This page has never read one the Harry Potter books, nor seen any of the Harry Potter movies. Yet, with each new release excreted from the Raincoast Books/Scholastic Publishing factory, my contempt for this so-called "literature" still finds room to grow. While all the Muggles and whoozits scramble to big-box bookseller or movie megaplex for the latest scrap of the Potter brand, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, this page quietly rejoices in J.K. Rowling's promise that this will be the final dispatch from Hogwarts Academy.
Why isn't the page feeling the Harry Potter magic? Having skimmed through enough of the material and read enough reviews, it's easy to draw the conclusion that Harry Potter is the most self-indulgent, patronizing, smothering crap that's ever been put to print. I can't see how the series is supposed to get "darker" as it goes along when reviewers consistently point out J.K. Rowling's "love of children" and "the value of friendship". Maybe it's my Gen-X cynicism showing, but I have issues about grief counsellors being put on standby for Potter readers. There was no grief counselling when Gwen Stacy was killed in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. There was no grief counselling when Bambi's Mom was shot. There was no grief counselling when Maude Flanders fell off the grandstand at the Springfield Speedway.
There is counselling, coddling, and comforting for Harry Potter fans, because Harry Potter is the kid-lit brand of choice for spoiled, upper middle class trend-mongering brats and their idiot overprotective hyperbraded yuppie parents who are loathe to do any actual parenting. How many times have we heard "Harry Potter turns kids on to reading!" Do you know what turned this page on to reading? READING: Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, Agatha Christie, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby - a little variety instead of the stamping readers' heads with the same brand repeatedly. Can these kids who've been "turned on to reading" name any other books they've read that don't involve juvenile wizards or standing in front of a Chapters in the middle of the night?
Most pop culture phenomena in our day and age have a sense of irony or camp (and openness to criticism) about them which makes them palatable (See: Star Wars, Episodes I & II). The world of Harry Potter, however, is a closed world where no one dares criticize the sacred texts of Rowling for fear that they will be forever cursed. Hogwarts is locked down by the scavenging lawyers of Raincoast/Scholastic, who go out of their way to bully anyone engaged in speculation about upcoming Potter books, for fear they might be casting "spoilers" among the true believers. Anyone here see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? Why did you go see it? I went because I heard Spock was going to die!
I realize that for those of you who actually know this page, much of this will read as hypocrisy, given that I've read pretty much everything with the name "John Grisham" on it. However, I don't see myself being stuffed into the back of a van if I give away the verdict in the final chapter, or if I write my own story about southern-fried attorneys up against impossible odds...BTW, the comments section is open - POST YOUR HARRY POTTER SPOILERS HERE!
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Of course, the popularity of the books is way out of whack to the quality of the books, but the books are still very good children's literature, and long after the memories of midnight releases and spoiler concerns have faded, this series will take its place alongside the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lucy Maud Montgomery Anne books, or the Little House series, not unjustifiably.
As for the hype itself, again, overblown to be sure, but is it really worse than the midnight releases of the almost completely unwatchable Matrix sequels? Is the security to avoid spoilers any worse than the security employed by any reality show?
On spoilers, perhaps if the media had not been so quick to spoil details of Goblet of Fire in the early hours of its release, the paranoia could be less. I personally will tell you that knowing the ending absolutely harmed my enjoyment of the novel, knowing from the day I cracked the cover which character was a marked man. I will be happy to discover Harry's fate on my own this time around, instead of having some smirking newsreader who knos how to read the last chapter first spoil my fun. Would that sort of reporting have improved anyone's enjoyment of The Sixth Sense?
The excitement around Harry Potter may be now a media circus, but these books earned their popularity - this was the quintessential grassroots movement, built almost entirely on word of mouth until a critical mass was reached.
I have nothing but respect and congratulations to then-tiny Raincoast books for picking up the series when it was just a book, and then managing to meet publishing and distribution requirements that Canada's larger publishers have never had to attempt.
Finally, to be completely optimistic for a moment, wouldn't it be great if not that many years from now, the release of a new Michael Chabon novel could be met with the same sort of machinery behind it, down to the theme parties and midnight releases? The machinery exists for that possibility because JK Rowling`s boy wizard led the way.
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