A Lament for the End of an Era: Potter Is Concluded

I just started the new Harry Potter about 100 minutes ago. I’m 134 pages in and the second act has just started with a bang.

It is safe to say I will be buried in my book for the remainder of my Saturday. I took my nephew and brother to the midnight release party with some 4,000 or so Pottermaniacs at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens last night. It was nice to mark the beginning of the end with a ceremony of likeminded freaks.

The kid and kin only took their leave shortly afore 1 this afternoon, so I’m a little late delving into the deeds of Potter and his “lot”. I’m on it like Oprah on a ham, though.

In 1998 I was a bookseller who read an advance reader’s copy of the little book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone about two weeks before the book arrived to our shelves. Without being able to explain it, I fell in love with the little wizard boy. I was sad that it’d be a half decade before my nephew would appreciate the story, as I knew we’d enjoy living the adventures of the boy wizard, and I tried to convince my friends it was a book they’d all be smitten with. To no avail, of course.

Finally, after two more books were released, I’d convinced all my friends that my taste, as always, was superb. Even my nephew required convincing, though. At 10 years old, just over a year ago, he dismissed the books by saying the movies had to be better. I used the “but there’s more in the books” argument, which didn’t hold water.

As stubborn as I am, though, I didn’t relent. I sat by the obnoxious kid’s side and read the first Potter book aloud to him while he played World of Warcraft on the computer. I am, I assure you, a highly dramatic reader when it comes to just such a book.

A couple hours later and I hit page 110, and as the pages and moments passed, I noticed the game volume had gradually been lowered and lowered until it was turned completely off. His gameplaying slowed to a crawl, with “pause” repeatedly being put into use. It seems I had finally convinced him that the books could hold their own. He was rapt.

Three weeks later, a message on my answering machine. “Wow, auntie. Book four is so cool! I’m going to finish it tomorrow! When can I borrow book five?”

My nephew, faced with rain and a dreary night after a long day, tried to beg off the book release party last night at about 8:30. “We can get it tomorrow,” he said.

I argued the only argument I really believe applied — that Harry Potter hype, while apparently over some seemingly insignificant little wizard boy in a cutesy make-belief world existing within our own, wasn’t just about that. He, or rather the franchise, is something that, for this short month filled with a movie release and now the last book — the single most anticipated novel of all time — inexplicably bonds a majority of people together. For once in a very long while, a good many of us have this in common. It’s a moment of commonality, community, and shared excitement in a world that is becoming increasingly less communal, thanks to the invention of personal stereos, cellphones, laptops, and millions of other gadgets that are designed to distract us from ourselves and ultimately from communing with others. With the arrival of things like Facebook we have the illusion of being connected to others, but therein lies the illusion. We’re still seated on our ownsome in front of a screen.

But, today, a good many of us are one thing — Potter fans. Readers hoping for the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

It’s too bad it’s the end of an era. It was great while it lasted. And, ironically, we all finally enjoy the Potter series finale’s phenomena all on our ownsome. Funny how it all works.

It’s 3:00. I can justify a glass of wine in my bath with my book!

11 thoughts on “A Lament for the End of an Era: Potter Is Concluded

  1. Anonymous

    If this franchise, as you properly put it, has produced the “most anticipated novel of all time” (a bit of hyperbole, don’t you think?), then the novel has indeed died.

  2. Anonymous

    Previous poster, don’t be so pompous. It’s a great series of books and it’s started millions of kids reading. JK Rowling had the story all worked out from the beginning and it shows, she may not always be the greatest writer but her flair, imagination and characters make up for that. Films, games etc are just a measure of success, they don’t detract from the books themselves.
    I finished reading at 2am this morning, my husband is now reading it and I can’t wait for him to finish so that i can have it back to read through a second time at a slightly more sedate pace. I hope you enjoyed it, Steff.

    Sam

  3. Scribe Called Steff

    Anon 1, you’re a pretentious bore. What, you’d rather lineups for the latest Jose Saramago fare? People should be at doors at midnight only if the Booker Prize Committee have given a thumbs up to a tome?

    Fuck, dude. Yes, it’s a commercial book. It’s still enjoyable. Get over yourself and live a little, twit.

    Anon 2, I finished it this morning after passing out some 40 pages from the end. Sigh. Great stuff. đŸ™‚

    And, Anon 1, as a writer, JK Rowling is easily one of the most skilled plotters I have ever had the privilege of reading. As far as mythology goes, Joseph Campbell probably would’ve loved sharing a fine bottle of wine and an evening’s conversation with Rowling. So, put a cork in your whine.

