As I said before, reading Order of the Phoenix (from what I can remember) was like driving up a mountain road on a stormy night: dark, winding, difficult, take a wrong turn and you’d be over the edge and falling into the black abyss. It wasn’t much fun. I haven’t re-read the book, and maybe it’s better when you’re not charging through it. Half-Blood Prince was much lighter from the start, and is until the end, which made it more enjoyable to read, for me at least.

I’ve read a fair number of the reviews written about the book and, while I disagree with most of the negative ones, I do agree with some of their points. The books could have coped with being edited a little more, there’s a lot of flab that could have been lost without any ill effects and the various relationships and love stories could have been pushed to the background where they belonged. I also thought the kids weren’t quite mature enough, or at least, they weren’t depicted as such. Sixteen-year-olds tend to be well on their way to adulthood and act that way, the girls especially. The never-ending obsession that Harry has for both Snape and Malfoy bothered me too, just how many times can he point his finger and go off on one with poor evidence? Although it looks like he had a point at the end (I’m not so sure), it got a little tiresome (maybe that was the point). The book was also slightly reminiscent, with too many old characters popping up for little or no reason, often doing unnecessary things, it felt like cameos by old favourites in a TV series. I’d also agree that the book seems unbalanced. We spend all the time building and building and, as I have said of a few books lately, the climax seems to come and go too fast. Even the aftermath is quick and clean, but perhaps that was the intention, to leave the uncertainty before the next book.

Having said that, I did like the ‘memory trips’ to introduce Voldemort’s history and to flesh him out as Harry’s nemesis, long and drawn out they may be, but he is the reason for the series (no Voldemort and Harry is just a regular wizard). They let us see his cruel nature and persistent planning, building him as a formidable opponent, as well as giving us a few ideas as to how Harry can defeat him in the final confrontation. Hagrid takes a backseat, which is no bad thing (I like Hagrid, but he’s best in small doses), Slughorn is an interesting new character and Fred and George, when they appear, provide welcome light-hearted relief with their usual hilarious dialogue (two of my favourite characters and criminally lacking in the films).

Now, I’d heard too much before I finished the book and I knew who died and who killed them before I got there. It didn’t take away the impact though, I was stunned and shaken. I have a pretty good imagination, I tend to get headlong into a story, and maybe that worked against me, but as I finished the book I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that it was only a story and that it’ll all turn out right by the end of book 7. I suppose the nagging point is, will it? Rowling has shown that she’s happy to wipe out a supremely important character, a character who, we are told, is the only person stopping Voldemort from taking over, and while I don’t doubt Harry will triumph in the final book, the question is, at what cost? Is Rowling capable of wiping out Harry too? I’m still a little shocked by the ending of Half-Blood Prince (which is, incidentally, another wonderful play on words, stick a comma in there and it’s a literal description: the half-blood, Prince).

One thing that is not mentioned by many of the reviewers and critics is the fact that, despite all the headlines, there is no one else like Rowling out there. I must confess I am not particularly well-read in children’s literature (I am a fan of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series though) but I have heard good things about a number of books. Where are they though? They aren’t selling nearly as well and aren’t anywhere near as well known as Harry Potter, maybe that’ll change (most have film deals which will boost their profile), and Rowling didn’t hit the stratosphere until book three (by book four she was setting records), but it still begs the question as to why she alone is so successful. How many times have you heard the phrase ‘the next JK Rowling,’ bandied about regarding a new author? No one, as far as I know, before or since, has created such a phenomenon that is enjoyed by adults and kids alike (there were numerous reports of kids having their books nicked by parents), the only thing I can think is in the same league would be Star Wars, and while that has longevity on its side, I’d say it was under serious threat. Where else have you seen fans turning up at ordinary showings dressed as their favourite characters, let alone premieres? Harry Potter changed children’s publishing in the same way Star Wars changed the movie business.

For those interested, the film version of Goblet of Fire is due out in November, which should be good. GoF (book 4) is my favourite book. A lot of people are fixated on Prisoner of Azkaban as the best book, maybe I need to go back and re-read them, but I don’t get that. GoF has excitement, action, monsters, dragons, challenges, death, the first face-off between Voldemort and Harry (with Voldemort in human form anyway), romance, bravery, triumph and despair, what more could you want? The film won’t be on a par with the book, it can’t be, the book’s too long for a start. I just hope the distillation process is done well.

Maybe Rowling really does hold some sort of spell over us, maybe I’m blind to the book’s imperfections, but I loved Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. I can’t tell you how it’ll stand the test of time, I can’t even tell you how it’ll stand up to re-reading or careful analysis, but frankly, I don’t care.

