So if you’re part of the western world, you may not know who Karl Rove is but you damn sure know that the latest Harry Potter book has been released.
I’ve not read it yet and when last I checked, the reserve I’d placed at our local library had me 114th in line to get it, so I don’t really anticipate getting the chance to read it anytime soon. That’s okay, I read each of the others long, long after they came out. I’ve never minded being behind the times. Which is probably good, as I suspect I have little choice in the matter, generally.
This, then, is not a post about the latest Harry Potter book. No, it’s a post about the Harry Potter series in general, focussing mainly on the first one because I just read it out loud to Max, which means I’ve now read that one three times, I think, the second and third ones twice each and the fourth and fifth books each only once, the poor neglected dears.
That will tell you that I’ve not studied the series as assiduously as oh so many, but on the other hand, I’ve certainly a pretty fair acquaintance with the works in general, no? Yes.
And what I’ve decided is that J.K.Rowling is one of the great storytellers of our time, able to spin a tale wonderfully, keep multiple plots in the air successfully, create interesting characters and worlds and situations. What’s she’s not, however, is a great writer, the way J.R.R.Tolkein, for instance, or Charles Dickens or Mark Twain or Willa Cather or Fred Chappell are; every one of them are both outstanding storytellers AND magnificent writers, whose language glows like burning coal, to borrow The Bard’s words. Rowling’s prose is never more than pedestrian. And that’s okay—Stephen King is one of my very favorite writers and he’s the same way: a phenomenal storyteller but a journeyman when it comes to the actual language.
King and Rowling get tossed together a fair amount of the time, and that’s not entirely unapt, for the very reason I just mentioned, and King has reviewed the last several Harry Potter books for the New York Times, I believe, praising her considerably each time. There’s at least one other factor, however, which bears looking into. It’s the problem I have with the Harry Potter books and, interestingly, it’s not a problem King himself exhibits in his own writing, so I find it odd that he seems to have no problem with the lapse in others.
It is indeed a wonderful thing that, as you hear again and again and again, the hottest thing in the land is a book for children. Would that this were the case more often. But therein lies the very basic but real problem with the Harry Potter books. They are books written for children, marketed for children and starring children who are really pretty terrible role models.
Harry is intelligent and brave and funny and charming. He is also, apparently, a firm believer in Machiavelli’s principles. Harry, more than almost any "hero" I’ve ever encountered in fiction, embodies the phrase "the end justifies the means."
Harry and his friends are constantly fighting evil in various forms. Unfortunately, in order for good to triumph over evil, Harry and his friends steal and cheat and lie. Even more unfortunately, they are not the only ones.
In the very first book, Professor McGonagall, known to be the most upright and by-the-book teacher in the school, not only allows Harry to get away with breaking the strict rule against first-year students flying when they’re not allowed to; incredibly, she further breaks the rules herself (actually getting permission to do so from the headmaster) in order to help her house win the Quidditch trophy. Moreover, she goes out and acquires for Harry the absolute top-of-the-line model broom to further tip the scales in her favor. And this is the by-the-book professor? It’s made clear that it’s all right for her to do so because she REALLY wants to win the cup. Oh, well, then. When you put it THAT way…
Compare the readability of the Harry Potter books to pretty much anything in literature and they hold their own. They are definite page-turners, and the characters are utterly believable—no mean feat in the fantasy genre. But a hero who will do anything to win? An anti-hero, perhaps, but that’s not a true hero in my book. And it’s not what I would think of as being appropriate for young children—and young children are reading these books. In fact, they’re not just reading these books, they’re having these books handed to them, encouraged to read them, egged on, with the clear implication that there’s nothing wrong with them. And while an amazing number of adults have also read at least one or two of the books, I’ve encountered few who have sat down with their children and discussed the moral problems with the novels.
You can compare Harry to Frodo or Gandalf or Bilbo or any of the heroes from the Narnia books or, to switch media, Luke Skywalker or even, say, Superman. Superman could win every single conflict by simply killing his foe, but he (and his writers) understand that that’s not how it works. The hero wins by being more morally upright and intelligent and self-sacrificing than the villain. Luke Skywalker, in "The Return of the Jedi," refuses to kill the evil Emperor, as he knows that by doing so he will have turned to the Dark Side and evil will have won. His nobility and purity, in fact, inspires Darth Vader, his father, to turn away from the Dark Side and conquer evil. Now that’s heroism (even if it’s not necessarily appropriate for young children), while still solidly inside the fantasy realm, complete with magic and all.
