Anna Lowenstein

Do you remember the excitement every time a new Harry Potter book came out? All those weeks and months of anticipation, standing in the queue until midnight how long ago it all seems now. Its just not the same with the films. The sight of rapturous crowds packing Trafalgar Square for the final premire seemed, briefly, to revive some of the old magic but the truth is that nothing can match the anticipation with which we fans awaited the appearance of the final book. I would even say that the wait was part of the fun two, or even three, years for reflecting, rereading, analyzing, discussing, trying to see how the clues fitted together; then, the announcement of the new title and the date of publication; the preview of the cover on the Internet; all this added up to a prolonged build-up, climaxing in the moment when you could finally get your hands on the new book and immerse yourself in an adventure which was growing bigger and more dangerous with each succeeding volume. Many people complained about the hype which preceded the appearance of each new book. These complaints usually came from people who wouldnt dream of reading a fantasy novel themselves, and couldnt understand what all the fuss was about. They could only assume that the excessive enthusiasm of Harrys fans had been whipped up by a clever marketing campaign. But I myself discovered the books long before they became famous, and I didnt need any prodding from the PR people to know that I wanted to keep reading. I read the first book in the series after it was recommended to me by two different friends in the space of a few weeks, and I enjoyed it so much that as soon as I finished, I went out and bought the second one. A lot of people are disturbed by the fact that even adults enjoy the Harry Potter books. What was it about those books that so gripped me that having read the second one, I waited impatiently for the third one to come out, and then the fourth, the fifth? Theres no need to explain what the series is about: the whole world already knows that Harry Potter is a young wizard who goes to a school of magic. What is so striking about the books is their extraordinary realism, even though the subject matter is

fantastic. The matter-of-fact approach is so convincing that you can almost believe that Hogwarts School might really exist. Just look at this list, for instance, which Harry is sent when he first receives the invitation to enrol at the school: HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY Uniform First-year students will require: 1. Three sets of plain work robes (black) 2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear 3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar) 4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings) Please note that all pupils clothes should carry name tags Set Books All students should have a copy of each of the following: The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot A Beginners Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble Other Equipment 1 wand 1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) 1 set glass or crystal phials 1 telescope 1 set brass scales Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST-YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

This list is exactly like the ones my children used to bring me at the start of a new school year; the only unusual thing about it is that all the items on it are magical. Note the warning that all clothes should be labelled, the emphasis on the exact dimensions of the cauldron, and the concern that students should not bring more than one animal. The same could be said of the school itself. In many ways its a typical school: there are lessons and homework; there are the teachers, some popular, others less so; there are the friendships and enmities between students; and the swotty girl whos always got her hand up to give the teachers the correct answer. But at the same time this is a school full of ghosts, living portraits, wandering staircases, secrets rooms and other mysteries. The sequence of lessons and exams is based on the English system. My son, who happened to be doing his GCSEs at the time, loved the description of the exams in the fifth book, The Order of the Phoenix, which in atmosphere, if not in content, were exactly like the exams he was doing at school. So what do pupils learn at Hogwarts? Typical lessons might be how to mix magic potions or how to transform a matchstick into a needle (not easy at all, and by the end of the first lesson, Little Miss Know-it-all is the only one whos managed to give her match a slightly silvery sheen.) Harry himself doesnt stay stuck at eleven years old, like so many fictional heroes. The series follows his progress through the school; each book covers a full school year, starting during the summer holidays and ending when the students go back home the following July. Meanwhile Harry and his friends are growing and maturing. There are the first tentative stirrings of sexual awareness, the first jealousies, the typical torments of adolescence (Nobody cares about me), and in the case of Harrys friend Hermione, the first sparks of social engagement naturally, the society which she hopes to reform is the magical one. Hermione doesnt come from a magical background herself, so she is shocked to discover that wizarding households may be served by small creatures called house elves, who live in a relationship of feudal servitude with the families they care for. Being now fourteen years old, Hermione is moved to found the Society for

