I didn’t see it until this morning, but coincidentally enough there was just an article in Slate about how Harry Potter came along at an interesting time in terms of the growth of the Internet. It also notes that JK Rowling and Warner Bros. were generally pretty tolerant of fanfiction, fansites, etc., and didn’t try to shut things down like some other authors/studios. Harry Potter wound up with a huge online fandom at a time when this sort of thing was just beginning to become mainstream.
Also, isn’t the pre-teen and teenage audience typically one of the most profitable and bestselling literary fiction-audience age ranges?
Contrary to what I predicted years ago, it seems that the Harry Potter fad is here to stay after all.
I’ve come to that realization very recently, watching my almost 10-year-old daughter totally immersed in the movies. And that’s when it dawned on me. She’s as excited as I was at her age with Star Wars. And there’s probably millions of other children just like her. Harry Potter is their Star Wars. I can’t wrap my head around it because the movies seem… mildly interesting but not particularly original or anything. But it’s ok. It’s her chilhood, her dream world, her heroes and villains. That’s fine.
But adults geeking on Harry Potter ? Yeah, I still think it’s utterly pathetic. But so is the whole cospaly-Jedi-religion-Geedo-shot-first thing IMO.
Erm… Greedo :o.
I had the same thought when I first read them. I got into them quite early, just before the Media started talking about the phenomenon and maybe a year before the first movie was announced, and from book three onwards was reading them as they came out*, and even though I enjoyed them right to the end, I also didn’t see why they were lauded above other similar books by better known, more talented authors. I guess a phenomenon feeds itself after a while, and logic goes out the window. It’s popular because so many like it, and so many like it because it’s popular.
*Unlike most fans, my favourite book is Goblet of Fire. And I didn’t like Sirius Black.
Firstly it has nothing to do with Rickman. I read all the books before seeing any movies.
Secondly, the greatness of Snape as a character lies in the last four books. He will, IMHO, be remembered by history as one of the great literary characters of all time, and as JK’s finest work. She plays with you, using him, like a fish. When you understand the whole sweep of his life, you end up thinking of him as nasty and pitiable and noble all at the same time, and yet despite the implausibility of how that sounds, JK makes it believable. There is a moment in one of the books (you haven’t got to it yet) involving Snape where the bedrock of your view about him drops away, and suddenly you realise you are not in Kansas anymore; not only as to Snape but as to the other characters around him. And when it happens, it’s not done by artificially imposing a cheap plot twist but by revealing something that really clicks. Then as you read on, there is click after click as pieces of JK’s complex background plotting and characterisation fall into place.
Snape’s long reveal mirrors the way the books as a whole follow Harry’s maturing, which in turn follow the aging of the intended audience. Remember when you were in grade school and teachers were either nice or not nice? Then you got to high school and teachers had their good and bad sides. And then you look back at them as an adult and realise they were complex people with extensive backgrounds and experiences and personalities that made them what they were.
Harry and the books and the characters go through the same process.
Opening each book by going “back to school” is brilliant. There is something really special about going back to school-- it’s comforting and familiar, but also new and exciting at the same time. Those sequences alone were enough to draw me in to the books.
For those of us who read the books right when they came out (as I did with the last three), it was fun to be swept up in the pop culture phenomenon of so many people reading the same thing all at once (and speculating beforehand and discussing afterward). Not many releases have everybody eagerly awaiting them and all buying them at the same time like that—a few movies, Sgt. Pepper’s, and I can’t think of any books in my lifetime that were as big a deal on their release. Maybe Go Set a Watchman, but that wasn’t an all-ages phenomenon.
I read the first book in Pullman’s series. It had some excellent bits but His Message was rather heavy-handed. Wasn’t his stuff an answer to Narnia’s Message? (I came to the Narnia books as an adult–too late. Even as a kid, I might have realized Lewis was one of those British Fake Catholics. Even worse–he was a Northern Irish Fake Catholic; very High Church but maintaining his distance from the bog stompers.)