There seems to have been a fair bit of criticism fired at the book thus far, but I’m a little over a third in and enjoying it. I have to say that Order of the Phoenix went off the boil for me. Harry was being kept in the dark, which meant we, the readers, were kept in the dark, and I hate that. Add to this that Harry spent most of the book whining and moaning, flying off the handle, shouting and generally getting on my wick and it didn’t make an enjoyable reading experience, for me at least. I don’t know about anyone else, but I also didn’t feel any compassion for Sirius so I wasn’t bothered when it died (and it wasn’t like it was a nice dramatic death either, he disappears behind a curtain never to be seen again, where’s the heart-wrenching, stomach churning, tear inducing aspect to that?), I liked the character, but he was always distant and I didn’t have any empathy with him.

Anyway, Half-Blood Prince, aside from having a wonderful title, is working out quite well (I’m a little over a third through at this point). Harry is being given much more responsibility, which has made him grow up, as has the increasing seriousness of the world around him. Attacks are happening regularly and no one seems capable of stopping them, which is why everyone is looking to Harry and he’s starting to feel that weight of responsibility, starting to take it on and try and live up to it. We’ve all become surrogate friends or parents who have watched this boy grow up and now he’s beginning to show glimpses of the potential we have long known he had, it makes us proud. The only thing I might say is that the sudden upsurge of sexual interest between the characters could have been more subtly dealt with. I’m half expecting the girls to be swooning at a mere glance from Harry soon and while Rowling has pegged the boy’s obliviousness well, she has neglected the fact that, at 16, they would very certainly be paying a lot more attention to the girls. I haven’t been as bothered about the ‘slow start’ that many reviewers have mentioned, let’s not forget that this is a novel and you have the time to explore these sorts of things. Okay, yes, if I’m being critical, we didn’t really need to know about Fleur and Bill (how much older is Bill by the way?), nor did we really need to hear all about Fred and George or, really, about Voldemort’s parents (unless these things prove useful later), but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless, and it helped to lighten the tone. Order of the Phoenix was a very dark, very unsettling and pretty miserable narrative, not much light or joy there, but with Half-Blood Prince, Rowling has lightened it by letting us see that the world isn’t simply gripped in terror, everyone waiting for the next death, worried it might be them, it could have been overwhelmingly dark and dank. She’s on an upwards climb to the finish now (not that there won’t be drops into darkness), we have been through the lowest point, the point where everything looked doomed, now hope has been restored and the joy of the mundane gives us some time and breathing space before the inevitably turbulent times ahead.

At least, that’s the impression so far, I’ve still got a fair way to go though and I’ve just stumbled onto another major plot point in a review (about Harry’s girlfriend, I already knew about who dies), but most of the fun is in how it’s handled as far as I’m concerned.

That’s right folks, a school has been forced to abandon plans for a Harry Potter event designed to encourage reading because parents and a local rector have stepped in with concerns that the head teacher was going “to lead our children into areas of evil.” I kid you not. I’m going to guess that none of the parents or the rector have actually read a Harry Potter novel. This has got to stop.

I find this rather ironic since I was reading some interviews by GP Taylor earlier this week. Taylor is/was a reverend who is author of a children’s fantasy series with two published books from a proposed trilogy (Shadowmancer and Wormwood) and was touted as ‘the next JK Rowling.’ In the interviews I’ve read he generally states that his books aren’t religious and stays away from calling the Harry Potter books a corrupting influence, but I caught the interview he did for Christianity Today and this quote disappointed me:

But if it doesn’t attract people into the occult, why has the Pagan Federation of Britain appointed a youth officer to deal with all the inquiries from young people who’ve read Harry Potter and all these other books and now want to become witches?

That sounds like a direct accusation to me. This is from a man who is a self-confessed expert on wicca and the occult. I imagine that’s something to do with knowing thy enemy. He’s kind of a poster boy for Christian fantasy fiction authors and I wonder whether there would have been complaints if the school event was based around his new novel. Somehow I doubt it. The fact that the only reason Harry Potter gets attacked is that it features witches, wizards and magic in it and yet Taylor’s books likewise share the same and yet they survive unscathed makes me suspicious. If Rowling was a big Christian with pre-defined views against wicca I wonder if she would still be attacked, perhaps not.

