I also want to do a reread of Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegart. I suspect that there are some post Communism novels that I wasn't impressed with before, but will be able to understand after the decade we've had.
I just started reading the books for the first time. I’ve waited so long partially because at one point I didn’t think it counted as real literature either, but also because I tend to read what I write and that’s not what I write. However, last year, I read the Lord of the Rings for the first time, and I realized that there’s real value in reading things outside of your aesthetic. I think it has to do with the values that are behind the story, which you clearly articulate. Children and adults alike need to see stories of characters boldly taking a stand against evil. I am all in on my Harry Potter experience and I’m very excited to see what it teaches me. Thank you for your wise, discerning approach to literature.
Wonderful recollection and some good ideas! I agree that Ms. Rowling, in her way, showed a clear vision of what it could mean to be human and a good person. Thanks for the peek into your origin story.
I've thought about doing a re-read of Harry Potter after what JK Rowlings been through the last decade. I do remember reading about Harry being the lone voice for what's right, but I suspect a lot of that will hit differently now.
why not try the JKRs Cormoran Strike series? I really like Rowlings colourful and lively world-building as well as her very sharp (some might say mean) observational skills and way of putting them into words. Thats what I still like best about HP (in addition to what Liz described in her essay) but with more mature content
👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉💯💯💯 WOW! WOW! WOW! This is a tour de force of a piece on what I would argue were the last truly great works of literature out of the mainstream! Forget Ta-Neishi Coates or Nikki Hannah-Jones, Liza you should get the MacArthur Genius Grant! This piece should seriously win you the Pulitzer Prize and be published in every mainstream media outlet! Harry Potter was a sensation when I was a kid growing up in the 2000s. I remember Potter Mania well. I never read the books, but my mom did and my aunt and cousin attended midnight releases for the books at Borders and Barnes & Noble. I owned Harry Potter toys, loved all the movies and ate the Chocolate frog candy they made to go with the movie. Everyone my age loved it. The Harry Potter films were something my family and I went to the theater to see regularly every time a new movie came out in the series and they all felt epic to me as a kid. Now of course, are they epic in the way literal epics like Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments or Spartacus are? No, but for children, teens and young adults that’s how they felt. The story was gripping, you had a world of so many fascinating characters and wondrous creatures. You rooted for and saw yourself in Harry, Ron, Hermoine, Ginny, Fred, George, Neville, and the other students. You admired the great Dumblebore, Hegrid and Professor McGonagall. You loathed the abusive Dursleys and Harry’s spoiled cousin Dudley. You loathed the evil Voldemort who murdered Harry’s parents even more. You want to punch the bully Malfoy and his buddies Crab and Goyle in the face.
You wanted to see Delores Umbridge get her comeuppance, you cringe at the grotesqueness of Voldemort’s servant that wimpy little weasel Ratail. You felt sympathy for Doby the Elf. It was a containing with universal moral principles and discussing timeless human dilemmas. You are spot-on, Liza that is why people loved these books despite being not as well-written or profound as a classic like Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Christmas Carol, The Bell Jar, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or Beowulf. Severus Snape seeks redemption for all the wrong he has done in his life. Voldemort wishes to live forever and have absolute power over everyone and everything. Lilly Potter fell in love and married James Potter despite the stigma on mixed Wizard-Muggle relationships. Harry, Ron and Hermione show courage to stand up for what’s right despite the great personal risk to themselves especially being kids. They bravely take on evil wizards and witches, giant trolls, giant spiders, dragons, dementors, dark forces, adults out for their own glory, and much more. They sacrifice for a cause bigger then themselves. Lastly, the stories’ arc is all about the triumph of good over evil as Harry fulfills his destiny and defeats and destroys the evil Voldemort. They face off in a classic showdown for the ages.