Someone mentioned the Prydain books. Which, again, I encountered as an adult. (But I rather like them.) The thing is–before the Internet, you had to know someone to find The Good Stuff. Or have a really excellent library; my library stamped the SF books with rocket ships but fantasy wasn’t distinguished. Proximity to a really good book store would help–but books were expensive. Unsophisticated schoolmates didn’t help–reading anything not required made you weird.
I haven’t read all the Potter books but i think they came along at the right time. Kids who grew up with Harry will love them. Many of the adults who got into them were parents, happy their kids were enthusiastic about reading. Then they found they enjoyed the books themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with adults enjoying YA books. But I don’t know I’d select these as the subject for an adult book club
I will.
The DaVinci Code. Boy was that a steaming pile o shit.
Twilight - like stale potato chips - the worst book I’ve ever read that I couldn’t put down. The whole time I’m saying to myself “this is HORRIBLE” and yet I kept turning the page.
As for Harry Potter, its accessible to a huge range - its reading level is such that young kids who are good readers can read it - but it isn’t so simplistic that their parents feel like they are reading Go Dog Go. There is a character in there for everyone to empathize with and root for - if Harry seems obnoxious, maybe you think Hermione is great, or are rooting for Ron, or enjoy Draco’s smarmy weak evil, or like Snape or McGonnagal.
(I think Neville’s character development - from the kid everyone made fun of and no one understood why he was in Hufflepuff to the guy who stands up to Voldemort - is my personal favorite).
The world is sort of lousy - quidditch is stupid and time turners would solve so many issues but are used to get a thirteen year old girl to class? - but if Tolkein is great at world building, his use of language is stilted. Rowling’s isn’t.
I have a feeling that it’s because it was accessible fantasy set in a world that isn’t that fantastic when you get right down to it. Something kids can read, and something that adults who aren’t big readers, or big fans of fantasy can read and not feel overwhelmed by the large cast of characters, etc… It seems to be mundane things made fantastic- a wizarding bank, for example.
Contrast this with say… Tolkien’s Middle Earth, where the parallels with our world are allegorical and/or obscure; the Rohirrim speaking Old English, for example. Plus there’s a bunch of weird-sounding stuff, and references to the distant past that probably just serve to confuse the less strong readers among us.
And other authors are even worse; look at the difficulty people have with Martin’s “Saga of Ice and Fire” books, yet they’ll happily watch and enjoy a skeletal version of the same stories on television with far fewer characters and far less world-building.
There was also a sort of sea change in terms of the acceptability of science fiction and fantasy shortly after the turn of the millennium as well- things that were previously thought of as geeky and nerdy were suddenly acceptable, and shows about them were not only no longer struggling like they once did, but solid hits (e.g. Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, the LOTR series, the first Harry Potter movie, etc…). I’m not sure if that’s a cause or an effect of the Harry Potter book popularity however.
It was probably the right series to capitalize on the right time- had those books been released starting in say… 1989, I doubt they’d be the phenomenon they are, and if they were released today, they’d be competing with a lot more YA sci-fi/fantasy than when they were actually released.
I’ve never read Twilight, but my sister described it in the same terms you did. She said she couldn’t put the book down, in the sense of, “How much worse can this get?”
It is rare for books to appeal to kids and adults alike. They’re kid’s books that adults enjoy as well. In that sense, the series is unique in recent history.
I might be one of the few who liked how the time turner was used. I liked that it was just used as a tool and not misused and someone accidentally killed their past self or created a paradox or anything, I thought it was a clever use of time travel by Rowling. It does make me curious about what else the Ministry of Magic would authorize the use of time travel for. There are quibbles I have with how the world is built but the time turners don’t bother me.
I wasn’t saying you liked Snape because of the movies, just saying that’s mainly my impression of the character is from the movies, since in the books so he hasn’t made much of an impression. That makes more sense that he’s developed more in the later books, I look forward to that. I still don’t know if I’d think of him as a villain since I know he’s a double agent, but I’ll read on.
I guess I just fell into the gap of too old to read them as a child but too young to read them as a parent with a child. And people my age who did read them and loved them connected deeply with something that I’m not connecting with as deeply, but different people like different things.
