Dispatches: Harry Potter and Hallowed Death

With thanks to M.A., who let me know that I'm not too cool for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... see?

Harry Potter?  I know, as a self-respecting member of my peer group, I'm supposed to remind everyone that they should be spending their Potter time revisiting something more important - maybe Elements of the Philosophy of Right, or Jude the Obscure?  Or, as Alex Balk drolly tells us, Harry Potter is only for children or feeble-minded adults - meanwhile he's reading Michael Ondaatje's latest (damn, son, that's supposed to be better?).  There's also this polite version of the dodge, made by formidable HT of That Was Probably Awkward: "I tried to read it, but gave up after twenty pages and am now ensconced in William T. Vollman's amazing Europe Central."  Well, la di da, HT.

We can't all be that brainy and stylish.  Some of us have become addicted to these books somewhere along the way.  In my case it happened after six years of studiously, hiply ignoring the things, until a Potter-mad friend took me to the third movie.  Alfonso Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a great children's film, convincing and complete.  Most impressive to me was the movie's unabashedly frightening, depressing and even fatalistic tone: from the opening image of Harry reading at night by wandlight to the Munchian creatures ("dementors") who board his train, there was a visceral, dank sense of fearfulness in it that made its happier moments feel that much more thrillingly earned.  At that point I went out and read all the books, and while the first two were pretty simple, I (like so many other "adults") found books three through five enthralling.  The other movies, too (again excepting the first two), are particularly impressive in the quality of their execution and in the consistent tone imposed by their producers, even while directors come and go, even though their attempts to adapt seven-hundred page novels for the screen necessitate near-fatal overdoses of plot.

The series' setting is not static; it's a slow zoom outwards that reveals more and more of the wizarding world, and as J.K. Rowling continually enlarges it, it comes to resemble our own (often with frustrating new layers of bureaucracy and political pettiness).  Through this expansion, the novels provide to adults both a return to the simplicities of childhood, and a return to that adolescent feeling of growth, of increasing knowledge and sophistication: the optimistic mastery of youth.  The books also explore the following laudable theme of the bildungsroman: growing up involves demystifying the idea of authority, whether personal or institutional, and learning to act for oneself.  Harry's burgeoning awareness that everyone, from the Minister of Magic to the beloved, avuncular Sirius to the big Daddy, Dumbledore himself, is flawed and human is the mark of real change in the books.  This is the true story arc, not the episodic pursuit of the monomaniacally evil Voldemort. 

Politically, however, the heart of the struggle in Harry Potter is between Voldemort's racialist love of "purebloods" and the liberal multiculturalism of Harry and his allies.  It's a reassuring if somewhat superficial multiculturalism, featuring many token characters (Cho, the Patil twins, Kingsley, Seamus), none of whom betrays any difference other than the sound of their names.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows even includes a subplot recounting young Dumbledore's regetted flirtation with fascism.  It's hard not to read this as a warning about and revision of the pastoral longings of much fantasy literature: for instance, in J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, the sense that monstrous technology wielded by subhuman invaders is to blame for the loss of the world's innocence.  Or consider Roald Dahl, another fantastist with strongly nativist politics.  Rowling does inherit most of the elements of Tolkien-style Christian allegory, modernizing them around the edges and thankfully dispensing with the donnish snobbery.  But the real difference between her and her predecessors is her willingness to think about what happens after the books end, beyond the fantasy.  It's the parents' perspective, and genuinely new in the genre.

That's why, at first, Deathly Hallows seems not quite up to the previous standard.  Actually, parts of it really aren't up to the previous standard.  It often reads like a communiqué to faithful cultist-curators who have grown up (or gotten old) obsessing over the books, rather than with a sense of fresh invitation and invention.  The massive popularity of the series, which must have encouraged Rowling to Take Herself Too Seriously, may be to blame.  (And don't think that old "It's only a kid's book!" excuse flies - compare it to her best books, Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix.)  In Deathly Hallows, after five hundred pages of strangely penitent plot starvation comes an emetic span in which the main storylines, and masses of other loose ends, are tied up within a hundred pages: plot bulimia.  And when the novel does move, it's far too often by narrative fiat, or as Sam Anderson puts it: "Rowling has cranked the "coincidence" dial up to eleven and is now flagrantly abusing her "imminent-death-thwarted-at-the-last-possible-moment" privileges."  Actually, you know what?  Just read Sam's entire reading diary for a nice account of the problems with the novel.