The possible parallels you could see between the book and real life are endless. Voldemort is a power hungry mad man bent on global conquest, ruling over all man and wizard kind alike, he seeks to commit genocide and perpetrates horrific crimes, he is ego maniacal, demands the absolute loyalty of his followers, and does not tolerate failure from subordinates. He always remind as a kid and now, of Adolf Hitler. Harry reminds me of Elie Wiesel or Simon Wiesenthal because as a child severe trauma is inflicted on him and he witnesses sadistic evil no child ever should have to. His parents are brutally murdered and as a result he dedicates his life to standing up and taking down evil and bringing the guilty parties who perpetrated these shocking crimes to justice. Dumbledore very much reminds me of Winston Churchill. A skilled and shrewd leader who is wise, courageous and universally respected and leads Hogwarts through some of its most tumultuous years before his murder and is a great orator. Severus Snape to me is akin to Albert Speer. He knowingly goes along with evil for his own gain only to regret it and show remorse later in life. Ratail reminds exactly of Rudolf Hess. A sniveling little coward, fanatically devoted to his Fuhrer (Voldemort in this case) who isn’t terribly bright. Harry, Ron, Hermoine, and their peers remind me of the men and women who served in the American armed forces during WWII, they didn’t ask to be involved in this global cataclysm but when called to serve their country/world they did so with unparalleled courage under fire. Draco Malfoy’s father to me is akin to Joe Kennedy, Sr., a less then moral individual who sympathizes with the bad guys and is a bigot who hates muggles and half bloods. Doby the Elf is analogous to me of those concentration camp inmates who revolted against Nazis and escaped to freedom. Choosing to stand up to those who pushed them around and overcame.
In closing, I would like to say RIP to Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman who helped bring J.K. Rowling’s immortal characters to life on the big screen. I wish all three of them were still here to see what an impact they made on kids and young people like myself from the Millennial generation growing up back then. Also, from these photos it is quite clear you were dedicated Harry Potter superfan Liza. Your parents clearly put a lot of effort into your quitach cake (which I think is now considered a real sport if I’m mistaken) and took pains to make it look as accurate as possible. You definitely remind me a lot of Hermoine is she were an adult and an American. Given your leadership skills, love of reading and being well-spoken. Come to think of it, your fiancé reminds me somewhat of Ron Weasley given his similar hairstyle and how goofy he can be. Yan Margolin is obviously Professor Quirrell/Voldemort. 😉😅 Gabriel and Stevie are clearly meant to be like Harry’s pet owl Hedwig.🦉I truly believe that Hamas are the real-life counterparts of the Dementors. Heck, Vladimir Putin is a dead ringer for Voldemort. The clash between the Wizard Army 🧙♀️🧙♂️and Voldemort’s forces to me is an excellent analogy for the Gaza War or the Russo-Ukrainian War. Harry, Ron and Hermoine remind me of the hostages who came home to Israel.
I grew up long before Harry Potter was around. My reading habits were formed by E Nesbit and AA Milne and Kenneth Graham and Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis. Which is to say that I grew up and learned to read before what I think of as the great moral shift, a shift that is evident in the virtues that this essay sees in Harry Potter. The key elements of that shift are:
* The shift from books being a way to learn about others to a way to learn about yourself.
* The shift from a belief that power corrupts to a belief that good people can safely and virtuously gain and learn to use power.
* The shift from believing that being good means obeying the rules to believing that good people were exempt from the rules by their virtue.
These are all aspects of the glorification of the self which is highly evident in Harry Potter, and highlighted in this essay. The Harry Potter books may be full of moral conviction and display an ethic of kindness, but it is a highly individualized morality that exalts personal conviction over a rules-based order. Appealing to children, certainly. But classical morality it is not.
I feel like Umbridge prepared me for when Covid hit and all of the associated social bullying. I had *seen* it before, in how Harry stuck to what he knew was true. He wasn't an ass about it, but he didn't back down. I think it gave me the moral courage to stand my own ground, and invest in my own judgement, instead of blindly accepting whatever the trend/story was (besides, any trend/story seemed to have about a 2 week lifecycle, before it was wrong and anyone who believed it was immoral and stupid, and also no one ever said that anyway, wash, rinse, repeat). Just do things this way, it will be *easier*...well, why? Easy doesn't always mean right. You can't bully me into abandoning my own principles, Umbridge. My integrity is worth more than anyone's approval.
I appreciated that she prepared me for real evil, by letting children encounter it safely, so they could see an example of heroism to follow in the face of the real thing.
Liza Libes, you might want to check out the work of author GM Baker here on Substack, it’s called Stories All the Way Down. He writes about how Lewis and Tolkien viewed story and virtue; and his take on Harry Potter is really interesting and worth reading.
Love this take! Yes, it's hard to create a world that both kids and adults want to be a part of, where the sense of humor still sticks with you years later. HP did that.
This is exactly what Harry Potter was (and still is) to me. Thank you for putting it into words!
I also want to do a reread of Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegart. I suspect that there are some post Communism novels that I wasn't impressed with before, but will be able to understand after the decade we've had.
