In Harry Potter's Defence

For me, the most miraculous aspect of the Harry Potter series is how wonderfully and richly it grows. On the joy of its fantasy it is worth reading the first book alone, but as it develops, it proves its worth as something more than a purely imaginative object. Rowling is not one of the great English authors: let’s state that to begin, and furthermore let’s clarify the obvious superfluity of that fact. Harry Potter does not pretend to canonical status, so let’s not waste time detailing the ways in which Rowling is not, in fact, Henry James. These books are at heart a children’s series; they have the simple joys and ease of access that define them as such. Even as their world deepens and darkens, they retain to the end their ethos of youth, and I mean that as a compliment.

Rowling matures as a writer in time to make her characters mature as well, and the somewhat surprising result is that over the course of seven books, her characters grow as believably and as thrillingly as could reasonably be hoped, even exceeding that expectation to become genuinely surprising. Her world increases its complexities to provide the room for that growth, and it is a testament to the scope of her vision that it happens naturally, with grace and pride. It does not achieve the security of inevitability but strives for something else instead, blossoming into a myriad of possible routes, revealing both the tenuousness and the tenacity of that individual choice.

Harold Bloom seems to find in Harry Potter a lack of imagination, originality, quality writing and effective satire. On that last count, he is indisputably, incontrovertibly accurate: the series almost entirely forsakes the dark undercurrent of the societal psyche, and consequently fails utterly as a satire. The series chooses other roads of appeal instead, and other routes towards imaginative flight. The initial thrill of the first book is one of vicarious fantasy, a thoroughly imagined and enchanting fantasy. It is not wholly original, if we define original to mean without precedent. It does, to a certain extent, rest on cliché. But synthesis is a form of originality as well, and if done with skill and joy can be as much a success in its own way as the fabrication of something wholly novel. There is more than one kind of creative act, and Rowling’s imbues the clarity of familiar, straightforward ideas with a richness and depth that render the cliché immediate and the stereotype utterly believable.

Her writing has been disparaged. It is not flawless; as was stated before, her hypothetical status in the literary canon is self-evidently suspect. But she is clever, and genuinely funny; she is inventive in small, memorable ways, and her writing endearingly mirrors her subjects. It is not high English, with a capital E and an imperious voice, but keep in mind that these are children’s books, and after all, lord knows, when you’re a kid, what you really hunger for more than anything isn’t imagination or liberation but the ability to distinguish between finely nuanced layers of prose styles. This is not to say that children’s books should not be written well; they should. But there are different kinds of standards, and Bloom’s is not the one to which Harry Potter adheres. Difficulty certainly has its worth, but the value represented by difficulty can manifest itself in other ways as well. Not everything rests definitively on the apparatus of its presentation.

There is inherent and inextricable value to entertainment, value that justifies itself. Belittling Harry Potter for taking entertainment and enjoyment as one of its core values seems plain curmudgeonly. Looking at the series retrospectively and contextually undoubtedly has worth, but it misses out on the thrill of that first contact high and the exhilaration of discovery. Children’s books can sometimes be read intellectually, but doing so only helps to chart the architecture that lends the narrative its fundamental appeal. To read it on a critical level alone refuses to acknowledge the point; it seems only fair to do the series the favor of at least trying to enjoy it. For me, the books grow in value as the series progresses and its world grows richer, more expansive, and more real. Why subscribe to an economy of narrative when you can revel in magic and adventure instead? These books perhaps do not work to justify their existence as the sole arbiter of taste and intelligence, but they do not intend to. Few things exist in a vacuum, and partaking in one type of enjoyment does not preclude experiencing others as well.

And this, to me, seems to be at the core of Bloom’s critique: the Harry Potter books do not align with his particular conception of quality literature. It is at heart a top-down critique whose varied aspects can all be traced back to the notion of the Right Way to Do Things. Having only read part the preface to Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (because that’s what’s available on Google Books), this is a mode of thought that underwrites his thinking there as well: singularity joined to pervasiveness, and a unitary judgment from which all things can be derived. There, it is poetic influence (this is admittedly a hasty judgment to make, but I’m all about making grand inferences from small amounts of information), while here, it is what literature should be. This is a notion that gets under my skin, because the consequent worldview renders everything a variation on a theme. There are compositions based on different themes as well, and ones that turn their back on a thematic world entirely.

The Harry Potter books are fundamentally and wonderfully good-hearted. Like the books themselves, their characters are flawed, but good. Redemption is offered, but it is realistic, not operatic. They are underwritten with a deep sense of belief in love and friendship, an honest faith that is not maudlin in any way, and that, to me, seems good. Unlike Twilight (and that’s a whole another article right there), their fantasy carries no insidious subtext. For all its whimsy and fantasticality, the series is deeply and warmly human. Reading them does not involve any temporary relaxing of standards or demeaning of morals, demanding instead that each hold steady to their beliefs, as it itself does with pride. Rowling’s narrative is no weaker because her characters are sometimes dislikable or irritating, even for long stretches at a time: I find it admirable that she is unafraid to present temporary abrasiveness because the overall arc is rendered that much more compelling.

Why read Harry Potter? Because it’s fun. Because as it grows and matures and reveals its almost incidental master plan, the extent to which it becomes affecting takes you by surprise. Perhaps it is not universally appealing (though book sales would seem to suggest that it is), and like many children’s books, it probably takes a particular kind childishness to enjoy fully. I like fantasy generally, and as in much fantasy, the success of Harry Potter’s particular brand depends as much on its ability to be extended in the imagination of reader as in the mind of the author. The world is fully realized on the page, but more importantly, off it as well. The series’ greater literary merit or endurance or sophistication or whatever may be up for debate, but I enjoyed every minute of those books.