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Barry Trotter and its silly smut -
Michael Gerber’s shameless parody falls Summary:
The Harry Potter phenomenon has led to five books, two movies with a third in the works, and countless merchandising opportunities..................
Article:
The Harry Potter phenomenon has led to five books, two movies with a third in the works, and countless merchandising opportunities ranging from Christmas ornaments to collectible card games. With anything this popular come rip-offs and parodies. At least Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel, by Michael Gerber, is self-aware enough to be the latter. However, that is the best thing that can be said about it.
To try to enjoy anything in this book, a reader needs to have read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. There are a lot of “jokes” that can only be understood by comparing them to specific moments in the Potter books. Still, many people have read the Potter chronicles by now, even college students; J.K. Rowling even put out an edition of Potter paperbacks with plain covers, so older readers wouldn’t feel embarrassed.
In this book, Barry Trotter is a 38-year-old wizard. He is married to Ermine and has a son and a daughter. Son Nigel’s upcoming start at Hogwash brings everyone back to the school. The first death there sets the tone for the rest of the book.
Dorco Malfeasance, the Headmister of Hogwash, dies by explosion. This isn’t caused by magic — while making a flying entrance into the Hogwash dining hall, he collapses under his own weight after falling from a height. Barry, dining nearby, keeps eating, and is wholly unaffected, apart from being offered Dorco’s job.
This doesn’t even make the list of the top ten worst moments in the book. Byron, one of Nigel’s classmates, introduces himself to Nigel by saying, “I’ve had sex with my sister, and tasted of human flesh.”
The worst passage is probably the one about the death of Dorco’s clone, Larval. (Yes, clone. There are at least two clones in the book, though other characters were working on creating more.)
Larval dies at a Quiddit practice, after members of his team, the Silverfish, pee on the Grittyfloor team on the field. Barry casts a spell returning their urine to their bladders, along with some extra from the Grittyfloor team, and the Silverfish team is rather upset by this. Nigel gets into a fistfight with Larval and punches him in the stomach, causing him to explode in a golden shower.
Speaking of golden showers, that is one of the few sexual fetishes left out of the book. Every character is an oversexed homosexual, an oversexed bisexual, or just plain oversexed, and takes every opportunity to talk about it.
When Barry runs into Colin Creepy at the Hogwash reunion, Colin brings up the time that they were caning other students together in the Headmister’s office. Barry and Ermine bring up their extensive sexual histories several times, often in front of Nigel.
Lon Measly has had a partial brain replacement, leaving him acting like a dog 90 percent of the time, which leads to his humping Lord Valumart — “He-Who-Smells” — on the leg.
Gerber has even invented some fetishes that currently have no names. One such could be called “reverse-Michael Jacksonism:” Lon’s father, Mr. Measly, discovers he’s gay after his last kid moves out of the house, and uses magic to change himself into an elegant black man. Gerber loves to change the names of everything in Potterdom just enough to make reading the book a chore. Every character has to be mentioned, even minor ones like Colin. Here, there’s a sampling of characters across all the Potter books up to Goblet of Fire crammed into 321 pages of story. Keeping track of so many names is hard enough when a book is enjoyable.
It would also probably help if said story wasn’t so generic: Barry has to stop someone from doing something bad. He doesn’t exactly know what the problem is, but he’s already got his suspect — Professor Snipe. Of course, it isn’t Snipe. Snipe’s too busy drinking after not getting the Defense Against the Dorc Arts job or Headmister position that Barry and Ermine got.
Then, Barry is affected with youthanasia, which means he keeps getting younger. Once he’s unborn, he’s toast. Though he looks on the bright side for a little while (mostly while he’s getting back his hair), the prospect of dying doesn’t help him to grow as a character. As he gets younger, he gets less mature, which is something of an accomplishment in such a book.
After breaking the fourth wall (mentioning the fact that the readers probably know who the villain is by now), Barry finally figures out who is responsible, confronts him, and — ending spoiler — Barry lives, evil ones die, and they may or may not be coming back as ghosts.
The book may be bad, but there are some bright spots. Nigel’s character is the most developed and mature, despite being an 11-year-old. Though he suffers from some of the maladies common to all the characters, such as murderous tendencies (helping to kill every player on the Silverfish Quiddit team and killing Byron by putting earwigs in his head that eat his brain), he is capable of shame, and acts his age.
He also plays Accountants and Attorneys — the fantasy kid’s version of Dungeons and Dragons.
Gerber’s vision of students weaned on Trotter stories coming to Hogwash and imagining themselves to be Barry, Ermine, or Lon hits the mark as well. Searching the Internet for fan fictions proves that this isn’t uncommon.
Unfortunately, flashes of humor and insight like this are rare. More often, its jokes are about combing pubic hair, morning-after spells, and vibrating books used for sexual pleasure. Keep your £6.99, and stay far away from Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel.
Dan
