And speaking of Harry Potter …
July 18th, 2005 ~ Potpourri for 100, AlexI must be the only dolt in the world who wasn’t counting down the minutes until the new Harry Potter book arrived.
It was already in grocery stores yesterday marked 25%-40% off, which just gives you an idea how ridiculously high the retail price must be. So I will go ahead and read this one too — what the heck. Part of that is just self-defense — if you’re going to be besieged with talk about something, you might as well read it or see it yourself if it doesn’t offend you too much. I really do like the books. I’m just way to the rear of the people who are That Excited over them. I think the first one was worth all the hoopla. The other ones are a mixed bunch — some good moments in there but a lot of pages misspent, IMHO.
That being the case, I’m going into this with fewer expectations. If we got a few less chapters of Harry YELLING AT PEOPLE IN ALL CAPS, I’d be pretty happy. But then, he was 15 last year. This year he’s 16. Heaven help us if Rowling really does want to tell us what’s in the mind of young men at that age. I don’t think I’m ready for 300+ pages of that.
It’ll be interesting to see if my theory about what Rowling is getting at holds up. If she’s using these as a vehicle to tell young people that the world can be a magic place, but it also needs grown-ups, then I would expect her to continue the progression she has been making whereby we’ve been slowly finding that Magicians can be Muggles after all, and — and this is the part I think is the most interesting — Muggles can be Magicians. That, really, the world of faith, imagination, discovery and wonder will be seen as you get older to borrow more and more from the world of everyday tedium and hard work and some moments of real pain and evil. And that, conversely, the people you thought were humdrum and drab may turn out to know more about faith, imagination and the rest than you do. And that, in any case, you can’t keep the worlds apart — they absolutely depend on one another. So if you want to be a good Magician, you have to also be a good Muggle.
Now that would be a good point to make. By golly, if Rowling doesn’t make that point, I may have to write a knock-off book just to do it. I’ll bet her lawyers wouldn’t mind too much. (Ha. Right.)
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July 24th, 2005 at 12:39 am
Not only am I that, I may be the only person on earth who has not laid eyes on a single sentence of a Harry Potter book….
July 25th, 2005 at 9:14 am
Don’t blame you a bit. I started reading them because my mother was reading them, and since she doesn’t read fiction that much, I got intrigued.
Some of Rowling’s entire world I wish had never been brought to young, impressionable minds — other parts of it seem harmless or positive. In short, if any kid reads the books and puts real energy into occultism or the acquisition of gnosis (even assuming Rowling meant no such thing to happen), I am very, very sorry and can only hope that the interest fails because nothing happens. If, on the other hand, a kid looks at the world in a different way, perceives that there is Mystery in things and a fight between good and evil that we all participate in, that may be a very good thing. If Greg and I had children, we might let one child read Potter and another not, depending on their personality.
Most adults have already made up their mind about those things, and so I’d think Potter isn’t a big deal one way or the other. I doubt if an adult is going to want to join a Wiccan society based on Harry Potter, but they probably wouldn’t join a church either.
July 25th, 2005 at 11:25 pm
I agree. I like Bugs Bunny’s take “What’s all the hubbub, bub?”
I think most people are predisposed to certain things and if a children’s book pushes them over the edge, then there weren’t a lot of barriers up in the first place.