At 12:01 this morning, the latest literary potion from neo-pagan J.K. Rowling entitled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released. And, people (mostly children up way past their bedtime) rushed bookstores with such crazed determination to get their copies that one might have thought they were cocaine addicts jostling each other to score some free crack.
But surely it’s a good thing that so many kids have fallen under the spell of Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. And only self-important snobs would dismiss their intellectual interest because they are not reading Shakespeare with equal devotion. Because any book that takes kids away from socio-pathetic computer games like “Grand Theft Auto” has to be recommended.
I only wonder what sort of wizardry Rowling is performing to get so many poor children in E-9 countries (like Nigeria and Brazil with over 70% illiteracy) to “read” her books. Hmmmm…
Nevertheless, I applaud you, Ms. Rowling. You deserve all the Harry Potter billions you can get!
(“Hail Harry Potter!!! The iPINIONS Journal, July 16, 2005)
I never fell under the “imperio” spell that had so many adults reading about the adventures of Harry Potter. But I trust the above explains why I was nonetheless a big a fan of his creator, J.K. Rowling.
Ironically, my admiration also stemmed from her steadfast pledge that there would be “no more Harry Potter,” despite all things Potter being a veritable license to print money. Indeed, she practically conceded that the only reason she would have to write more Potter novels after the seventh (and purportedly final) one is the same reason Sylvester Stallone made more Rocky films after the third (and what should’ve been the final) one: money.
Will she or won’t she? Author J.K. Rowling appears to have ruled out writing another Harry Potter novel just weeks after sparking feverish speculation that another book could be on the way in an interview with U.S. television chat show host Oprah Winfrey…
In an interview to promote the launch of the latest Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Radcliffe told MTV news that he’d received a text from Rowling promising him that she would write no more Potter stories, after he expressed dismay at the idea of yet more Potter films in an earlier interview.
(London Guardian, November 17, 2010)
What’s more, Rowling appeared to vindicate my admiration – not only by proceeding to write decidedly non-Potter novels, including The Casual Vacancy, but also, presumably to avoid even any hint of exploiting her Potter fame, by publishing them under a pseudonym – as she did with The Cuckoo’s Calling.
But she betrayed the spirit, even if not the letter, of her no-more-Harry-Potter pledge when she launched her website Pottermore in 2011. After all, Rowling selling Harry Potter stuff to provide fans a more interactive experience is rather like a drug counselor selling pot to wean recovering addicts off drugs. You’d think the billion-plus dollars she’d already raked in from books, movies, and merchandise would’ve made this kind of money-grubbing enterprise too shameful to even contemplate.
Whatever the case, the writing was on the wall at that point. And, sure enough, here we are:
Harry Potter is back — mysterious, married, and going gray…
It’s the first update since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in 2007, but Rowling spokesman Mark Hutchinson said there are “no plans” for a new Potter novel.
The 1,500-word story describes Harry, about to turn 34, attending the final of the Quidditch World Cup with his family and old friends Ron and Hermione.
(The Associated Press, July 8, 2014)
Rowling insists that publishing stories about Harry Potter on her Pottermore website does not contradict her vow to publish Potter novels … nevermore. But this is now about as credible as Mark Zuckerberg claiming that peddling personal information for profit does not contradict his vow to protect users’ privacy rights. Likewise, her spokesman assuring readers that there are “no plans” for her to write a new novel reeks of as much disingenuousness as Hillary’s spokesman assuring voters that there are “no plans” for her to run for president in 2016.
Meanwhile, Radcliffe, who has done such a terrific job of fashioning a career beyond his formative role, is bound to feel betrayed – not just by her new story, but also by accompanying illustrations of the 34-year-old Harry looking more like a colleague of Professor Albus Dumbledore than the adventurous Hogwarts student millions have come to know and love.
In fact, according to a July 9 report by the London Daily Mail, Radcliffe could barely contain his irritation on Tuesday when questions about doing another Harry Potter sabotaged a promotional event for his latest film, A Young Doctors Notebook And Other Stories. He “muttered” politely that, as he understands it, Rowling’s story is “not of itself worthy of adaptation to film.”
This is why Rowling “might as well be hanged for a dragon as an egg.” In other words, she should just go ahead and “write an eighth, a ninth book,” especially given that she famously told Oprah way back in October 2010 that she already had plot lines conjuring up in her head. No doubt sales from more Potter novels would work like magic for soothing the bruising her ego suffered with publication of her non-Potter novels. (Did you even know about them?)
But there would be some poetic justice in her sitting down to write that next Potter novel and suffering her own, real-life “jelly-brain jinx”….
Related commentaries:
Hail Harry…