Dec 18, 2007 03:59 PM
by Stefan Beck
For a decade now, my mantra has been: “I reject Harry Potter and all his works.” In 2000, when Mr. Potter was just three years old, Harold Bloom predicted that “[t]he cultural critics will, soon enough, introduce Harry Potter into their college curriculum.” And it came to pass at Stanford University just a few months ago. (You’ll have to follow the link to see a senior at a prestigious university wearing a Potter-style lightning bolt on her forehead.)
There may not be any more Harry Potter books coming out, but the magic will continue at Stanford this fall with “Harry Potter and the Arc of Storytelling,” a highly coveted Student Initiated Course (SIC).
A shame they couldn’t [sic] the whole article and pretend it never happened. I don’t want to be thought a curmudgeon—even Harold Bloom fretted briefly about his “highbrow snobbery”—but I think it’s reasonable to suggest that adults spend their reading time, a limited and thus very precious resource, on better books. If that’s wishful thinking, can’t they at least pick better books to obsess about? (Since I am undoubtedly offending countless readers of this blog, I hasten to add that this is only a suggestion. I’d expect the same treatment for my obsession with this stuff.)
Here’s one alternative, for those who don’t want to leave the YA Fantasy aisle: Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. I haven’t read the books, the first of which has just been made into a movie, as my own interest in fantasy stop at the Volsunga Saga. Still, it’s noteworthy that even the books’ harshest critics concede that they’re “real literature.”
Mr. Pullman, a graduate of Oxford University with a degree in English, knows his stuff. The books are loaded with allusions to Greek mythology and philosophy, Milton, Blake and the Bible, with images ranging from the obvious (the Garden of Eden) to the obscure (the bene elim, or angelic Watchers mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4). These allusions, unlike the throwaway Latinisms of Hogwarts’ spells, drive the plot, characters and themes of Mr. Pullman’s series. Indeed, a child who investigates them would begin to gain the rudiments of a classical education.
That piece, from the Wall Street Journal, tackles the trilogy’s atheism, which sounds like a crude but at least high-profile contribution to our current (or is it eternal?) national debate about religion. In other words, it’s more worth your time than paying for the gold-leaf wallpaper in J. K. Rowling’s bathroom.