Wednesday, June 30, 2010

V's Pick #38: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Like Blythe, I too have been spending part of my summer coming out from under the pop culture rock from where I've been avoiding Harry Potter and friends. Unlike Blythe, I hadn't read ANY of the books until this month and because I haven't spent the last six weeks in a class about them, I will parse them out into different entries.

Before I get into it though, I will explain a little about how it was that I found myself under the rock in the first place. Also, I will warn that because I'm sure almost all of you have either read and/or seen the movies, my posts will not be plot-driven, rather, will be made up of wholly stinky-armpit-opinions.

So, the rock. It happened like this: about five years ago every intelligent and accomplished reader I knew was buzzing on and on about this Harry Potter crap, assuring me it was a great series full of whimsy, imagination, endearment and adventure. I've never been big on series books as an adult (how can one top the emotional connection I held with the Babysitter's Club characters or Sweet Valley High or Goosebumps?) and a series with so much hype has usually proved to be disappointing. Looking back, I was a brat about reading HP because I think some part of me was a little afraid to like it. Here I am, trying to prove myself as a scholar, a thinker...and I'm reading a children's series?! Anyway, I remember debating blindly in bars with friends as to the lack of literary importance of HP, trying hard to hold my own as a person who refused to come down from the degree-baring high horse of righteousness and eventually, everyone just left me alone about it.

The rock began to be lifted this past semester when I assigned my students to write literacy narratives and an overwhelming amount of them spoke about deep and altering impressions reading HP had for them in 4th grade and beyond. For some, the HP books were the only they'd really enjoyed reading. For others, HP at a young age made them appreciate writing and reading as pleasures. For others, the HP series was a moment of sheer impossibility...thinking they could never read that much and then doing it so effortlessly. A few of my students actually had interviews and were hired for the park during our semester together, one of whom (an excellent writer) told me in private that it was one of the happiest moments of her life - to be able to wear the Slytherin uniform and live in that world while getting paid to relive her childhood with her favorite books! I didn't spend 16 weeks with 50 exciting and unique young adults to not understand their brilliance individually...and if so many of them thought HP was so great, maybe it was time I learned something. With my resolve crumbling, John and his brother Michael served the near-fatal blows. John, who doesn't read novels very often, has told me many times about his HP experience (at the hand of his forceful little bro) and how he, like me, thought it would be too babyish for his tastes. He assured me, like all those friends years ago, that he was wrong, I was wrong and my students were right.
Michael, who's my students' age, has debated HP with his boyfriend (a self appointed Arts and Culture Gay) nearly every time they've come home for college for a weekend or holiday. For Memorial Day, they launched into a Vodka-infused bickering argument that lasted until 5:30am about how books like HP do or don't damage the future of fine literature. Finally, though, I was pushed to the edge by our very own Blythe. I'd seen signs up around our English building on campus about a Harry Potter grad class and I was curious...would it be taken seriously, taught like other literature? Well, when I heard that Blythe had signed up and would be reading the books during her short semester, I broke down.

The rest, is history, as they say. I'd been warned that the first two books were a little subdued, more childish than the rest and that Rowling's early writing left something to be wanted, but I dove in as open-minded as possible. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone found me laughing at the Dursley's, cheering for Harry, loving Dumbledore and Hagrid, cringing at the thought of Voldemort and in general, engulfed. Here we go, I remember thinking when I'd closed the back cover in less then 24 hours later.

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