and Philip Carey have more than a little in common.

Both are orphans, of course. Both live with an aunt and uncle that don't quite get them, though the Careys are vastly preferable to the Dursleys. Harry wears a scar and Philip has a clubfoot - ok that's not very similar. Both attend stodgy British schools with money from their inheritance, except that Harry has whopping piles of knuts and galleons while Philip only has several hundred pounds. Harry goes to 'public' boarding school to learn spells in Latin while Philip goes to a less prestigious boarding school and just learns Latin.



I got to the part where Carey goes to Paris to study art and realized that I had seen the second half of the movie version with Leslie Howard and Bette Davis a long time ago. Actually I saw the entire movie, but it left out Carey's childhood. Howard played Carey a lot more sympathetically than the impression I have of him so far. And Bette Davis was a lot like Helena Bonham Carter.

Meanwhile I'm trying to decide if I want to join the throngs and see Deathly Hallows Part Two this weekend. Who is going?