the book was just a bystander

[rm]

I have written, at length and not infrequently, over the years about why the Harry Potter books mean something to me, but those statements have been almost entirely about the child I was and the actual content of the books -- characters, themes, etc.

But, at risk of repeating myself, it is also important to me to note that one of the big reasons I am so ticked about the spoiler thing isn't just because I want to experience certain events of the book contextually and in the moment, but because when that book comes out, a big chapter of my life comes to a close. And I don't even mean the Harry Potter chapter, really, since I'll be at Terminus and there will still be the movies and so forth.

But Michael introduced me to those books. I remember sitting in his apartment in Brooklyn the night Book 4 came out. Urban Fetch delivered it, and he said he wasn't going to talk to me until he finished it and handed me the first three.

When I finished the fourth one, I whined to Soren, that I had nothing to read and I was obsessed with Snape and I needed something to take my mind off of it. Soren gave me Swordspoint and said Alec reminded him a bit of me.

So the Harry Potter books have been with me through four apartments and many jobs. They've been with me from before I decided to be an actor. They are directly responsible for several of my romances, two of my most pivotal friendships, and an astounding writing partner. They are indirectly responsible for my life as a fencer, for Patty and I meeting (and she's not even into Harry Potter), and a number of other odd and lovely circumstances in my life.

So while I may grieve the conclusion of the series and the possible passing of characters who have essentially held my hand through a lot of the blinding stupidity I've engaged in in these last years, there is also the simple grieving of this particular story -- not the one about Harry and Ron, Hermione, and yes, Snape -- but the one about me.

It would be intense under any circumstances, but under the circumstances of getting my first credit in a major motion picture, under the circumstances of Patty moving in with me, under the circumstances of Rose's Turn closing, under the circumstances of my finally making real and solid progress with my novel, and under the circumstances of yes, Michael and I being able to exchange friendly emails about his family, it all feels very solid, important, circular. That all these things reach such points of demarcation at once is a little weird, you have to admit.

So when people say "how can these books mean so much to you, they suck for all these reasons?" my overwhelming feeling isn't that they don't get it, or that they're wrong, but that they've overlooked the way the weave of my world interests me so constantly in my own peculiar serendipitous brand of self-absorption.

Sure, I can't wait to read what happens. And the grief part, after tensing up for it for so long, will be a relief. But the secret is, I half expect to wake up on the afternoon of 21st, after having stayed up all night and into the morning reading, and discover that I finally look my age.

And that is probably my last word on that, at least until I've read the thing.

Comments

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

J.K. Rowling is important.

1. She's demonstrated that "unpleasant" is not the same as "evil" and that "nice" not the same as "good" in a genre all too frequently polarized along those axes.

2. She's strewn words and names throughout her books that bespeak a lifetime of discovering, archiving, and delighting in the oddments of the English language.

3. She's been able to turn a fairly transparent and unpracticed literary style into fiercely readable books because she's humble enough not to weigh it down with forced craft. She's jettisoned ornament and polish for the sake of velocity and whimsy, and it was absolutely the right choice, given both her own native talents and the sort of story she's trying to tell.

4. She's been able to tap into the feverish, pomp-filled, claustrophobic legacy of Public School Stories and siphon away much of the pernicious class-doctrine and sadism of them, while keeping a lot of the stranger subcurrents in place. I think part of why HP has such an intense slash community is due to these echoes of Tom Brown and toast racks and fagging; it's a horrid, delightful atmosphere to work in. Witch Week was my first experience of it; there again, it was co-ed, mixed-class, and dealt with magic, but it had a feel to it that fascinated me as a kid, and I never read anything like it until I picked up Harry Potter in college.

5. She's never apologized for these books. Not for pissing off the fundies, not for affronting the literati, not for the length of her books, not for drawing a disproportional share of the kids' book market, not for her too realistically angsty and hormonal teenaged characters, and not for the death and pain that's coexisted with silliness and adventure in the stories from the beginning.

She's never needed to preach any particular line in these books. She's never needed to use them as a mouthpiece to justify herself. The one thing that's rung clearly from the first page straight through is that she writes these stories and these characters because they matter to her. The shape of the phenomenon would have been so radically different if the timing or pitch had been just a little bit altered. I don't think it was at all inevitable that these books turned into the massive success that they were. But I don't think the books themselves would have changed much if she had been writing for a cult following. They're drawn from their own source. And you can tell.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Dude! Dude. This is so awesome that (with your kind permission) I am stealing it and using it on my exam. With citation, naturally.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

Please do, if it fits. I'm massively flattered!

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

If you do, though, could you change

"nice not the same" to "nice is not the same"
"the length of her books" to "her page counts"
"with silliness" to "with the silliness"
?

Thanks.

/ocd

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Thank you!