a friend just told me that hes reading the first Harry Potter book for the first time and its bringing back all sorts of memories for him of reading fantasy as a kid. My response: Im so glad that youve started Harry Potter! A couple of things just to forewarn you: the books become more like great literature starting at book 5. But ultimately, if you let them, the series opens up a whole world of childlike wonder. Its my goal to bring that childlike wonder back to myself and to our world many times over. There is a quote in the Jewish tradition: Just as the hand held before the eye can hide even the tallest mountain, so the routine of our every day lives can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and secret wonders that fill the world. Harry Potter as a series did something so monumental: it helped children and especially grown ups remove the hand from our eyes - and remember that magical feeling of the life behind the life, The wonderment of that cozy, Christmas feeling. And Rowling is a hilarious author! The books politics dont really start until later in the series. But I still contend that the first sentence of the first book is one of the most subversive sentences in all of literature: Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Sure, its subversive to be against capitalism or another prevailing economic ideology or to be any thing else....but the most radical thing to me, is to be against normalcy as a noble aspiration. That act alone forces the mind to question, invites us to value that which is different, heterogenous, wild, and mysterious. That energy unleashed upon our Muggle Minded world is unstoppable.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 05:13:54 +0000
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