Rowling has always delighted in creating rules, standards and procedures: this curse is unforgivable, this Vow unbreakable, this spell doesn't work in this location, this is a Horcrux, that a Hallow.  But she never resolves Deathly Hallows' endless crises with the intricate feats of logical navigation that all these impediments make you expect.  Instead, the plot moves ahead in the time-honored but facile way of bad novels: coincidental appearances, secret passageways,  and unexpected reversals.  It's as if Rowling is reminding us that these are fantasies and she's in charge, playing with events in an almost childlike way.  Which, anyway, fits the logic of these novels: encroaching adulthood is a form of death.  For Harry, this is literally true.  And for the adults: Harry's parents are killed at twenty-one, his older friends (Sirius, Lupin) have their best days behind them, and the rest are schoolteachers or parents of Harry's classmates - incorrigibly second order.  Of Rowling's two most textured characters, Severus Snape and Hermione Granger, one reaches death after a life that never surpasses a childhood love's intensity, the other reaches adulthood after a precocious childhood... and we learn no more (sniff!).  Rowling's first allegiance is to children: we merely eavesdrop on something that belongs to them.

The promise of death, though, has always animated these books.  Deathly Hallows' first epigraph, from Aeschylus, begins with the following lines:

Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein,
the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.

The epigraph is deliciously scary, but not surprising: we've always known that one of the three friends would die.  Wondering which one it would be provided most of the suspense, since you knew the result of the good versus evil conflict wasn't going to surprise you.  Finally discovering that they all survive felt like a cheat, a failure of nerve.  Thinking about it again, though, this might be a more generous, more brilliant ending.  For Rowling is a most prosaic of fantasists: she exults more in the invention and naming of magical pranks than in the political victories of her adults.  Her battle scenes and final confrontations are less convincing than her detailing of school culture.  Heroism, in Harry Potter, is a mantle to be put back down and forgotten as soon as things are safe.  And with the epilogue, Rowling has made clear that her characters, having become mere adults, should make room for their own children's fantasies and marvels, rather than prolonging their own.  It disappoints the reader because the dramatic death of Harry or Hermione would prolong the fantasy, in the form of mourning a beloved character who will always remain seventeen.  You could stay a kid forever that way.  Instead, Rowling, by letting them survive, has written a more mature, more parental ending.

Most fantasy twins the reader and main character: both simultaneously discover and explore an unsuspected world.  For the reader, it lies inside the book, for the protagonist, beyond the Shire, or at a faraway school, or, in Lewis' brilliant metaphor, at the back of a wardrobe, between coats spread apart like pages.  Losing oneself in the other-world is magic, and fantasy literature's metaphor for the reading process is the plot, a journey to the end.  When one completes the book, the magic, as it must, ends and real life beckons - and that lies outside the purview of such books.  Rowling, a late and self-conscious practitioner of her genre, includes the closing of the book in her book.  Harry grows up, becomes a dad himself.  The quest over, he disenchants himself, and, like the rest of us, goes on living.

The rest o' my Dispatches.

Comments

[Elatia Harris]

Thanks, Asad! So, Harry did die... Joseph Campbell said that when you became a parent, you "died to the next generation." I love that choice you set up, BTW -- to read Harry Potter, or to pick up Jude the Obscure. After you find the right girl by putting a passel of them through the NYC Parking Challenge, you must ask the winner: "While you were waiting two hours for that spot, would you have been less anxious reading J.K. Rowling or Thomas Hardy?" The answer should tell you the rest of what you need to know.

[beajerry]

My spouse, who just finished the last book yesterday and was watching Rowling on the Dateline interview last night, said, "The books are good, but God she's boring!"

[Hektor Bim]

Thanks for the article. I agree about "Prisoner of Azkaban", but I'm surprised you liked the fifth one so much. I think of it as the weakest - it shows the same problems with Harry sitting around while other people do things that appeared in the last book.

I think the politics of the book are more complicated, but it is nice to see her at least resisting the "pure blood" racialism of most of fantasy fiction. (Of course, Harry Potter is a pureblood who is a descendant of the Deathly Hallows group. I think the books would have been more interesting with Hermione as the hero.)

[Jennifer Ouellette]

I would like to send your opening paragraphs to every pretentious jerk who tries to pretend they're "above" mere children's litrerature. :)

[Asad Raza]

But which is the right answer, Elatia?

Hektor, Harry's not a pureblood (his mom's Muggle)!