I just started reading the books for the first time. I’ve waited so long partially because at one point I didn’t think it counted as real literature either, but also because I tend to read what I write and that’s not what I write. However, last year, I read the Lord of the Rings for the first time, and I realized that there’s real value in reading things outside of your aesthetic. I think it has to do with the values that are behind the story, which you clearly articulate. Children and adults alike need to see stories of characters boldly taking a stand against evil. I am all in on my Harry Potter experience and I’m very excited to see what it teaches me. Thank you for your wise, discerning approach to literature.
HP is great literature. Thanks for your Article
Wonderful recollection and some good ideas! I agree that Ms. Rowling, in her way, showed a clear vision of what it could mean to be human and a good person. Thanks for the peek into your origin story.
I've thought about doing a re-read of Harry Potter after what JK Rowlings been through the last decade. I do remember reading about Harry being the lone voice for what's right, but I suspect a lot of that will hit differently now.
why not try the JKRs Cormoran Strike series? I really like Rowlings colourful and lively world-building as well as her very sharp (some might say mean) observational skills and way of putting them into words. Thats what I still like best about HP (in addition to what Liz described in her essay) but with more mature content
👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉💯💯💯 WOW! WOW! WOW! This is a tour de force of a piece on what I would argue were the last truly great works of literature out of the mainstream! Forget Ta-Neishi Coates or Nikki Hannah-Jones, Liza you should get the MacArthur Genius Grant! This piece should seriously win you the Pulitzer Prize and be published in every mainstream media outlet! Harry Potter was a sensation when I was a kid growing up in the 2000s. I remember Potter Mania well. I never read the books, but my mom did and my aunt and cousin attended midnight releases for the books at Borders and Barnes & Noble. I owned Harry Potter toys, loved all the movies and ate the Chocolate frog candy they made to go with the movie. Everyone my age loved it. The Harry Potter films were something my family and I went to the theater to see regularly every time a new movie came out in the series and they all felt epic to me as a kid. Now of course, are they epic in the way literal epics like Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments or Spartacus are? No, but for children, teens and young adults that’s how they felt. The story was gripping, you had a world of so many fascinating characters and wondrous creatures. You rooted for and saw yourself in Harry, Ron, Hermoine, Ginny, Fred, George, Neville, and the other students. You admired the great Dumblebore, Hegrid and Professor McGonagall. You loathed the abusive Dursleys and Harry’s spoiled cousin Dudley. You loathed the evil Voldemort who murdered Harry’s parents even more. You want to punch the bully Malfoy and his buddies Crab and Goyle in the face.
You wanted to see Delores Umbridge get her comeuppance, you cringe at the grotesqueness of Voldemort’s servant that wimpy little weasel Ratail. You felt sympathy for Doby the Elf. It was a containing with universal moral principles and discussing timeless human dilemmas. You are spot-on, Liza that is why people loved these books despite being not as well-written or profound as a classic like Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Christmas Carol, The Bell Jar, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or Beowulf. Severus Snape seeks redemption for all the wrong he has done in his life. Voldemort wishes to live forever and have absolute power over everyone and everything. Lilly Potter fell in love and married James Potter despite the stigma on mixed Wizard-Muggle relationships. Harry, Ron and Hermione show courage to stand up for what’s right despite the great personal risk to themselves especially being kids. They bravely take on evil wizards and witches, giant trolls, giant spiders, dragons, dementors, dark forces, adults out for their own glory, and much more. They sacrifice for a cause bigger then themselves. Lastly, the stories’ arc is all about the triumph of good over evil as Harry fulfills his destiny and defeats and destroys the evil Voldemort. They face off in a classic showdown for the ages.
The possible parallels you could see between the book and real life are endless. Voldemort is a power hungry mad man bent on global conquest, ruling over all man and wizard kind alike, he seeks to commit genocide and perpetrates horrific crimes, he is ego maniacal, demands the absolute loyalty of his followers, and does not tolerate failure from subordinates. He always remind as a kid and now, of Adolf Hitler. Harry reminds me of Elie Wiesel or Simon Wiesenthal because as a child severe trauma is inflicted on him and he witnesses sadistic evil no child ever should have to. His parents are brutally murdered and as a result he dedicates his life to standing up and taking down evil and bringing the guilty parties who perpetrated these shocking crimes to justice. Dumbledore very much reminds me of Winston Churchill. A skilled and shrewd leader who is wise, courageous and universally respected and leads Hogwarts through some of its most tumultuous years before his murder and is a great orator. Severus Snape to me is akin to Albert Speer. He knowingly goes along with evil for his own gain only to regret it and show remorse later in life. Ratail reminds exactly of Rudolf Hess. A sniveling little coward, fanatically devoted to his Fuhrer (Voldemort in this case) who isn’t terribly bright. Harry, Ron, Hermoine, and their peers remind me of the men and women who served in the American armed forces during WWII, they didn’t ask to be involved in this global cataclysm but when called to serve their country/world they did so with unparalleled courage under fire. Draco Malfoy’s father to me is akin to Joe Kennedy, Sr., a less then moral individual who sympathizes with the bad guys and is a bigot who hates muggles and half bloods. Doby the Elf is analogous to me of those concentration camp inmates who revolted against Nazis and escaped to freedom. Choosing to stand up to those who pushed them around and overcame.
