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Growing up in Hogwarts
or: Why everyone’s wild about Harry
By Bob DeFrank
(novelist and reviewer)
It’s been a long time coming.
Do you remember getting that first letter via owl carrier? The shivers of anticipation as you stood on Platform Nine and Three Quarters with your bags packed, awaiting the Hogwarts Express? The feel of a wand in your hand? The sickly smell of a bezoar? The late nights spent preparing for O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S. until you could wish for a Pensieve to clear out some excess memories and make room for more wizarding lore? The wild times spent cheering yourself hoarse during a Quidditch match? The flash of the Golden Snitch zipping over the playing field?
Chances are you’ll never forget them.
The first crop of graduates from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have steered their broomsticks off into the wide world. It’s been close to 10 years since “Sorcerer’s Stone” hit the shelves and J.K. Rowling’s bespectacled, lightning-scared young wizard became a household and Hollywood name.
Many a young Muggle child has grown up quite literally alongside Harry Potter. They’ve stood in his shoes while he’s experienced joy and loss and learned that the world is rarely as simple as they’d like it and never written in black and white. Like Harry, they have learned that even the wisest and best of adults can make mistakes. They’ve learned the value of seeing people, not races, creeds or other labels, and they’ve learned the importance of always staying true to their friends.
What kid wouldn’t empathize with Harry’s awkwardness and the confused adolescent turmoil of exchanging innocence for experience? Who hasn’t shared his frustration in attempting to relate to the opposite sex? Who hasn’t felt his trepidations on taking on important, adult responsibilities and his fear of letting down those who trust him?
What adult wouldn’t find his or her own mind turning back to those childhood rites of passage on reading the books?
That, I think, is one of the pillars of Rowling’s success.
Put aside for a moment Rowling’s writing skills, her deft use of folklore in a tried and true storyline, the clever wordplay in naming characters, the sheer marketability of a series in which anything could be made into a toy, game, costume or other product, and the controversy that only served to increase publicity and sales. The core appeal of Harry Potter, in my own humble opinion, is the concept of a journey shared by reader, writer and character.
It was a process on both sides. Young readers matured while Rowling has likewise stretched her creative wings and kept pace with their concerns. Children did not outgrow Harry Potter. Harry grew up along with them.
How did she come up with this formula? Was it a conscious process? Was it intuitive? A combination of the two? I can’t say, but one thing’s certain: she’s produced the world’s new Star Wars (let’s just hope she never decides to make a “Harry Potter special edition” twenty years hence – sorry, the cynic in me had to say it) I aw ample evidence of this in the crowds who gathered in bookstores across the world to greet volume seven – often in full witch and wizard regalia and accompanied by younger siblings new to the phenomena and parents and elders who likewise found themselves in love with the Potter gang and their adventures.
Rowling’s work taps into the greatest magic of all: childhood, when everything is new and every new thing is wonderful.
She then takes readers through the entire process of childhood, complete with victories, disappointments, and tragedies.
In short, the story will stick with its readers long after the final page.
And how likely is it that our Hogwarts alumni will introduce Harry to their own children when the time comes round? I’d say very.
A benevolent new meme is flourishing in the zeitgeist. Like Narnia and Middle Earth, Hogwarts will remain a place for children to play and adults to revisit, and to see their own impressions shining from their children’s faces, for generations to come.
Harry Potter is here to stay.
Disclaimer
As of writing and posting this article, I have not finished “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Unforgivable, I know, but it’s been a hectic week and I didn’t have time to read the whole thing through before writing this (I’ve already had to wait a week). Anyone who responds, please do not spoil the ending for me.
This article may be updated and revised after I’ve finished “Hallows.”Bob DeFrank July 2007
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