Not everyone a fan of Harry Potter

I know what you’re thinking: "Another post about Harry Potter?" Yeah, I know. To be honest, now that the final book is out, I promise this will be one of the last Potter posts for a long while.

Whenever a series as popular as Harry Potter hits the reading public, there is bound to be criticism. Not everyone will be a fan – that’s to be expected. But in the case of the Potter series, I haven’t read a lot of criticism at all. Maybe I’m just not paying attention. Maybe I’m reading all the wrong newspapers, magazines and websites. I really don’t know why, but heavy Potter criticism doesn’t seem to be out there.

One thing I have really been interested in, is knowing what academics think of Harry Potter. I’m talking about literary theorists and old grouchy college literature professors. I finally got my wish the other day in my email inbox in one of my many Google Alerts I receive regarding literature.

The article came from an unlikely source: The Hindu Online, India’s national newspaper. This would be the last place that I’d look for information regarding criticism of Harry Potter. Nevertheless, the article brings out some good points about the popular series, and about children’s literature in general:

Less than a year later, the debate went on Full Heat. Rowling’s supporters argued that the books had electrified children into reading, and that anybody who managed that stupendous feat deserved the encouragement of every right-thinking individual. That theory has been somewhat bruised by a 2007 study, which found that rather than reading more of everything, children were simply reading more of Harry Potter — not quite the universal electrification the literati were looking for.

Indeed, I have written about that study in an earlier post. The study, from what I can remember, concludes that yes the Potter series gets children to read Potter books, but not much beyond that. Once these kids reach a certain age, most books hold little interest for them. I tend to feel that anytime kids are reading, it’s probably a good thing – no matter how short lived the phenomena might be. It’s all about planting little seeds in young minds that, yes, reading can be fun. But I digress. The article continues:

But even earlier, there were more thundering criticisms. A.S. Byatt called Rowling’s universe "a secondary secondary world," tiresomely derivative, and charged that our modern tendency to substitute "celebrity for heroism" fed the Potter phenomenon. Harold Bloom, Yale’s ever-caustic literary academic, called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone severely cliché-ridden and compared it — very unfavourably — to the literature of Stephen King.

In other words, the article appears to be saying here, that Rowling made Harry Potter and the world that surrounds him for the sake of entertainment and to appeal to the masses. And, living in an age where people are ready to pounce on the next big thing, the general reading public ate up Harry Potter with a golden spoon. Rowling just fed people what they wanted. Bloom then offers this:

Even more dramatically, Bloom dismissed the trumpets of the Potter-inspired reading revolution. "Why read, if what you read will not enrich mind or spirit or personality?" he wrote, in a column in The Wall Street Journal in July 2000. Later in the same column, he concluded: "Can more than 35 million book buyers, and their offspring, be wrong? Yes, they have been, and will continue to be for as long as they persevere with Potter."

Let me first admit that I admire Harold Bloom. Some of his theories about literature and his readings of the classics are very genius. But here, I think he misses the mark. Why? Because I think anytime you’re reading something, and it forces you to use your imagination to "live" in the world of the book you’re reading, then it will be an enriching experience. Reading, unlike television and movies, requires an active imagination – and that can’t be faked – no matter how much commercialism or the number of cliches that pepper a book’s pages.

I do agree, however, that the mass of people (sometimes referred to as the Collective) can be wrong. Just look at some of the morons elected into public office. Look at the American Idol craze. The amount of trash the public can  be fed, and willingly consume, is nothing but amazing to me. Harry Potter has been so saturated into our lives by clever marketing that people are just eating up whatever these corporations feed them (yes, I said corporations as Rowling probably has little to do with the marketing and promotion of her books).

I think what Harold Bloom and a lot of other academics are protesting is the obvious, overt commercialism of books like Harry Potter. One can argue that the books are more a product of fancy marketing than products of a creative mind. They’re protesting the fact that for-profit corporations are deciding what constitutes "good literature", not seasoned critics and a well-read public. Decisions are being made based on the bottom line.

Where do I stand on this issue? Well, I have yet to read one Harry Potter book, so I’m trying to stay as neutral as possible. My reason for not reading the books have nothing to do with being a "literature snob" or being "above" the series. Rather, I just have no interest in the books. I find the public reaction to the Harry Potter craze much more interesting. And I’ll be interested to see when the next Potter-like craze hits the layman reading world.

You can read the entire article here:
Potter Mania

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