In closing, I would like to say RIP to Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman who helped bring J.K. Rowling’s immortal characters to life on the big screen. I wish all three of them were still here to see what an impact they made on kids and young people like myself from the Millennial generation growing up back then. Also, from these photos it is quite clear you were dedicated Harry Potter superfan Liza. Your parents clearly put a lot of effort into your quitach cake (which I think is now considered a real sport if I’m mistaken) and took pains to make it look as accurate as possible. You definitely remind me a lot of Hermoine is she were an adult and an American. Given your leadership skills, love of reading and being well-spoken. Come to think of it, your fiancé reminds me somewhat of Ron Weasley given his similar hairstyle and how goofy he can be. Yan Margolin is obviously Professor Quirrell/Voldemort. 😉😅 Gabriel and Stevie are clearly meant to be like Harry’s pet owl Hedwig.🦉I truly believe that Hamas are the real-life counterparts of the Dementors. Heck, Vladimir Putin is a dead ringer for Voldemort. The clash between the Wizard Army 🧙♀️🧙♂️and Voldemort’s forces to me is an excellent analogy for the Gaza War or the Russo-Ukrainian War. Harry, Ron and Hermoine remind me of the hostages who came home to Israel.
I grew up long before Harry Potter was around. My reading habits were formed by E Nesbit and AA Milne and Kenneth Graham and Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis. Which is to say that I grew up and learned to read before what I think of as the great moral shift, a shift that is evident in the virtues that this essay sees in Harry Potter. The key elements of that shift are:
* The shift from books being a way to learn about others to a way to learn about yourself.
* The shift from a belief that power corrupts to a belief that good people can safely and virtuously gain and learn to use power.
* The shift from believing that being good means obeying the rules to believing that good people were exempt from the rules by their virtue.
These are all aspects of the glorification of the self which is highly evident in Harry Potter, and highlighted in this essay. The Harry Potter books may be full of moral conviction and display an ethic of kindness, but it is a highly individualized morality that exalts personal conviction over a rules-based order. Appealing to children, certainly. But classical morality it is not.
I feel like Umbridge prepared me for when Covid hit and all of the associated social bullying. I had *seen* it before, in how Harry stuck to what he knew was true. He wasn't an ass about it, but he didn't back down. I think it gave me the moral courage to stand my own ground, and invest in my own judgement, instead of blindly accepting whatever the trend/story was (besides, any trend/story seemed to have about a 2 week lifecycle, before it was wrong and anyone who believed it was immoral and stupid, and also no one ever said that anyway, wash, rinse, repeat). Just do things this way, it will be *easier*...well, why? Easy doesn't always mean right. You can't bully me into abandoning my own principles, Umbridge. My integrity is worth more than anyone's approval.
I appreciated that she prepared me for real evil, by letting children encounter it safely, so they could see an example of heroism to follow in the face of the real thing.
Liza Libes, you might want to check out the work of author GM Baker here on Substack, it’s called Stories All the Way Down. He writes about how Lewis and Tolkien viewed story and virtue; and his take on Harry Potter is really interesting and worth reading.
Omggggg, this is so meeeee🫂
Potterhead for life.
Love this take! Yes, it's hard to create a world that both kids and adults want to be a part of, where the sense of humor still sticks with you years later. HP did that.
Strongly recommended, is this discussion of Harry Potter: https://youtu.be/tHGNf6nWUm0?si=nVKzsk9xmSOpHjQM
Agreed. Harry Potter books introduce children to the idea of character formation and this is a lesson that can carry them through life.
And this, people, is called literary snobbery
Hermione is up there with Jo March now in how many girls she inspired to be bookish and brave! Great post!