I finally finished reading the Harry Potter Series. It has taken me years. Actually what happened was that after they were first recommended to me around 2001 and I decided to read them, I first determined that I would read only the British printings, because I didn’t want to add my financial contribution to the outrageous idea that we Americans are too stupid to deal with terms like “philosopher’s stone” and “jumper.” So, I ordered the set from Amazon U.K. and read through Goblet of Fire. Just recently, I ordered the rest of the books and finished them.
Thoughts:
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The one death that really affected me strongly was Fred Weasley’s. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because I had already been spoiled with regard to Dumbledore, Lupin, and Tonks. But I have a feeling that even had I not been, Fred’s would still have been the hardest blow. Maybe it was because he was essentially a comic relief character and it was therefore unexpected.
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Of course it’s supposed to be children’s fiction, but really a lot of the ideas, themes, and events were perfectly suitable for adults. However, the biggest thing that struck me as fault-ably childlike was the romance. I’m not saying that I wanted anything explicit as far as sex or anything. I was just disappointed in the uber-fairy-tale quality of it, especially since most other aspects of the story were pretty harsh when it came to things like death, courage, evil, etc.
Nearly all the major characters are shown as having found their true loves in adolescence: James-Lily, Arthur-Molly, George-Angelina, Ron-Hermione. Indeed, you might say that the Snape-Lily and Harry-Ginny romances are pre-adolescent. I just find it kind of ludicrous and I imagine trying to take seriously a story about lifetime love with the classmate I had a crush on when I was 6 years old.
The sole romance I found to be more realistic was Lupin and Tonks, and it was starkly so. It wasn’t an easy romance, there were plenty of conflicts (difference in age, etc.) and Lupin was shown contemplating running off after Tonks conceived.
I would have been much happier with an epilogue that was a little more realistic, showing that adulthood does tend to result in drift with regard to teenage romances, especially Harry-Ginny and Ron-Hermione. I thought that this aspect of the story deserved as much clear-eyed starkness as the rest of the story.
I was also a little put off at the post-histories supplied by Rowling in which pretty much all the characters had had multiple children by age 36. (So far as I can tell, you have to go as far down in importance as Charlie Weasley and Neville Longbottom to find a character whose offspring, if they exist, haven’t been mentioned by Rowling.) More and more people these days, even while in stable relationships, remain childless, or put off having children until later, and I was somehow disappointed at the idea that this seemed to be outside the realm of normality that was reached by the end of the story.
More thoughts later. I’m interested in any reactions.