Yesterday I challenged the view that J. K. Rowling’s series of Harry Potter books could be considered “public novels,” the first “Zeitgeist-defining cultural objects” (to borrow a phrase from my friend Mark Athitakis) in a quarter century. I also admitted that I hadn’t read the whole series. (I gave up after the first volume, which did not leave me wanting more.) And I ended by saying the literary greatness of Rowling’s novels, where greatness is defined by Joseph Bottum as “deep explorations of the human condition,” is open to question.
Not, apparently, for the legions of Rowling’s fans, who have risen up in hysterical defense of her reputation. Although I didn’t mean to suggest the novels are bad, the heat generated by the merest criticism of Harry Potter makes me wonder. To describe the books as “children’s supernatural fantasy of sorcery and witchcraft,” as I did, is not at all to condemn them. That’s simply what they are: audience (children), genre (fantasy), subject-matter (sorcery and witchcraft). Nor does anyone need to have read all seven of the novels to know that much about them. What does it say about them, though, that their passionate readers cannot even admit these basic facts about them without angry protest?
Some of the best novels ever written were written for children (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series, John R. Tunis’s sports novels for boys). As a literary classification, “children’s literature” is not an insult.
It’s true that I have a mild allergy to fantasy, although C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia is, in my opinion, one of the fifty best works of English-language fiction written since 1880. (So is Wilder’s Little House, for that matter.) But it was not the genre to which Harry Potter belongs that disappointed me in the first volume of the series, and those of her defenders who overhear a disdain for fantasy in what I have written are only hearing what they want to hear.
What I wonder is this. If the hysterical defenders of Harry Potter are right that it really is a multi-volume public novel — a literary event that defines the literary age — and if Rowling’s books are fantasies (obviously), then hasn’t an epochal change occurred while no one was watching? Harry Potter would be the first work of fantasy since, say, the Odyssey to occupy the center of culture. Along with the increasing reliance upon the supernatural in Hollywood, this might suggest many things (the devaluation of realism, the loss of moral structure in human experience that is subject to physical law), but one thing it does not suggest is that J. K. Rowling is the lineal descendant of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Henry James, Edith Wharton, and James Joyce.
I hear ya: I actually love fantasy, but Harry Potter, honestly, just isn't very good and I've often marveled at the vehemence of its fans. (Part of me says that most of them read these novels as kids, so they have very, very strong emotional ties to them that an adult wouldn't, in a way sort of how much of Gen X views the original Star Wars films.)
Since The Odyssey? Preposterous. Since, let's see, since Orlando Furioso – that's more accurate, and two thousand years later.r nr nJust as "fantasy" is by no means negative, "public novel" is not necessarily positive – Adderabbi, have you read Myers on In Cold Blood, or Advise and Consent (that one counts, right? – a little before my time)?r nr nWhat sorts of discussions do Harry Potter readers have, I mean about the connections between the novel and the outside world? Do they talk about race and genetics (the half-blood muggles business)? Or the value of inter-generational friendship? Or what?r nr nDisclosure: I have only glanced at the novels, but seen two and a half of the movies.
I can only talk about this reader, who does (or did), especially when reading with his kids. He hasn't taken a survey, though.
Orlando Furioso is excellent counter-evidence. Totally slipped my mind. Harington’s translation, though, didn’t gather anywhere near the same audience in England.
Rabbi, n nI tell you: I’ve been convinced to give the books another try. My twin sons are eight, and I’m going to start reading the series to them straightaway. n nBut I really don’t think I moved the goal posts. All along, what has caught my attention is how different Rowling’s novels are from other books that have served as public novels. n nThe public novel is the novel that you are embarrassed not to have read — the novel it feels like your duty to read. In the very expectations it creates in would-be readers, it redefines the literary culture. Think Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. n nBut even though a whole lot of people read Harry Potter, no one was embarrassed not to. It didn’t create the same level of expectation. I don’t know why that was so. Hence my speculations in these posts that have made so many people angry.
So much of this is nonsensical. n nHysterical defense? I apologize if you've gotten true contempt on twitter or personally, but there were only 10 comments on the first article and none of them were "hysterical." The only sight of hysteria in the comments (and a tinge of paranoia) is from your own keyboard, calling another commenter "snide" and "abusive" when he was nothing of the sort. n n"…Nor does anyone need to have read all seven of the novels to know that much about them." That's tremendously condescending, whether you admit it or not. Frankly, statements like that deserve to be disparaged. n nThe less said about your condescending history lesson towards another commenter who (rightly, if using the 21st century definition of the word, which I believe he was) called you a snob, the better. If you'd like to talk about misuse of words and their original meanings, how about hysteria? Unless all the people who disagreed with you were having disturbances of the uterus and were distracted by their sexual disfunction that is. n nThe nonsense really sets in though, when you call The Chronicles of Narnia by Lewis "one of the fifty best works of English-language fiction written since 1880" when they too could very easily be defined by someone who hasn't read them as “children’s supernatural fantasy of sorcery and witchcraft.” Yet Lewis is brilliant and Rowling shallow and lacking "explorations of the human condition?" n nYour finishing assessments, especially on moral structure are again sweeping and unfounded, which really, is not surprising as you haven't read the books you so confidently characterize. n nYou wrote a poor article in the first place and got called out for it. Labeling the people who disagreed with you "hysterical" without illustrated basis was unfortunate. I think I speak for all the hysterics in pleading with you not to write another article about books you haven't deigned to read.
For the last time: I was not writing about the books. I was writing about the cultural phenomenon of the books. And I did read the first volume of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was enough to form an opinion of J.K. Rowling’s style and method. n nOne reason I called the defense of Harry Potter “hysterical” is precisely the rush to confuse commentary on the books with commentary on a literary culture in which the books had “near-universal readership,” and to huff self-righteously about my not “deigning” to read the rest of the series. There is something about any hint of a shadow of a suggestion of criticizing J.K. Rowling that makes her fans see red. n
John R. Tunis. Shall have to investigate–I've been looking for sports books for boys that aren't, as my youngest says, "all cornball."