Pottery Shards, or thoughts on reading the latest Harry Potter book

Well, it was released to great expectation and kafuffle last weekend. I must admit there was a part of me that was quite jealous of the children who got to partake of a “Hogwarts Express” style trip in Sydney to collect their books. But I had decided that I would contain my soul in patience and wait until the fuss had died down a bit before purchasing our own copy and indulging. But my local library came through, and by Tuesday the family had a copy of “Order of the Phoenix” in our hot expectant hands. After the feeding frenzy of deciding who got to read it first, I got my turn on Thursday.
I enjoyed it, at the simple level of being a story that grabbed and wanted to be read until finished. Partly fuelled, no doubt, by the fuss and palaver about the gap between the last two books and the advertising excitement, but also because Harry Potter is in many ways a bit of an Everyman character and I wanted to find out what happened to him next.

One of the things that has bothered me somewhat in the various reviews I have read, is that there has been a sort of superciliousness with regards to “children’s” books that seems to be unable to cope with the idea that a child’s books could also be a “best seller”.

The language is limited: Well, yes it is. At the same time it is not too difficult for a reasonable competent young reader to deal with by themselves, or with a little help from an older child or parent. Having read some of the books that are considered ‘grown up best sellers’ I’m not too sure what the problem is, as some of them have equally simple language structures – they just talk about more grown up stuff.

The books are too big: Hey, these books are being read! Often by children who are not otherwise interested in reading books. Surely the size of the text is unimportant by comparison to the desire to read for pleasure, something that is far too often forgotten in this day of instant entertainment.

The other thing that has bothered me is that there are some people who try to block access to these stories on the basis that the books are evil. I have a real problem with this one.
Does this particular attitude come from the fact that the author has set her characters into a world where magic is a possibility, and calls people who are able to use this magic, “witches” and “wizards”. Is it because people who have been labelled ‘witches’ for the last few centuries are all supposed to be bad people who, it was claimed, worked to the detriment of society?
I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the reasons is that it is because this series of books is guilty of the one great sin … pointing out that people who are different can be good people too. That and the fact that the internal sense of ‘rightness’ (or right action, as the Buddhists call it) is not reliant on being intimidated into the characters by an outside force, but grows naturally from who and what these people are, which can be seen in how they behave.

I sometimes think that the biggest threat these books represent is that of encouraging the imagination of the youngsters who read them. Who wouldn’t want to be like Harry and at least be brave and courageous? To have friends like Ron and Hermione, or to be able to stand up to bullying adults like Lucius Malfoy or Lord Voldamort. Or even to recognise that grown ups can be small-minded and frightened too. These are not comfortable stories for those who are not sure in their own skulls about how they are behaving, or what it is they are believing.

It is not great literature, but I don’t think it was written to be “great literature”. It was written as a story to earn a cold woman some money to feed and care for her child. Good For Jo Rowlings! I would love to find a story like Harry Potter’s inside me, except that the biggest idea I get from the joy of these books is that I do have that sort of story inside of me. It is just that I am telling it in a different way. Which is just the way it should be.

Now I just have to wait for the next instalment of Harry’s story in a couple of year’s time! And, as I have observed before now, I really don’t like waiting for good things like this *sigh*