2007-06-21 More fun for Latinate Potter fans

This volume follows on the heels of the same translator's Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, and is as enjoyable a read as its predecessor. The book is, as would be expected, a quicker and easier read if you are already familiar with N's style: no convoluted Ciceronian periods, but a more anglicised syntax demonstrating a thorough command of vocabulary, grammar and idiom - a real tour de force. Some familiar vocabulary reappears of course: manubrium scoparum (broomstick), citrina fervescens (sherbet lemon, p166), ludus Caledonicus (golf, pp5, 58). Ingenious neologisms include vitritersoria (windscreen wipers, p57), quadrulas duplices panis (sandwiches, p65), aeronaves salientes inversa vi propulsae (jump jets, p98), Roentgeniani radii (X-rays, p117), baculum missile Antipodum (boomerang, p137), fervefactorium (kettle, p211) and libum transatlanticum baccarum conditura confertum (jam doughnut, p275).

But it is the ingenuity of how the vocabulary is deployed which is the major source of enjoyment. Hence `Touchdown!' - terram habemus (p25); `Harry stepped over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards' - Harrius iit supra acervum chartularum lusoriarum Se Sponte Miscentium (p32); `freshly caught Cornish pixies' - pixii Dumnoniorum nuper capti (p80); `The minutes snailed by' - minuta cursu cochleae, ut ita dicam, praeteribant (p95). Nor are literary effects wanting: `Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle' becomes Myrta maesta, maerens, miserabilis (p109), and, as in the previous book, couplets are used when appropriate:

`Oh Potter, you rotter, oh what have you done?
You're killing off students, you think it's good fun':
quid scelus admisti, mihi dic, o pessime Potter,
cui placet assiduo caedere discipulos? (p165, cf. p194)

I spotted only a few typos (contahere, p30; dificillimum, p74, resposum p196, Voldemart p229, effeciebat p243, quiquaginta p249, inucundum p273), but these do not detract a jot from the pleasure this volume gives. I look forward to the appearance of Harrius Potter et Captivus Azkabani.