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| Julia Park Rodrigues |
December 2000 |
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When I heard that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -- the fourth in her seven-book series -- was coming out last summer, I reserved a copy, and that Saturday, took my 9-year-old daughter Simone to the bookstore and bought the book for her. And what a tome! At about four inches thick, it was the biggest book she'd ever read. But read it she did -- all 734 pages of it. I wanted a turn at reading it, too, and the first night, I snuck in after Simone had gone to sleep and borrowed it. Simone didn't approve. "Mom," she said severely, next morning. "You have to wait till I'm done." I sighed, and I complained, but I do have a sense of honor, so I waited several weeks till she had read every last word. In the meantime, I reread the first three volumes: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I finally got to read The Goblet of Fire, and I enjoyed it very much. However, in rereading the earlier books, and indeed, in reading The Goblet of Fire for the first time, a number of things caught my attention, and they are worth mentioning for their own sake, if not fodder for discussion with one's children. The first thing is that, as an adult, a writer, and an academic, I recognize the difference between a good book and a good read. The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland and Huckleberry Finn are good books. The Harry Potter books are, well, they're good reads, and though they may endure as beloved children's tales, none of them (so far) have jumped into the league of good books, much less great ones. Joanne Rowling is not exactly the world's greatest writer. She's clever, to be sure; she's a great borrower of themes and motifs (there are elements and allusions from the Wizard of Oz to Star Wars to James and the Giant Peach to Cinderella), and she's certainly tapped into a universal need for readable children's books and likeable characters. But I fear that when one scratches the surface, what we learn from the magical world of Hogwarts is not quite what we expected. Why, for example, are the frightening characters in Rowling's world "dark"? Professor Snapes is "greasy, hook-nosed and sallow," the goblin guards at Gringott's are "swarthy," and Lord Voldemort, alias The Dark Lord, is "a dark, raw, reddish-black." Writers in the European tradition have long cast their villains as "dark" and therefore evil; isn't it time we discarded that frankly racist assumption? And what are we to make of the character of Ron Weasley? He's red-haired and freckled, from a large family of wizards, and he's one of Harry's best friends. But he's also dirt-poor, stuck with hand-me-downs and too many siblings. The Weasley's home is called "The Burrow," suggesting rabbits and their prolific breeding. In other words, the Weasleys are the perfect caricature of the poor Irish-Catholic family, as seen from Rowling's middle-class-Protestant-British view. Although most other Rowling characters have Dickensian names, comic-descriptive or onomatopoeic, the Weasleys' name seems like a slam; its associations are hardly charming. What's so charming about a weasel? Or being weasely? It's an intriguing dichotomy, to be sure. And in what I consider the most egregious of her missteps, in The Chamber of Secrets, vain professor Gilderoy Lockhart callously remarks that a certain witch was so ugly, "[she] had a harelip." It's difficult to believe that, in today's climate of increased sensitivity to the needs of people with disabilities, an American publisher would print this slur. In Britain, such a remark might be funny, maybe commonplace. But if not deliberately cruel, the offhand remark seems insensitive at best, and not one I would want my children to repeat. Still, there are some wonderful passages in the Harry Potter books. The characters and Rowling's own inventions -- Quidditch, Parseltongue, the Headless Hunt -- are delightful. Harry himself is intelligent, brave, and all too human, despite his magical knowledge. And to her credit, Rowling has attempted to take on some weightier topics: the "pure race" of wizards versus the Muggles (nonwizards), the plight of house elves as an allegory for slavery, and just plain, ordinary adolescent angst. In The Sorcerer's Stone, when Harry sees his dead parents, alive again, in the Mirror of Erised (read backwards, that's desire, a mirror that shows you what you most want). He comes to realize that he's not going to get what he yearns for -- his parents can never come back to life -- a difficult lesson for all of us. Later, a quite poignant scene occurs when Professor Dumbledore tells Harry that it was his mother's love that protected him from the curse of the evil Voldemort, and Harry is justifiably moved. Unfortunately, Rowling doesn't like to say outright that Harry cries; instead she says that the headmaster turns away so Harry can collect himself. In The Goblet of Fire, we see a similar scene; Harry has witnessed the death of a classmate and is fighting tears. When Mrs. Weasley hugs him, Harry lets go and sobs -- and yet, again, Rowling never actually writes that he cries. Instead, Harry wishes everyone would leave the room and give him privacy. Despite the moving nature of those passages, I'm concerned about the message -- that boys don't cry, that emoting is shameful, that one should always keep a stiff upper lip, and so on. It behooves parents who want their sons and daughters to learn healthy emotional responses to discuss those passages with their children, and to remind them that despite Harry Potter's (Rowling's) view, crying is indeed okay. Teachers, take note -- it's a good talking point for classroom discussion, too. Lest this be read as a rant against the books (of which there have been plenty), I assure you, it's not. I'm delighted to see my daughters reading such thick books, and I can hardly wait to see the movie when it comes out next year. When I lifted the Goblet of Fire into my hands, it was thrilling; here was just the meaty kind of book I could sink into, live in, and savor for hours. Though I finished it in two days, I admit that I stayed up very late the second night to finish it, because I couldn't put it down. And that's exactly how I want my kids to feel about books. That being said, adults encouraging children to read should also take the initiative (just as we do with movies, video games, and television) to open topics of conversation. Why are evil people often portrayed as deformed in fairy tales? How do the characters play out their gender roles -- are the girls weeping and fainting while the boys save their bacon, or vice versa? What does this particular story say about the nature of good and evil, or sin and redemption, or whatever? And what does it mean to live "happily ever after," anyway? Getting kids to read may be the first step, but it certainly isn't the end of the job. Take a look at what your kids (or students) are reading, read it for yourself, and see what kinds of questions come up for you. It may be the start of a fantastic conversation. ------ Editor's Note: I'm going to break my rule about "women authors" a little bit here to recommend some classics that might be interesting to those readers who enjoy a Harry Potter-esque read.... Here is a SHORT (in no particular order) list of other (more
literate) books you and your kids (students) might like if you/they
like Harry Potter. The
Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis These are just a start... but it will open up an entire world
of reading for you and your kids Julia Park Rodrigues is a Northern California reader and writer. |
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