  4. Anonymous

    The uncorked whine continues:

    “More than half the adults in this country won’t pick up a novel this year, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. Not one. And the rate of decline has almost tripled in the past decade.”

    “[B]efore I can suggest what one might learn from reading a good novel, they pop the question about The Boy Who Lived: “How do you like ‘Harry Potter’?”

    Of course, it’s not really a question anymore, is it? In the current state of Potter mania, it’s an invitation to recite the loyalty oath. And you’d better answer correctly. Start carrying on like Moaning Myrtle about the repetitive plots, the static characters, the pedestrian prose, the wit-free tone, the derivative themes, and you’ll wish you had your invisibility cloak handy. Besides, from anyone who hasn’t sold the 325 million copies that Rowling has, such complaints smack of Bertie Bott’s beans, sour-grapes flavor.

    Shouldn’t we just enjoy the $4 billion party? Millions of adults and children are reading! We keep hearing that “Harry Potter” is the gateway drug that’s luring a reluctant populace back into bookstores and libraries. Even teenage boys — Wii-addicted, MySpace-enslaved boys! — are reading again, and if that’s not magic, what is?”

    “Data from the NEA point to a dramatic and accelerating decline in the number of young people reading fiction. Despite their enthusiasm for books in grade school, by high school, most kids are not reading for pleasure at all.”

    “Since Harry Potter first Apparated into our lives a decade ago, the number of stand-alone book sections in major metropolitan newspapers has decreased by half — silencing critical voices that once helped a wide variety of authors around the country get noticed.”

    From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301730.html?referrer=emailarticle

    What’s fascinating is that, upon the introduction of any critique of the Harry Potter series, the “Loyalty Oath” does indeed bare it’s teeth, as evidenced by the posts above.
    Perhaps we should step back from the franchise, look at the data, really see if the phenomenon is making kids and adults read more, and wait just one second before anointing Rowling.

    And back to Steff, I’m a bit disappointed in your ad hominem “pretentious bore” comment. I’m a long-time readers of yours blogs and I have to say I’ve rarely, if ever seen an attack like that; it seems to reveal your defensiveness about this book series. You are a very talented writer: is it perhaps, because you’re not willing to answer here with a good conscience, that the attack is answering.

    And no, I’m not calling for the reading, exclusively, of so-called “classic novels.” As a teacher–guess the subjects: english, literature, etc.–I’m more than happy to use every and any availible text to encourage students to read well and engage in critical thinking (obviously I’m teaching the 18+ crowd).

    On the other hand, while no doubt Campbell would have enjoyed an evening with Rowling, there is a far difference between Campbell enjoying an evening with someone (which he would have done, and did, with anyone who was intelligent), and that conversation occurring as an indication of an author’s skill. You’re arguing, basically, that Campbell only had good conversations with skilled writers.

    See the loyalty oath coming out?

    By “death of the novel” I mean, as is indicated at the end of the op-ed quoted above, the commercialization and production of the novel as “commodity” has completely squeezed out other authors, to the denigration of fiction. The Potter series, then, is what has killed the novel; it is the perfect combination of franchise and unthinking loyalty to a book–with seemingly no follow-up in future reading–that kills other authors and diversity in fiction.

    And it is indeed hyperbole to say it was the most anticipated novel of all time. Most hyped, regardless of it’s quality–sure. Most successfully advertised–sure.

    But think of the authors throughout time–say since Cervantes, but really in the past 150 years–who had reading audiences waiting for their next book as well? Not to mention serial fiction, making it’s heyday in the late 19th century through the early 20th?

    I’m not “a hater,” “pompous,” or “pretentious.” I’ve read all the books save the last, which I will be doing soon, as I have repeatedly tried to use the text in my courses (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much–including college-age and adult-ed). But what is so important–and so rare nowadays (and Steff, this is one of your greatest skills)–is critical thinking, the ability to step back and take an honest, real look at an phenomenon before, in this case, selling in to it.

    But I do appreciate the comments: they made me think–and write–more than I had initially thought about this topic, and generated a good amount of material for my future classes. Indeed, I wish only this could have been a discussion, instead of a name-calling session.

  5. Anonymous

    Correction: “You are a very talented writer: is it perhaps, because you’re not willing to answer here with a good conscience, that the attack is answering.”

    Last word should be “revealing.”

    And lest this return to an attack-fest, to fend off the obvious “Oh, you’re a college prof in the ivory tower, of course you can’t get over yourself,” believe it or not, there are quite a few of us who must visit the tower to do what we love–teach–but do not live there.

    And we are, to paraphrase–quite over ourselves.

  6. Scribe Called Steff

    Anon — You’re right, it was indeed a bit childish and pointed to do a name calling and nothing more.