I have to confess I haven’t read any of Taylor’s books (not for any real reason, they just haven’t grabbed me) but they’ve been compared to Philip Pullman‘s His Dark Materials trilogy (mainly because they’re set in a similarly styled universe). Having read Pullman’s books, I’m suprised he hasn’t come in for more of a kicking from the religious sector, he does deal directly with religion. Interestingly I got the following quote from his website in response to the question: His Dark Materials seems to be against organised religion. Do you believe in God?

I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.

Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.

A little bit of surfing shows that Pullman may not have escaped untouched, possibly he passed under the radar, but according to this article, the film is to be considersably toned down before release. James Bow has some interesting discussions about Pullman and Harry Potter, and he’s a Christian. I like James’ view, it makes sense, it’s logical, I have no problem with people liking or not liking the books, it’s the zealots who won’t engage in any debate and condemn it without even reading it while refusing to enter into a discussion. That’s out and out stupidity. I think this quote from James in his review of His Dark Materials sums up a lot of things:

In a way, it is surprising that Philip Pullman hasn’t received more attention than he has. Here we have somebody who has written a set of popular novels that are explicitly critical of Christianity. Despite this, the attention of fundamentalist, evangelical loudmouths (er, speakers), has been routed solidly on J.K. Rowling’s totally innocuous Harry Potter series. Phillip Pullman clamours for attention, and he is not getting it. It just illustrates how ma[n]y of these speakers are more interested in getting attention for themselves and their causes than they are in rationally debating the merits of various books.

That, and the fact that Phillip Pullman would probably trounce the book banners to insignificance if he was allowed to go against these people in a meaningful debate.

He also compares the banning of Mein Kempf, Hitler’s handbook, to banning Harry Potter. In two of his articles he suggests people attack Rowling’s work because it’s such a phenomenon and that they’re seeking headlines for themselves as much as anything else. James also links to a funny article about the banning of Harry Potter by Judy Blume at the National Coalition Against Censorship.

This article started out as a quick ‘stop it you dumb nutters’ excercise, but I got carried away, it’s an issue I’m passionate about. Maybe the zealots should concentrate on getting their own house in order first. I can’t help but remember that these were the sort of people who burned, hung and drowned innocent people and started wars a couple of centuries ago.

Also see:
An article on Slate comparing Harry Potter to Left Behind
A Guardian article on Harry Potter‘s appeal

With Pottermania sweeping the nation, nay the globe, once more I thought I’d try and articulate my thoughts on why HP has been such a phenomenon. The books have sold well in excess of 250 million copies world-wide and the films break records every time they open it seems. It’s even been credited with creating a growth in children reading after so many years in decline. So why has HP been such an overwhelming success?

You could argue that the timing was right and that publishers have now fine-tuned their marketing strategies, something that didn’t exist when many other big name children’s books such as Winnie the Pooh and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were published. If that were the case though, why aren’t more books reaching phenomenon status? Even the likes of Roald Dahl, whose works are amongst the best selling children’s books of all time, never reached frenzy level sales.

Another reason might be that disposable incomes have grown and that buying books is no longer a luxury – but has it really been a luxury since the middle of the 20th Century? In fact, there are more toys and entertainment systems to drag kids away from books than ever before. As I mentioned earlier, HP has been credited with drawing children away from their games consoles and TV screens.

Perhaps it was the genre? Were there no children’s novels about witches and wizards before? Well, released just prior to HP were titles such as: The Lost Years of Merlin, Shade’s Children and Fire and Hemlock. Then there were books such as: The Chronicles of Narnia and The School of Wizardry, that were published well before Rowling was on the scene, none of these took off. (Note – I will confess that my research proved how hard is it to find listings for any books past the current weeks best seller list, let alone going back to 1997 � it did highlight that a great many more children’s books appeared and are staying around post-HP though.)

Maybe it was the movies that launched the books to super-stardom? They required technology that was relatively new to help them be realised on-screen and so maybe the books’ predecessors didn’t have this advantage. There also seems to have been a growth in the fantasy film market, with the success of Lord of the Rings a good example. Fantasy had long been a loss-making genre, could the upturn in that have helped? A good idea, but the books sold millions of copies before the HP films were released and Rowling had published four books prior to the release of the first film (which was released in November 2001). The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire actually broke records on release day and was a global story, and all this nearly six months before the release of the first film. And fantasy films only really took an upswing with the dual launches of HP and LOTR, which were originally released within a month of each other. Other fantasy films around the time didn’t do anywhere near as well; Dungeons and Dragons, for example, barely made $15 million at the box office, compared with $313 million for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and $313 million for Harry Potter and Philosophers Stone. While the books get an undeniable boost in sales from the films, it’s usually fairly negligible compared to the overall sales, the first three topped the New York Times Best Seller list in December 1999 a full two years ahead of the movies.