the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (S.P.E.W.), whose aim is to secure fair wages and working conditions for house-elves. Unfortunately, like so many social reformers, she find that the objects of her reforming zeal have no desire at all for her intervention: in fact theyre put out by her well-intentioned attempts to improve their situation. Oddly enough, the least convincing part of the novel is the part set in the non-magical world. Before he discovers his magic powers, Harry lives with his uncle and aunt, but his cartoonish Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley are far less believable than any of the characters he meets at Hogwarts. His uncle and aunt make him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, and in general treat their nephew in a way which in the real world would have the social workers pounding on their door. But Uncle Vernons excesses cannot be taken seriously, any more than the evil, cackling grannies and appalling headmistresses who inhabit Roald Dahls childrens novels. J.K. Rowling is an extraordinarily inventive writer. In any successful series, it is all too easy for a writer to keep on recycling the same ideas from one book to the next. In the Harry Potter series, while the basic framework does not change, new details are added all the time. In every book, Rowling introduces not only new spells, but whole new categories of spells, besides new magical implements, fantastic creatures and evil beings. The plot is as elaborately planned as in the best detective novels, with a network of interwoven threads and clues. Besides the plots of the individual books, there is the overall plot which holds the whole series together and, before the whole was revealed, kept the fans queuing up for the next episode. A minor detail in Book 4 turns out to be essential in Book 5; while a barely noticeable clue in Book 1 is only picked up in the seventh and final book of the series. This is why its important to read the books in the right order; its no use starting with the fourth book, any more than you would start with the fourth chapter of a novel. Rowling once told the Boston Globe that before she had finished the first book, she had already plotted the entire series. I can fully believe that. Can there be any other author who has managed to

develop an extremely complex plot over seventeen years of writing and seven books? The basic theme of the series is the classic battle of good versus evil. Harrys great enemy is the evil magician Voldemort, who has already killed his parents and is out to get him as well. Voldemorts master plan is to get rid of all members of the wizarding community who are not pure blood sound familiar? As Harry discovers though, the line between good and evil is not always clearly drawn. Particularly in the final book, The Deathly Hallows, Harry (and his readers) make several discoveries about the complexities of human nature. The man he had always looked up to and relied on turns out to have had his weaknesses; while on the other hand some of his enemies show that they are not outand-out villains. Many critics have argued that the later books are too long and could do with editing. In their view, Rowling became so famous that she could ignore any wise advice she might receive from her publishers. This is a modern obsession; the idea is that every word considered superfluous should be ruthlessly excised (Im sorry: that should read every superfluous word should be cut). Critics have complained, for instance, that the description of the Quidditch World Cup at the beginning of The Goblet of Fire (quidditch is a kind of basketball played on flying broomsticks) is too long, too slow, and doesnt contribute directly to the plot. These people are missing the point. They dont understand that just as 19th century readers were enthralled by six-page descriptions of mountains, forests and heaths, many readers enjoy these descriptions for their own sake. Harrys fans want to be part of that world of magic, they want to live there; and if that makes the book fifty pages longer, whats wrong with that? If youre enjoying a book, why should you wish it to be shorter? While no one would claim that Rowling is one of literatures great stylists, her books are witty and easy to read. And she does have a real talent for inventing names. Harry buys his schoolbooks and stationery (quills and parchment no ballpoints here) in a shop called Flourish and Blotts, while the younger witches and wizards thrill to the music of a group called The Weird Sisters. Harrys school is Hogwarts, while its sinister