    I do that from time to time. Imperfect, etc. Oh well.

    When someone does a one-line comment to the effect of “the novel is dead” after I’ve sung the praises about something, that can read just as petty as the comment I made back, so… yes, I reacted in the same boat.

    ***

    I was working in a bookstore that went bankrupt thanks to a myriad of different reasons. One year they one the best independent bookseller chain award in Canada, the next year they lost everything but one location.

    I’ve seen the ugly side of what chain stores do, and I know the downsides to having just one megapopular book.

    I think the novel was dead before Harry Potter came on the scene. I think HP has, though, inspired SOME of its readers to look beyond just the one series. My nephew, for instance, never read at all before I forced him to listen to 110 pages while he played his games. Now, he reads a wide variety of books.

    Is he par for the course with the average Potter reader? No. Most kids I know do read more now, though.

    I still don’t think that any other novel has ever had this amount of excitement preceeding its release — and that’s including Dickens who was brilliant at creating a market for his serialized novels. Why do I say that? Because it’s a different world — it’s a world where stores can be open at midnight, books can be sold around the world simultaneously, et al. It’s a different KIND of market. Does that make it a better book because it’s so well anticipated? No. It is what it is. Yes, it’s hype too. Still, when you have the whole world talking about one book, it’s still talking about a book. I don’t see that as a bad thing.

    I’m not anti-teacher or white-tower. Academics are fine.

    I just get tired of having to defend the fact that I like a book that IS fun, well-written, and entertaining. I liked it LONG before the masses caught on, and I’ll like it for the remaining years of my life. Why? It’s fun! Well-written! Why not?

    Is it god’s gift to literature? NO.

    And it doesn’t have to be.

    Should people read more? Fucking right they should. Do I read much any more? No! Should I? Yes! Why don’t I? I have no clue. Something happened somewhere along the line where I just grew tired of reading, and now I seldom do much of it these days. It’s something I seek to change, and I’m personally hoping this relaxing weekend I spent with my nose buried in a silly, fun, hopping little read might just kickstart me to delve into some more.

    You know, I’ve been broke off my ass the last couple years and I hate borrowing library books — I’m very possessive of my books, so perhaps not being able to buy them limited reading’s appeal, and maybe all the stress I had kept me from wanting to sit in silence with a book… TV’s a creature bent on distracting us. It’s too easy. Funnily enough, I’d been thinking the last couple of weeks to use my week off at the end of August to decorate my place and make it even more of a chill pad so that I can read. I even set up my lighting to make reading more comfortable of late.

    Maybe it’ll be the start of a book-loving era for me once again.

    But the rest of the world? Who knows. Potter introduced reading to a lot of kids. I suspect we’ll see dividends on that end in the years to come.

    So, should I have labelled you as a bore? No, probably not. My apologies, but you left me with nothing to go on.

    Bookstores were dying BEFORE Harry Potter came along. He’s had fuck all to do with the downsizing of the bookshelves. It’s large box stores that are the problem, and the death of independent booksellers. That’s been the case for 20 years. HP, if anything, delayed the death knell for many.

    Some, I suspect, would rather blame the Potter enterprise than admit that the blame belongs on Borders, Barnes & Nobles, and Chapters, and more, where they’d rather overfill the shelves with books destined to sell than make themselves hotbeds of variety.

    Just sayin.

  7. Scribe Called Steff

    PS: I strongly believe we are in a period of flux where ALL media and ALL art is on the verge of changing like it has never done before. This electronic media is going to alter how all art reaches the public, and the record industry & book industry are reeling first, but everyone else will soon follow.

    Everything’s changing. I think the internet will aid books. I don’t know what will happen to bookstores, though. I suspect we would be lucky if the appeal of independent bookstores and the musty smell of knowledge and binding never fades away, and always happens to be somewhere around the corner.

    I just don’t think it’s likely. I don’t know what to expect from the years to come. It’s a strange future we face.

  8. D.P.

    Formerly anonymous, now using my Blogger ID:

    Steff:

    Agreed, and very nicely said. And yes, my one-liner was a bit snarky. It’s a bad habit from having read so much Nietzsche: the great writers pen beautiful aphorisms; the average and mediocre pen snarky one-liners. I am quite the latter.

    I actually wasn’t fearing an Ivory Tower comment from you, as I’ve been reading your blogs for so long, I had a feeling you wouldn’t take that route. I was, however, expecting the usual Ivory Tower/Academe attack from elsewhere. They grow tiresome, as we actually teach in that tower, and many of us are there for that alone.

