On the Reading of Harry Potter

The time between Thanksgiving and mid-January has for a number of years been my busiest, professionally. Consequently, I have chosen to nip off for little periods of sun and warmth, which is where you find me writing this little ditty. Our second daughter has a job at a school in the Bahamas, and we (Catherine and me) are snuggled up in a cozy little beach cottage about an hour from her. It is next door to where we spent Thanksgiving (we rented this place for a few days then too), and while here then, we decided that coming back for a few days was exactly what the doctor ordered. I head back to the frigid mid-Atlantic tomorrow, and she will stay for a few more days of frolicking with Dash 2.

Where Harry is read.

My complaints with surface transport remain, as driving--especially at night--remains a painful experience. Well, riding, as the case is, as I do not drive at night here, relying on the most competent person in the world to ferry me to and from after dark dining.

We also flew to the airport closest to our house (five minutes) rather than one of the two others that expose one to the Death Race 2000 course that is the main road here. That was a game changer for arrival, as we landed, got our car, hit the grocery store, and nestled in all before the sun set.

But enough of all that, there is important matter to discuss. And that is, after years of talking about it, I have finally begun to read the Harry Potter books. As I was a grown ass single man when the first book arrived (1997), it was of little interest to me, and the acclaim it generated always seemed to be accompanied by a photo of several be-wanded pre-teens accompanied by overly solicitous parents. Several more books arrived before the first movie, books that I also ignored. But by the time of the first movie, I was involved with a lovely woman with a small boy, to whom she had already faithfully read the doorstop sized novels. I was convinced to take our little threesome to see the movie, again, about which I had little real knowledge and even less interest.

Was I in for a surprise.

I loved the movie, and while the production value has not stood the test of time (the later movies improved upon that), the characters and the great story dervived of an a amazing imagination and an even better life story. I have been to see all of the subseqent movies, and it has been the movies upon which my entire knowledge of Harry and the wizarding world is based.

All the time, though, there was in the back of my head the knowledge that I needed to know the source code, that I needed to read the books. The thing is, many adults -- people of substance—in my life read the books and were shocked that I hadn't. Each affirmed that I would love them. I demurred, thinking that the Hollywood machine had done wonders to a bunch of kids books, books that were not worth my time.

Cut to the present day. I am unfortunately, far more of a Twitter practitioner than I would like to be, and one of the absolute superstars of Twitter has been the author of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling. Her clear, common sense approach to sex and gender issues--fearless in what up until yesterday was a cesspool of virtue signalling--has been wonderful to behold. I decided that it was high time that I give these books a read. So I downloaded the set onto my Kindle for reading on this little island hiatus.

I am three books in (don't ask me their titles, they are pretty much all blending together into one magical experience) and I am kicking myself for not having read them earlier. More to the point, I am kicking myself for not having read them earlier, so that I would have had opportunities to re-read them, as all great books should be.

I think part of my reticence has been misplaced Tolkien loyalty, thinking that no one should have attempted the creation of a magical world after he had done so as masterfully as he had. This was obsiously a silly position, and I wonder what else I have missed out on.

I find myself laughing out loud. I am amazed at how many needles Rowling threads, where a choice in one direction or the other could result in excessive darkness or frivolousness. Her characters are young adults, but they reason like adults, or more to the point, like adults ought to.

I am aware that back in the USA, matters of great weight are playing out before a benumbed polity, and that my few days here on the water with Harry, Ron, and Hermione are naked escapism at its zenith. But the more I read, the more I wish for a four-poster bed in a Tower of Hogwarts. Would that it were so.