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Bogus Harry Potter Book In China

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the how-to-make-some-ebay-scratch dept.

elveu writes "Chinese Harry Potter fans have been blessed with the fifth book early -- only it's not the real one. The title translates to 'Harry Potter And Leopard Walk Up To Dragon.' The story has Harry getting turned into a fat hairy drawf and being void of his powers."

5 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. The Sixth Harry Potter book soon to follow... by mrsam · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Harry Potter, and the Wrath Of The Troll", wherein Harry Potter is turned into a slashdot editor that can't spell.

  2. People seem to be taken for granted.... by cyberon22 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... that this book is poorly written. Direct translations from any language usually sound horrible. Chinese-English translations are particularly difficult because many language constructions in Chinese just don't have English equivalents. The same goes for English text simply translated into Chinese.

    So while the article linked above mocks the book on the basis of its first sentence. I'd be curious to know if the author (who is seemingly a native English-speaker) has read the original Harry Potter books in their Chinese translation. Is this one really worse???

    Frankly, I'd imagine that if this thing is selling as many copies as the author claims, it's either because it's well written, or because it's fooling a lot of people. And if it's fooling a lot of people, that probably means it's well written. Either that or Rowling needs to get some better English-Chinese translators....

  3. Re:They used her picture on the back of the book.. by Zeinfeld · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A word of advice to people over fourteen (esp. males): Never recommend Harry Potter books to anyone, and never freely admit having read them. Doing so, (1) reveals your lack of intellectual sophistication, (2) hints at your inability to read books from start to finish (unless they are "For Dummies..." or nine-year-olds, and (3) makes you one of those annoying asswipes that insists that everyone read the all-seeing, all-knowing work of infinite philisophical importance that is the last book you managed to complete (mostly).

    Actually the books are very sophisticated intellectually. The sophistication is generally lost on American readers however who are unaware of the cultural and litterary references that Rowling ads in for the amusement of older readers.

    For example Hogwarts Castle is a parody of Mallory Towers. The use of Magic as a substitute for technological mod cons is a homage to the Flintstones.

    This simply carries on a long tradition of British Children's works, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe is an allegory of the New Testament. The Harry Potter series as a whole is an allegory of a series of works by Foucault. The Dumbledore character is an anegogical reference to Derrida. The Dursleys are of course a reference to Proust.

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  4. Re:Titles by JCCyC · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, the fake versions of the sixth and seventh book will be titled "Harry Potter Slay Dragon", and "Harry Potter Steal Dragon Treasure".

    The manuscripts were discovered when buyers found that each only contained 2 pages of text, and a lot of blank pages.

    Harry: What happen?
    Teacher: Someone set up us the spell.
    Harry: Crystal ball turn on.
    Teacher: It's you!
    Dragon: How are you gentlemen?
    Dragon: All your magic are belong to us.

    to be continued...

  5. The real title by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    (* The story has Harry getting turned into a fat hairy drawf and being void of his powers." *)

    Perhaps they should have called it, "Harry Gets Married".

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