In fact, if you look at two series that are comparable to HP in terms of type and release dates you can start to see how extraordinary HP is. The Artemis Fowl books, written by Eoin Colfer are lauded as a high-selling series, and while there are currently only three books in the series, it has landed a movie deal and had one of the largest advances ever paid for a children’s novel. Another series, with a film to be released later this year, is A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (a pseudonym for Daniel Handler). There are currently 10 novels in the series, with spin-off books and merchandise. Both of these series are popular (Artemis Fowl has sold over half a million copies in the UK (source) for example), yet neither has achieved anywhere near the same level of saturation that HP has.

So, with no previous, contemporary or subsequent novels hitting the headlines in quite the same way as HP has, just what is it about the novels that has made them a hit? Well, I’m no literary expert, no critic for the Times, but here’s my thoughts.

Well, obviously there are a number of things. Firstly, there’s the subject matter. Most people are interested in things that are out of the ordinary and witches and wizards certainly fit in that category. In fact, society has an age-old obsession with them. No to mention their magic powers. Kids today don’t see witches and wizards as evil crones bent on sacrificing them to dark spirits, they see them as super heroes in quaint costumes. They can fly, teleport, and perform numerous incredible deeds with a simple flick of their wand. Who wouldn’t want to be able to do that?

Then there’s the attention to detail that has helped to create such a believable fictional universe. Rowling has thought of how everything operates and how everyone got to where they are. Practically every character has a detailed back-story, and they all intertwine to provide a rich tapestry of history. Even the books the children study have been pondered over, whether they bring something to the narrative or not. And Rowling stated in a TV interview that there are details that she has which will never make it into the books. That is some serious pondering, but then, she did spend five years in development before completing the first book.

Another aspect that I think has helped the novels, is the age of and race/species of the main characters. What I mean is that they are of the same age as their target audience and the main roles are all filled by human characters. Take Artemis Fowl for example. The lead character is a boy-genius of the same age as the audience. However, he is an evil genius, masterminding grand schemes, and the head of a multimillion-pound criminal empire. A creative and interesting role, yes, but not much for kids to empathise with. Look at the other core characters and you’ll notice that most are adults (or at least fully-grown members of their species).

That leads nicely on to the development of the characters and plot. Most children’s novels, until recently at least, did not have their characters develop over time. Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven novels have had this accusation levelled at them, with the main characters not seeming to age, living in a perpetual youth. Many of Blyton’s novels are also said to be the repetition of the same, or at least a similar, plot. Christopher Robin in the Winnie the Pooh novels is another example of this. Rowling decided early on that we would follow the characters through their seven years at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with a novel for each year. This has allowed readers not only to get to know the characters, but to see them develop as they themselves are developing, while also allowing Rowling to explore their personalities in ever-changing circumstances.

An overlooked aspect of the novels is their dedication to frivolity and fun. The books are laced with funny names and ideas, characters that dedicate their lives to having fun and dropping quips, and magical artefacts that are guaranteed to raise a smile. Even lessons are turned into fun events with people using bizarre curses and spells to make each other dance or make light of your fears. Some fans have even dedicated their time to documenting their favourite funny quotes. This is the sort of thing that makes kids giggle. Many of the other novels that are supposed to be the next Harry Potter simply don’t have this, their deadly serious.

Having said all that, the novels’ killer blow perhaps, is it’s grounding in reality. Few novels, fantasy especially, have a sense of reality that anyone can recognise, but HP is based around our own society, it lives alongside it but has it’s own set of rules and regulations, it’s own ministries and government. It’s a world that is recognisable as a modern civilised culture, even if it’s one with a unique slant. Few series have spent time building and exploring how their governing bodies work, what happens if you break the rules, how they deal with criminal offences and offenders. Most modern novels are focused only on the plot that matters, rarely keeping an eye on the bigger picture, but Rowling’s groundwork has paid off and these books aren’t just about a small set of characters set against a much larger and largely unexplored universe. She has brought many different aspects into play, using each novel to bring in information both of the present and the past that will help in the future. This eye on the big and the little has paid off in the stories in much the same way as it did in LOTR and Star Wars.

I can’t say for certain, but I believe that all of these, in whatever quantities, perhaps mixed with a little of ingredient X, has lead to the success of the Harry Potter novels in much the same way as the Colonel’s secret recipe has helped KFC. There may be alternative recipes out there, but only one seems to be finger lickin’ good, and Rowling, whether she knows it or not, seems to have mastered it.