Mittel-European counterpart is Durmstrang (think about it). In the wizarding world, non-magical folk are known as Muggles, a word with overtones of muddle and muggins its clear what the magical community thinks of the rest of us. And then there are the Squibs a Squib is someone born to a wizarding family, whose magical powers have somehow failed to take off. Not easy challenges for J.K. Rowlings numerous translators. A more serious criticism is voiced by A.S. Byatt, herself the author of major novels such as Possession and The Childrens Book. As she puts it, Ms. Rowlings magic world has no place for the numinous. She compares Harry Potter unfavourably with its predecessors, commenting that in those earlier works there was a real sense of mystery, powerful forces, dangerous creatures in dark forests in contrast to the bright, ordinary world created by Rowling. She may be right but the whole point of Rowlings books is that she presents the world of magic as a world which is as solidly realistic and as everyday as our own. Reading Harry Potter you can almost believe that if only you could lay your hands on the right textbook, you too could learn how to cast spells. In fact, J.K. Rowlings books belong to a different genre altogether. Her predecessors were not so much Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, as Thomas Hughes and Angela Brazil; in other words her books belong to the category known as the school story. In Hogwarts, Rowling recreates that upper-class world of dormitories and common rooms, inter-house rivalries and school matches, rules to break and secret expeditions through the school corridors after midnight. Most of us have as much chance of visiting a traditional British boarding school as we do of flying off to Neverland, but weve all been there through our reading. In spite of all this the Harry Potter books have their serious side. They explore a subject which is normally glossed over in childrens books: death. Even in the first book, which is the most light-hearted of the series, Harry discovers that his parents, whom he has never known, were killed by the evil wizard Voldemort. And with each book in the series, death comes closer. In the fourth book Voldemort murders one of Harrys schoolmates while Harry, shocked and helpless, looks on. Although Harry succeeds

in delaying Voldemorts comeback, the book closes in an atmosphere of fear and mourning with a speech in the dead boys memory. More killings follow in the succeeding books; each death is more shocking than the last, depriving Harry of precisely those people who helped and protected him, so that by the final book he has no one left to turn to but his closest friends, who are as inexperienced and frightened as he is. These are not the casual killings that can be seen in many films. These are the deaths of characters whom readers have come to know and care about over several books, and their deaths leave a genuine sense of loss. Rowling herself explained this in her 2001 Christmas interview with the BBC: If you are writing about evil, which I am, and if you are writing about someone whos, essentially, a psychopath you have a duty to show the real evil of taking human life. Victorian readers wept over Little Nell and Beth March, but as many of Harrys fans can testify, it was not only nineteenth-century readers who cried over the deaths of fictional characters. After losing his beloved godfather, Sirius, in The Order of the Phoenix, Harry appeals to one of the Hogwarts ghosts, Nearly Headless Nick. Who better than a ghost to tell him the secrets of what lies beyond? The ghosts response is disappointing. At first he is unwilling to discuss the subject at all, but in the end he reluctantly admits that he doesnt know. I was afraid of death said Nick softly. I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtnt to have well, that is neither here nor there in fact, I am neither here nor there He gave a small sad chuckle. I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead. A ghost who is afraid of dying: a typically original idea from Rowling. The afterlife, as portrayed by the author of Harry Potter, is of that comforting variety where you meet everyone youve ever loved. One could criticize Rowling for offering children this sweetened view of death which, by the way, is no different from the equally saccharine version offered by C.S. Lewis in his Narnia series, which A.S. Byatt compares favourably with Harry Potter. However, Rowlings afterlife belongs to the imaginary world she has created: a fantastic world, with a fantastic afterlife to match.

And in fact, there is nothing but that afterlife to give Harry strength as he faces death in one book after the other, particularly in the final book, The Deathly Hallows, when he has to But I dont want to spoil the story. All I will say is that it was worth reading the other six books to get there.

This is a revised and updated version of the essay Harry Potter magio, ne merkato which first appeared in Beletra Almanako No. 4 (February 2009). Anna Lowenstein is the author of two novels in the international language Esperanto: La tona urbo and Morto de artisto. Click on the following links for more information: http://esperanto-usa.org/retbutiko/index.php? main_page=product_info&cPath=20_250&products_id=16270 http://www.esperanto.be/fel/but/lib/marti.php

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