[Maeve Adams]

Hi Asad,

Really nicely done. I love what you say about the maturation/disenchantment/death of Harry. It's disappointing for the readers (all of them?), who appreciated the novels' fantastically reenchanted world (a magical world always a partially disclosed secret to the apposite Muggle world) and expected that Harry's reenchantment project would ultimately win against the bureaucratic disenchantment of the magical world by the Ministry of Magic. It's a cop-out to suggest that killing off the figure of unpredictable, irrational and enchanted evil (Voldemort) would necessitate a return to disenchantment. But, this is something very Weberian (and tragically boring in the context of fantasy) about the idea that a charismatic hero, like Harry, must be ultimately reabsorbed by secular disenchantment.

Also, the simplicity and large type of the Potter novels should leave plenty of time to read other novels like the most tragically disenchanted _Jude the Obscure_.

And PS, Harry's mom is not a Muggle; it's his mother's parents (or at least one of them).

Thanks for this.

[Elatia Harris]

Asad, I can't say there's a right answer for anybody but me. However! What you may need to do when you give your potential life partner the NYC Parking Sourcing and Management Test is to lean into her car window at midpoint with an iced latte and a choice of reading matter... Presumably, you aren't dating anyone who is Thomas Hardy-deficient, but you might well be dating someone who has not discovered the tedium-defeating properties of Harry Potter. This is merely an opportunity to find out who you're dating; there will be other and more severe tests down the road. Always remember that when you are one day on the very brink of a major decision of this kind, by far the best thing to do is to reach for your cell phone and dial me.

[Tasnim]

Dear Elatia:
Do you know of any girls who have already passed the downtown parking test? If so perhaps you can make it easy on Asad and introduce them. The of course Asad will have to put her through the 'Door test' as shown in'A Bronx Tale'.
I have not much to say about Harry Potter, since I have neither read any of the books or seen any of the movies. And not for any particular reason. Tasnim.

[Mr. Spandrel]

Harry Potter is for children and bed-wetters. Has the whole world gone mad?

[ht]

Ahem. In my defense I'd like to first point out that I never suggested I was above children's literature. I don't even really regard the HP books as "children's literature" per se; for me, they offer an entirely different universe, and language, from the one in which we live (however much we can and do draw parallels between those worlds). And that's the thing -- any expansive novel or epic or book series offers that: one can talk about the wonders of Rivendell and what exactly does it mean to die of grief, and only a part of the population would be able to follow with your logic. Or you (er, I) could talk about Shostakovich and the octopus. Same thing. I chose not to continue with the HP books because it was a language/lexicon/universe that didn't appeal to me. Other books spoke to me more immediately, and I followed that path.

I don't think -- I hope -- people who don't read HP are necessarily prententious (though some are). And I resent that readerly presumption: if you don't read HP, you must think think you're above it. Isn't it possible to just not read a book, just because? Simply because one doesn't follow a trend, or a phenomenon, or simply a thing in the world, doesn't mean that one is against it. Since when did book love get so contentious?

And Asad: if the lady in the Parking Challenge is hanging out with you while you're waiting for the sweet spot, I should hope that that's enough to win a shared carafe of Rioja at the local.

[Nancy]

Has anyone tuned into the Christianity-based ending to "Deathly Hallows?" It was SO obvious to me. In order that evil might not conquer the world forever, Voldemort (satan)had to die, and only one could kill him, Harry (the Jesus figure) . . . and in only one way, by his own death. So we have an alegory of Good Friday, where Jesus, the Chosen One (Messiah), goes willingly to His death, knowing that this is the only way that humanity has a chance to live. He dies; satan rejoices . . . but He returns. Harry goes to Kings Cross(ing) where he is given the choice of staying or returning. He knows that returning is the only way Voldemort can be defeated, and hence we have the resurrection allegory.
I don't read fiction to fortify my Christian beliefs (the Bible and other confessional writings are sufficient for that); however, I was blown away by the oh-so-obvious parallels. What is especially enticing is that the "moral majority" and "fundamental Christianity" movements have been screaming against HP since the onset, claiming that reading the books would turn our children toward witchcraft. Of course, they have no problem with C. S. Lewis, as he's a Christian himself, and certainly Aslan was the Christ-figure. I think Rowling brilliantly scored the knockout punch with the ending. It wasn't a great ending, but it was satisfying. She wrote the unaguable ending for all these knee-jerk, pseudo-Christian reactionaries, and if they fight this, they have to give up their precious "Lion,Witch,Wardrobe" book.
In all, the books were marvelously entertaining. The movies were OK. I eagerly read each book, as I teach middle-school literature and knew my students would want to talk about them. I enjoyed the books . . . and I probably won't read them again. I'll go back to my highly intellectual murder mysteries.