Don’t get me wrong—I love the concept of the anti-hero. The original "Dirty Harry" film, although some of its cuts are amazingly slow by today’s standards, is still a wonderful movie, as are most of Martin Scorsese’s, to use two prominent examples. The heroes in the brilliant graphic novel "Watchmen" also spring to mind. But that doesn’t mean that I want my very young daughters to be seeing or reading them anytime soon. I do hope they read and see each and every one of them and can’t wait to discuss the works at great length—but not yet.
It is unfortunate that the only criticism anyone has seemed to level at the books focuses on the magical aspect, a criticism which I find ludicrous. Magic is staple of fantasy and fairy-tales. Live with it. All the harping on the magical elements does is to distract from the true flaws of the books and make those who would criticize them seem like nutjobs.
Actually, there’s one other criticism of Rowling that gets bandied about freely and that’s that she has cribbed rather generously from her predecessors. Not that this bothers me, either; after all, following Eliot’s lead, Rowling is stealing quite well from the best, and the final result is very well done. It’s the fact that these books are being read to and by children who are too young to understand some of the implications, and the media, while justifiably hailing the enjoyability of the books, are either ignorant of or just plain ignoring their flaws.
At least once in each of the first three books, Dumbledore, who has certainly proved himself imminently trustworthy, looks Harry in the eye and asks him if he needs any help. And each time, Harry lies and says he doesn’t. Why? Because kids, in popular children’s books, I guess, aren’t supposed to trust even completely trustworthy adults (not to mention that it would shorten the book considerably, but again, if that’s the only reason, then that’s a basic flaw in the writing). I’d hoped that in the fourth book Harry would have learned from his past mistakes. No such luck. Maybe the fifth time’s the charm? Um…no. Well, sixth time pays for all, they say. I think.
But wait! That’s not all! We actually learn at the end of the first book that Dumbledore arranged things so they would only work out for the best if—are you ready for this one?—Harry broke the rules. The greatest magician in the land, the powerful and wise and kind hero, actually encouraged Harry to lie and cheat and steal.
This in the most popular fiction for children perhaps ever.
What the hell kind of message does that send?
And, you know, it’s actually a really intriguing situation, one that could be thought-provoking. Invaluable, really. Only it’s not. It’s never brought up. No one in the book ever steps back and says, hey, hold on a moment. That’s…that’s just wrong. In fact, that’s really quite ludicrous. Did I just understand you right?
No, in the book whatever Harry and/or Dumbledore is, de facto, right. And whatever Voldemort does is, de facto, wrong. Even when they’re doing the exact same thing. Harry lying? Right. Voldemort lying. Wrong! Why? It’s an intriguing question. So let’s investigate it, twist it around, check it out from different angles, see what we can find.
But no. It’s never addressed. It’s just a given that the heroes are always correct, even when they’re not, and the villains are always wrong, even when they’re doing the exact same things.
So. We have a book where the adults are either stupid or evil or at the very least not to be trusted. The elite in the book—that is, all the magical people—fairly openly disdain all the Muggles, an attitude which is also pretty disturbing, although the author glosses over that by making virtually all the Muggles stupid and/or evil themselves. (Hermione’s parents are the only ones I can think of who don’t quite fit this description, and they’re barely in the books at all.) And, of course, the heroes of the book break pretty much every rule without consequence.
Now, breaking rules is no big deal, per se, as long as there is a consequence attached. You sneak out, you get caught, you get punished. That’s life. You run the red light, you get caught, you get punished. But Harry virtually never gets punished. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but they are comparatively minor. And here’s the thing: the rules he’s breaking aren’t arbitrary and foolish; this isn’t your basic civil disobedience here or minor schoolboy pranks. The rules are there for one very good reason: to keep the children from being killed. Yet time and again, Harry breaks the rules and, frequently, almost gets killed, or worse, almost gets someone else killed...and gets away with it because he’s such a skilled liar or because he’s Harry Potter and he gets special dispensation.
Don’t get me wrong. As I’ve stated before and as I must emphasize, I enjoyed the bejeebers out of the first five books and look forward to the new one. And I don’t think it should come with a warning label attached—I’m an ardent foe of censorship in all its various forms. (I think the labeling of records which started back in the late eighties was an abhorrent practice based on racism and classism and which has been one of the most effective forms of censorship in this country in the past several decades...and I don’t mean that in a positive light.) I think it’s mainly the duty of parents to think about these things and discuss the books with their kids, rather than blithely (as many parents I know have done) slap the books in the hands of their very young children, some as young as seven.