I’ve read some other YA books as an adult and liked them more. I read each of the Hunger Games books in hardly any time and really liked those. But you’re right with the Harry Potter books not being the best for a book club, but I think it was more of a lowest common denominator thing that most everyone could agree to. I’m sure that many other books could have been suggested and then some people wouldn’t be interested or wouldn’t get around to reading it. If we get through Harry Potter and want to keep going, I’m not sure what we’ll do next.
This makes a lot of sense, that they are a good gateway to fantasy, with having enough fantastical elements and characters but without needing a glossary.
Also it would be interesting to trace the rise of geek culture, and how much Harry Potter benefited from that and how much Harry Potter contributed to it.
In British printings, it is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Rowling was convinced by the publisher to water down the title (and adjust the internal text) for Americans because the original title would not sell there – a choice she now regrets.
I was introduced to the series after the first 4 had came out. I disdained them as “children’s books”, but I started reading them and lo and behold devoured the first 4 books. Then stood in line at midnight for books 5, 6, and 7. There is just a wonderful charm about the books. Yes, they are fantasy, but more of a ‘just behind that wall’ type of fantasy that is easily relateable in a lot of ways. You can find yourself in the “big 3” characters or one of the 4 houses and then in the magical world that has been concocted by Rowling. And I think there was something in that world that appealed to kids as well as adults - as you had versions of the books with more ‘adult looking’ covers so people wouldn’t be embarrassed to read them on the train or something (no, really). I think also the progressing in the writing (in that the 1st few books seemed like they were written for an early teen, but then they got darker and more complicated as Harry grew up - as if the story was getting more adult as Harry was) was something that made the books even more alive and real. And there is some fantastic humor in the writing.
Anyways, I still enjoy the world. I want to go to the Harry Potter world in Universal and even dressed as a Ravenclaw for one of the days of DragonCon a few weeks back.
Part of the charm was what Thudlow Boink mentions - being part of a mass movement. Old, young, didn’t matter - all Harry Potter geeks together. Standing in line at midnight waiting for your copy of the latest installment, and having something to chat about with the fourteen year old in front of you and the thirty year old behind.
And personally, the fact that everyone in my family was/are HP geeks too. Every Sunday night was Family Night, where we interact with each other. And what we usually did was to take turns reading each book out loud to each other. And both the kids, and the wife, and me were all equally likely to say “OK - just one more chapter.”
I wish I could say precisely what made them so successful - if I could figure that out, and replicate and predict it, I would be a billionaire like JK Rowling.
Regards,
Shodan
I was thinking about it in the light of friends and acquaintances who happily read and discussed the Harry Potter books, but who somehow considered the Tolkien books either too hard or dense or something.
I do know that there was a sort of geek-culture sea change somewhere between about 2001-ish and 2008-ish; stuff that I was always vaguely embarrassed to admit to being involved in suddenly became mainstream, like science fiction, video games, comic books, etc… I’ve never quite been sure how to take it; plenty of people my own age (44 in a week) still consider most of that stuff pretty childish, but younger folks don’t.
I have a feeling that the Harry Potter books may have been something of a catalyst; maybe younger folks read them and watched the movies as children, and thereby developed something of a tolerance for that sort of fantasy/sci-fi stuff that us old farts who grew up reading distinctly non-fantastic young adult literature never did.
My daughter is a huge HP fan. What I find interesting is the number of blogs and Facebook pages dedicated to dissecting and theorizing about this scene or that scene. Even now, there are Tumblr discussions about why this or how come that or did you ever think this or has it occurred to you that.
She likes to share with me things she knows will upset me…like while Mrs. Weasley’s boggart showed her children dead as her biggest fear, it never showed either Fred or George dead, but both together. That’s because even Molly couldn’t comprehend one twin without the other.
For me, it’s a tale about a true life basic…love conquers all. Love is the greatest magic. Even Draco’s mother lied to Voldemort for love of her son.
I’m in the middle of the Dark Tower series now…I may have to go reread HP again.
Time Turners can’t change the timeline. What happened that day was what happened that day, they didn’t go back and make things better. There probably are ways you could use a Time Turner to solve some issues, but a lot fewer than a DeLorean or TARDIS can.