It's impossible to overstate the impact of Harry Potter on the past ten years of world bookselling. As a bookseller in the mid-80s, I never imagined numbers like this could even be possible: 8.3 million copies of "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows" in the first 24 hours of US sales, with another 2.7 million in the UK. In the first hour, my former peeps at Barnes & Noble alone sold 156 copies per second! Here in the world of media, we know better than anyone that there's no connection whatsoever between popularity and quality (insert snarky pop-culture reference here). But here's the thing: I think it's almost impossible to overstate how good this series is, the latest installment in particular.
Not that everyone agrees. The American Library Association noted during their Banned Books week last September that the books in Harry Potter series are the most frequently challenged in the 21st century.
They've also been subject to the largest bookburnings in American history, with one particular conflagration of 1.5 million copies all by itself. (Feel free to find your own link. None from me, though.) Of course, these geniuses included as part of their grounds that our boy Harry killed his parents with a butcher knife. Harry didn't kill them, there's no knife involved in their deaths. In fact, not a single butcher knife anywhere in the thousands of pages in the series.
Grrrrrrr.....
Okay, with THAT out of the way, I'm still astounded by how much I enjoyed this series. I'm a pokey reader, and have the attention span of a gnat. Yet the 756 pages flew by, a literal page-turner. Like the best so-called children's novels, their appeal is hardly limited to children. As entertaining as they are, they can also be dark and violent, playing out themes of war motivated by racial intolerance, class conflicts, political intrigue, a malicious press, the horrors (okay, and the rewards) of school, deep personal loss, and the power of friends and family connection to transcend them all.
Oh yeah, and a sense of fantasy, magic, wit, and childlike wonder.
And as with many of the great children's novels, they're not anywhere near appropriate for all ages. The author, J. K. Rowling, recommends that kids not even be exposed to them before 6, and read only WITH kids until 9 or 10, which is what she did with her own kids.
I'm far from alone among well-read adults who feel that this series already stands alongside King Arthur, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia and other heroic epics.
That link, above, to Metacritic? One of the sites I check a couple of times a week. It's also rotated in and out of my home page. Here are some of the quotes that jumped out at me:
Los Angeles Times: What Rowling has achieved in this book and the series can be described only as astonishing.
Chicago Tribune: This is a deeply engaging book, filled with love and loss, with crackling action and almost unbearable heartbreak.
Washington Post: I cried at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's that rare thing, an instant classic that earns its catharsis honestly, not through hype or sentiment but through the author's vision and hard work.
And really, how often do you see a review fessing up that they cried?
Anyway, enough yammering from me. Follow the link to Metacritic and read the reviews yourself. Better still (you knew this was coming, right? The traditional closer) read these books yourself. And if you've read the others, hold on for the last installment. My heart's racing again just talking about it.
As soon as we get the next issue of The COW Magazine out, I'm going to re-read all 7 of the books.
PS. Unlike Lord of the Rings, where I thought the movies were better (sorry), other than #3, the Harry Potter movies are just okay. Don't let them influence your feelings about the books.
Digg it
agreed!
Tim
I bought the 7th book on July 21. However, I did not actually remember much from book6, so I read that one first. I skipped the Quiddich and some of the non-plot related material, and managed to get the salient points in about 6 hours. Then I started book 7 and finished that in about 3 days (I have a job, you know.)
I think this was a great conclusion. I especially liked the part where Harry found out Voldemort was his father, and then had his hand cut off. Great idea, really left me hanging for the sequel.
Oh, hold on, I think I'm getting confused, bear with me...Ok what I meant was I liked the part where Harry climbs Mount Doom to cast the one ring into the fires from which it was cast, but then Gollum...
oh, hold on...J.K. Rowling, for all her talent, borrowed from many other popular fantasy novels and movies.
But then, the hero's journey is a common theme throughout fantasy literature, so maybe we see familiar themes wherever we look because the same formula has proven to be such a good idea in entertainment. That must be it.
Looking forward to book 8, which takes place 40 years into the future:
Harry Potter and the National Health System.
Mike
Something borrowed....
There were other borrowed elements of course, not least of which was the "stay away from my daughter" throwdown from Aliens 2.
Some other influences she gathers include CS Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia, natch), E Nesbitt (herself a major influence on Lewis, with The Treasureseekers and others) TH White's retelling of Arthur, Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, and above all, the writings of Jessica Mitford (for whom Jo's daughter is named.)
And indeed the hero's quest goes back to at least the beginning of language, and maybe even further. It's one of many elements that Mr. Lucas gleefully used as inspiration for the REAL first 2, unmolested Star Wars features, specifically citing Joseph Cambell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, exploring the rich history of this theme. He also cited Campbell's writings on myth as part of his desire to create a modern myth.
Other influences George has acknowledged include Watership Down, Hidden Fortress (where he also got characters -- notably R2D2 and C3PO -- and plot elements), Seven Samurai (the villain's helmet clearly inspired Darth Vader's) and others.
In fact it's kind of a fun game to pick the most original, unprecedented artists....then start working your way through their influences. :-)
George Lucas's character origins...
When I first saw the original Star Wars back in 1977, the first thing that I thought of when watching it was Isaac Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy." (Which has since become known as the Foundation series, due to more books being added later.)
Both Darth Vader and The Empire itself seem to herald from Asimov, in my opinion. The Empire is quite direct and while The Mule may not be an exact progenitor of Darth Vader, it is pretty close in my opinion.
Have fun, Tim.
Ron