    I do think that the Potter series has aided in keeping many of those big-box stores open (that is, keeping both individual outlets and the franchises themselves; B and N was on the ropes until it went online like Borders did with Amazon). I think–and we seem to agree on this–that internet booksellers are also unfortunately killing independent bookstores.

    On the positive side (and it feels odd to say this), I’d take Amazon or B and N on the net over an actual big-boxed store any day–the online store provides that diversity that has died in the physical stores. Plus, as with all big-box stores–Borders, B and N, etc.–they destroy the local economy, in this case local booksellers.

    The shame is the loss of the physical space of an independent store. One of the things I love about Pittsburgh (and there are a few, just a few), is that independent bookstores still survive here, in certain sections of town (pretty much between the colleges: Pitt, CMU, Duquesne, Robert Morris, Allegheny, etc.). And they’re wonderful places, with a great “feel.” It’s like losing a nice coffeehouse to Starbucks.

    A good topic, though, as it led to this interesting discussion.

    P.S. And on your last comment, I can speak from personal experience that the internet has changed things radically in just a few years. I now provide close to half my reading material on a class website in .pdf format. I’ve taught reading-intensive courses on the net (very strange, but doable).
    We don’t know where it’s going, and we can’t honestly say yet if the direction (even if there is a single direction) is a good one).

  9. Scribe Called Steff

    Yeah, the new media’s pretty interesting. In some regards, it’s allowing lazy writers like me who might never have the motivation to pursue the hard road one needs to walk upon in order to become financially viable a bit of an easier pass at the trade.

    It’s also allowing those writers who’d never have a chance of selling copies in stores a way of selling themselves to a market that can now find THEM more readily online, et al. So, for that alone, the internet is helping to breathe new life into one of our most venerable artforms.

    But, me, I think that if your bookstore has space for merchandise that is not book-related, then it is NOT a bookstore. It’s a time-passing/novelty store. I’m sick and fucking tired of people going to Chapters/Indigo here in Canada and claiming they’ve gone “to the bookstore”. No. Chapters sells select titles. They’re a mockery of all things literary. Duthies, there’s a bookstore for my town, Vancouver, where I’m proud I worked a spell. They sell books. Anything else they sell also has words.

    Bookstores, the good ones, served as a place to go and lose one’s self among the written form. Scads of ideas and notions and approaches — one could meander and lose their way into a thousand different literary paths, and walk out with something they’d never thought they’d pursue. Now the internet allows us to lose ourselves and experiment with literature… and for free, really.

    Everything’s changing. It’s strange to be 33 in this time and age, the last watch of the old guard and the first of the new. My crew, the 28-38 year olds, blew the recording industry’s doors off with Napster, and we’re old enough to have sunk our savings in mammoth CD collections before the onslaught of the digital age.

    It’s a weird fucking time for the arts, but I strongly believe that as much as the monetary aspect of the arts needs to be hammered out anew, the product that will be created will be more accessible and more representative of our society at large than it has ever been before… we could very well be on the verge of an odd new Renaissance in that people can excel at more arts more readily than ever. Whether it’ll be anywhere on par as the skillful renditions churned out in the last few centuries is a whole ‘nother argument, but at least the creative process is alive and well.

    (PS: Most of my anti-academic loathing re: Potter comes from the fact that most of the people yelling that it’s commercial pulp and the novel is dead, et al, have never condescended to read the book, and they’re failing to grasp the number one thing that most people, like myself, are stating: They’re FUN. It’s not about literary brilliance, though some might claim that it is (and they’re a little off their rockers), but I’ll still wager that more than 100 or 200 years ago, Potter will STILL have a home in the pantheon of childhood literary greats, because it’s more fun than most other childhood literary treats, ‘cept where Dahl and Carroll are concerned, perhaps.)

  10. ringleader

    I love literature, I read all the time, but damn if I was too bored to read what was posted above.

    I could do no more than skim the arguments pausing every nanosecond to stop my eyes from crossing.

    The literati forget that a novel is supposed to be enjoyable, supposed to transport the reader to a different world and live the description as if they were physically there.

    You get to wave the wand and kill the bad guy from the safety of your own bedroom.

    You get to save the world from a threat that you alone in the Muggle world are privy to.

    From mythology to morality, Rowling presents it in a fascination manner that gets the point across without being too subtle or too hard-handed.

    That’s why Harry Potter is so popular. It’s accessible, but doesn’t dumb it down so much that it puts people off.

    If it was hashish, it would be labelled as a gateway drug leading kids to wanting much harder hits.

    Oh, and as I’m in Ireland, we got it in 1991 when it was first published across the water in the UK. A print run of only 500 books.

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