Aug 4, 2001
Wizard
I’m still charging through the second Harry Potter book (it’s for work, honestly), but a number of people have asked me my take on the first…. so here goes.
It’s going to make a great movie.
It’s written in the formulaic movie style that so much fiction relies on these days – we live an increasingly visual age, and it’s no surprise that written words start to echo screen logic.
Basically, narrative disappears almost entirely, relying instead on dialogue and action sequences (meticulously, almost scriptically described) to carry the story along. There is one piece of minor action per chapter and the whole thing neatly follows the 80/20 rule for cinema – that a movie will spend 80% of its length building up to a climactic moment and then 20% recovering from it.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with writing a book which is going to be a great film. I’m almost certain to see it, and I have enjoyed reading them so far. But it feels sort of…empty.
You can see the plot devices (what few there are) a mile off. You can picture every scene vividly in your head – and not because you’re using your imagination, but because you’re being told what scenes look like, the exact cut of a characters’ hair, the precise moment-by-moment account of their actions. You don’t need no steeeenking imagination to read Harry P.
Also, you know that it’s all going to work out just fine, which kind of bugs me. When I was a kid I liked books which were well-written and slightly dark. People died. Problems happened. The hero wasn’t always very hero-like – he or she wasn’t always exceptional. Things didn’t work out right all the time – there wasn’t one right solution, one big thing to get over, and then an all-singing jazz-hands finale. That’s something that feels like it’s missing from Harry P – it’s all a bit neat, a bit Hollywood. No wodner it will adapt so well the the big screen.
I’ll let you know how I get on with the others….In the meantime, you can play spot the spoof among the following few stories:
- “The Pagan Federation has appointed a youth officer to deal with a flood of inquiries following the success of the Harry Potter books which describe magic and wizardry…”
Potter Fans Turning To Witchcraft - “While children everywhere crave supernatural thrills, Great Britain, the birthplace of Harry Potter, has been a wonderland of options for exploring practical witchcraft. And plenty of youth have caught Harry’s vision. They want to learn his wizardly ways….”
Harry Potter Lures Kids to Witchcraft - “Across America, Satanic temples are filling to the rafters with youngsters clamoring for instruction in summoning and conjuring…”
Harry Potter Books Spark Rise in Satanism Among Children - “Remember, if you do not believe in playing the devil’s games, this series of books has a name for you and it isn’t meant to be complimentary. You are called a ‘muggle’ and these books paint you as a loser or a know-nothing nobody….”
Harry Potter and the Anti-Christ - “Hollywood studio Warner Brothers has had a spell cast on it for showing apprentice wizard Harry Potter riding his broomstick with the brush part at the back. A high priest of the British White Witches said broomsticks should be ridden the other way round, and has wished for the film to do badly at the box office until the studio admits it got it wrong…”
Witches upset by Harry Potter broomstick style - “While Rowling posits the ‘good’ use of occult powers against their misuse, thus imparting to her sub-creation an apparent aura of morality, the cumulative effect is to shift our understanding of the battle lines between good and evil. The border is never defined… “
Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children’s Culture - “The Potter series takes the old Gnostic worldview, makes it look glamorous and exciting, and does so in a way that is proving to be far more seductive than similar books in this field of children’s literature. Early Gnosticism was a combination of cult and heresy that came very close to undermining Christianity at its birth, during the first few centuries of the Church. It was only defeated by the efforts of the Church Fathers as they taught, corrected, exhorted and debated with the na�ve devotees of this perversion of genuine faith. And here it is again, popping up with unprecedented force, but now aimed at the most vulnerable, most impressionable part of the Body of Christ-our children….”
Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series - “Is the sorcery and magic in Harry Potter just fantasy? If not, are fantasy stories using occultism as a model healthy reading? Is it Biblical to accept the use of ‘good’ magical power if it is used to fight evil? Is there such a thing as ‘good’ sorcery? Any popular children�s book set in an occult environment offering a hero who practices the occult arts warrants careful examination and a Biblical response….”
Harry Potter, Sorcery and Fantasy
I think the media hype and moral outrage around the stories are actually more entertaining and scary than the stories themselves….