But I also think it would help if the most intelligent and widely read critics in the mainstream media brought up these legitimate flaws rather than either lauding them wholesale or focusing on the hysterical charges of occultism. Again, I cannot stress strongly enough that I have enjoyed the books and that the witchcraft angle doesn’t bother me in the least; it’s part of a long and noble history in children’s literature. What bothers me is the fact that the hero is a charming boy who lies and cheats and gets away with it.
One of the finest examples comes at the climax of the first book, when Harry lies about what he sees in the mirror in order to prevent Quirrell from getting the Sorcerer’s Stone: that lie is not presented as the difficult moral dilemma it might have been. Hmm, he might have at least pondered for a moment, I must do something wrong—lie—in order to do the right thing—keep this guy who wants to destroy the world from getting a tool which will enable him to do so. Well, lying may be wrong but him getting the Stone would be far worse for everyone, so I shall do this thing.
But it’s not presented that way in the slightest. Harry doesn’t hesitate to simply lie—and why should he? He’s been doing it throughout the book, why’s it going to cause him any moral anguish now? No, it is instead simply a clever strategy, and Harry suffers not the slightest pang of conscience over the lie.
Adults, one hopes, can recognize this for the flaw that it is (although again, I have not seen any mention of this kind of concern in a mainstream review). Perhaps some teenagers can discern the flawed nature of Harry’s actions as well. Max, for instance, actually gasped and buried her head when it came to one of Harry’s earlier transgressions and became increasingly distressed with each further moral lapse, sure that they were accruing and that his eventual comeuppance would be more severe and unpleasant indeed. Ah, the faith of a child.
So certainly the flaws could provide fodder for useful discussion about difficult choices—as I said, Max and Top Management and I had a very long and involved one. And one of the things we talked about was, for instance, Anne Frank. The people hiding young Anne may have had to lie to the authorities or even friends and family members on occasion, in order to protect the lives of Anne and her family. Was it wrong to do that? I think most ethicists would tell you that, no, of course that was the right thing to do—I’m neither an ethicist nor someone who plays an ethicist on television but certainly I would have said without question it was the right thing to do, and I hope I would have had the courage to do just that and further hope I never have to find out if I’ve got that kind of courage or not. But in the end, it’s still a question that’s worth exploring, rather than just shoving out of the way and pretending it doesn’t exist.
But as for the many, many young children who are reading or listening to these books—how many of them are able to understand that it’s not necessarily okay to do as Harry does? How many of their parents are raising the question? Or even aware that the books have those questions but never address them?
I don’t think, by the way, that any of this is intentional on Rowling’s part; I don’t believe she engineered the first novel, for instance, so the climax turns on a lie, thus putting her hero to the test and then having him ignore the moral question involved. Rather, I think she gets understandably caught up in the telling of a story, a story that’s clearly burning to get out. But I have to wonder what she would think if her own daughter began telling lies simply to further serve her own ends, no matter how reasonable those ends may seem. It just seems as though Rowling hasn’t really sat down and truly thought things out.
Whenever I’ve brought any of this up in the past, people tend to get very defensive. Many of them fall back on the lame response that it’s just so great that kids are reading anything at all, to which I normally respond that I’ll bet them a hundred bucks I can get absolutely any boy in the United States who’s at least ten years old or older to read for hours a day if that’s their only criteria. As they quickly learn that I’ll simply hand the kid a copy of Penthouse Forum and immediately realize I’ll win the bet every single time, no one has yet to take me up on the offer, which is a good thing, as I don’t feel like going to jail, even for a hundred whole dollars. But overstated as my ridiculous example is, it’s still valid: is reading truly so all-fired important that we’ll allow our kids to read anything just so long as they’re reading? I certainly hope not, and I say that as one who loves to read and in fact makes his meager living as a professional writer.
There are other problems with the books. Rowling improved as a writer as the series went on, but she also got more ambitious. This isn’t normally a bad thing, but in her case it means the books got longer and longer with more and more subplots and details which easily could have been omitted—and in storytelling, if it CAN be omitted, it SHOULD be. But what editor or publisher is going to tell Rowling to cut a scene she likes? A soon-to-be-unemployed editor or publisher, that’s who. Book Number Five in particular could have lost almost all of the first one hundred and twenty pages. It’s not that they were bad, by any means, in and of themselves. They just were unnecessary. Furthermore, she made absolutely no effort to bring any new readers up to speed; it was assumed you’d not only read the previous books but had re-read them recently enough to be familiar, with no need to recap at all. And while that may be true for the majority of readers, it certainly wasn’t the case with at least three I spoke to (and I’m only one of the three in this instance).
