apology to harry potter

Last week I was up past 3:00 a.m. one night finishing the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We have been listening to the audio books for the last month and a half (Abby listened to them and I heard what I could and was filled in on the rest). We didn't have the last one available to us on CD so we had to experience it the old fashioned way, by reading it.

It is no secret that I tried to read the first book and stopped 100 pages into it because I didn't like it. But as I listened to more of the stories I realized that many of the reasons I didn't like the first book (I wasn't all that into the 2nd one either), were unfounded in some ways. The magic seemed quite arbitrary to me, but it turns out that there is a respectable complex system that accounts for the magic. I also thought that the stories were over-explained with what appeared to be self-indulgent and arbitrary world building. Well, I was mostly wrong, about that as well. Almost everything she describes, especially in the later books, matters to the particular book or the overarching story.

Originally I was also frustrated with the genre she was working in. I was used to Lewis and Tolkien where their fantastic/mythological realms were removed from the present day context. Lewis's kids were present day, but the context of the story was in distant land with an older culture. Both Lewis and Tolkien had connections and applications to England, Lewis explicitly via analogy, and Tolkien implicitly via historical/mythological/cultural/and language connection. But Rowling's world, while having some analogical and mythological connection to England, takes place in modern England. The connection is immediate. This approach isn't typical of good fantasy. It is a credit to her skill that she was able to not only get away with it, but succeed tremendously.

Another thing that impressed me about her story had to do with its comparison to The Lord of the Rings. There are several significant and striking parallels between Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. That itself isn't what impressed me. But it was that these connections didn't strike out at the reader. The thematic connections are potent but the connections don't embarrass the story. In other words, I didn't notice the connections in a way that made me think she was ripping off the master. The Harry Potter story, as similar as it is to Frodo's, was also uniquely Harry Potter's. The connections, instead of inciting anger, made me excited. This is no small task.

One of Tolkien's goals was to create a work that would attest to and fill in a void he saw in his culture's history. He was creating a myth for England with all that that entails. He captures the personality and character of his people and casts it into story. The story promotes, preserves and instills these personality and character traits into the people who make the story their own. Rowling gets credit here too. In a different way altogether she makes a place for magic and myth in the world. Like Tolkien there is a history, the existence of what she creates is established by history. If comparison's were made Tolkien's history outshines and out-reaches Rowlings by leagues, but Tolkien defeats all on this account and Rowling does well and needs not hang her head. Rowling’s story isn't only situated well in the larger story of the English history she recreates, her story becomes essential for the life of that world. She makes her story matter to us and to all humanity. She gives us a story that brings the whole world (Western) and its history together in one story. And, like Tolkien, she promotes values and character traits in such a way that they are shown to be right and necessary for the sake of all history. It is more than the actions that secures the victory, it is the stuff of the characters that secures it. The step by step character struggles determine the outcome. In order to establish what I mean I offer the contrast of most action adventure movies where the character struggle usually is reduced to one or two moments, usually near the beginning where they make a decision to do something and spend the rest of the plot doing it. And/or they have a side character plot that resolves at the end but doesn't have much to do with the main plot. In both Tolkien and Rowling's works the character struggle is rightly married to the physical plot. This is the kind of thing that makes stories matter. It elevates certain character traits, values, and motivations to a place of necessity for all humanity. These stories speak to who we are and who we long to be. They shape us and direct us. This is myth, and Rowling gets her due credit for adding to it and adding to it well. The character, values, and motivations she promotes are worthy of promotion.

This post is meant to show my appreciation for Rowling's story and to make amends for some of the criticism I have given it in the past. I still have a few critiques, but they are mostly inconsequential and wouldn't be sporting to mention here and now. If you haven't read it, do so, or listen to the cds. The first two movies do a pretty good job of getting what matters but the rest are missing a lot of good stuff.