What’s more, the books have grown increasingly dark in tone—and they didn’t exactly start out all peaches and cream. The scenes with the Dursleys seem gratuitously nasty, those screaming plants are incredibly disturbing and the climactic scene in the maze in Book Four is not only terrifically dark, it also makes absolutely no sense from a structural point-of-view; in fact, to digress for a moment (who, me? This piece has been so concise up this point!) it’s a massive story flaw.
So Harry’s competing against other students in a variety of events. It comes down to him and one other student, a really good guy, finding their way through a maze as quickly as possible. They get to the trophy at the center at just the same moment and, both trying to do the right thing and be the very epitome of good sportsmanship, they agree to both grab the trophy at the exact same time. The result is that Harry’s fellow student is transported, along with Harry, to a trap Voldemort has set up and the nice kid is killed immediately.
Once again, what the hell kind of message does that send? And I don’t just mean for children’s literature. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, fiction has been set up in certain ways: you do something good, you will get rewarded. You do something bad, you will get punished. And there are obviously oodles and boodles of exceptions—but that’s just the point. Their very power comes from the fact that we know that they’re exceptions to the rule.
But not here—that’s not the point. The entire point here is that it was simply a shocking twist to the plot. That’s all, no bigger or better or more valid justification. It’s just a cheap, meaningless trick that lessens the novel and weakens the entire world in which it’s set. And it, like the lie Harry is forced to tell at the end of Book One, is really nothing more than shoddy plotting and lazy writing. And from a storyteller as skilled as Rowling, that’s inexcusable.
Okay. There’s one other problem and on this one I completely feel for Rowling (assuming she’s the slightest bit bothered by this eventuality). With each book her characters get a year older. And she’s said for some time that they’ll be exploring their sexuality, as teenagers indeed tend to do (with the obvious exception of me and the saintly Top Management, of course). I can understand her wanting to do that and, in fact, it would be unrealistic and a missed opportunity not to have her characters grow as they age and to explore their changes, physical and emotional and mental and spiritual. The problem is that while Rowling’s initial readers are growing just as Harry and his pals are, Rowling is picking up new readers all the time. So the kids who were, say, eight when the first book was published are now sixteen. Fine. But there are eight year olds picking up that first book even as we speak (or, as I type and now you read…if there’s anyone still with me by now). And they’re not going to wait eight years to read Book Six. They’re going to go right from the first to the second and on to the sixth. And Rowling herself has hinted in interviews I’ve read that Book Six won’t be appropriate for an eight-year-old. Its protagonist will be sixteen years old and it’s not surprising that a book with a sixteen-year-old protagonist might be inappropriate for an eight-year-old. Yet it’s not surprising than an eight-year-old, after reading the first one (which parents mistakenly think is just fine for any eight-year-old), will want to go on to the next and the next and the next. So it’s a real quandary for the writer. But it’s not one she seems interested in addressing, and it’s not one that’s being brought up anywhere I’ve seen.
In the end, I think Rowling’s books are quite enjoyable. I wish they weren’t lauded as The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread as I firmly suspect that fifty years from now folks will still be reading The Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia while the Harry Potter books will be fondly remembered but never placed alongside those true classics. As possible evidence to support my stance, I offer Judy Blume, who was the Rowling of her day, a guaranteed blockbuster every time out and now largely unknown to those younger than twenty-five. It happens. But quality will always out in the end. And maybe Rowling will prove me wrong with this latest book and fix the myriad flaws to be found in her earlier works whilst retaining their myriad charms. One can always hope.
In the meantime, enjoy the books, read them with your kids…but talk about them afterwards and explore together some of the moral problems they contain. There are real joys to be found in these novels, but real problems as well. Here there be dragons—but they’re dragons which can be defeated, if you’re just willing to take the time. It will be far from the most unpleasant battle you’ve ever encountered. But it’s not one to be avoided either.
***
UPDATE: It's been almost seven months since I wrote this piece. Given my job and the currently rather ubiquitous presence of Harry Potter in our society, it’s perhaps not surprising that I found myself returning to the topic two other times.
You can read those snarkfests here and here. There are also quite a few responses in the comments section which explore many of my objections in significantly more depth.
Recent Comments