Life After Hogwarts

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A week from now, an era comes to an end. For the last 14 years, Rowling's world of witchcraft and wizardry has dominated the lives of much of the rising generation. Most of the students, and a great fraction of my social contacts, are close in age to the actors involved in the series and have hung onto it as a major transforming force in their lives. It's truly a magical story, but for reasons other than at face value.

Yesterday, a writer at the UK Telegraph wrote a mostly lauditory review of the final film. He had only one criticism:

"Perhaps the greatest triumph of this final film is its ability to overcome the deficiencies of J. K. Rowling’s writing," --UK Telegraph

Now, Rowling is not my favorite author. The books in the series I actually read were not very good at keeping my attention or interest. Usually, you have 50 pages to capture my attention, and the only reason I pushed forward was that in 2000, four books had been written, and I had never heard of any of it, having been in Europe for two years. She spent a lot of time and adjectives describing the characters in vivid detail so that I would not have to imagine them and spent too little time on the story. Her vocabulary seemed to me as if she turned to a thesaurus on her word processor so as to sound smart, and the names and spells, mostly latin-based, were hardly imaginary. Rowling is no Shakespeare, let's put it that way.

Then last night, my dad gave me a different perspective. Rowling got an entire generation to read. When I was in high school, we used to groan over The Fountainhead, but these kids read several books almost that long. The kids got involved in a classic good versus evil struggle that, if you choose to take it that way, teaches principled lessons about life, morality, and adulthood, something a lot of young folks seem desperate to avoid. It asked them to confront tough subjects, like how whiney Harry was, relationships, the relationship of students and teachers, sacrifice and even death. It showed them how people can balance the struggles and joys of life. It also taught us how to camp, sort of.

Some armchair commentators criticize her writing. As I work on my own novel, I wonder what people will think of it, and I'm fair sure it won't sell nearly as many copies. I'm not writing to teenagers. I have frequently criticized her writing because I'm not sure she didn't steal it from other people, but the fact is that she put it out there, which is a very brave thing to do. Besides that, some of our media interests are matters of taste. What interests you might not interest me and vice versa. That's the beauty of our world that we have so many options, so if you don't like Samuel Clemens or JRR Tolkien maybe you enjoy JD Salinger or Clive Cussler instead. We have options. For those so quick to criticize her work, I ask them to prove they are better.

For Rowling, this was an excellent option that has given her more. At the time she started writing the series, she was a single mother on welfare. She worked and worked her way out of her station. Her story, even where the books she wrote may not be, is America's story to the world- the chance that you can choose your own adventure and change your own stars if you're willing to work for it.

There will be life after Hogwarts. The battle this final movie depicts does not end with the credits of the film. It goes on every day in our streets. So we don't shout latin and shoot bolts at each other with wooden sticks in our hands, and usually nobody dies. The battle, however, rages on, between principles and power, between those who seek the philosopher's stone to use it and those who seek the stone to keep others from doing just that. I have learned a few things from the series, and maybe one day I will actually own one or more of the movies or books.

I will however wait until it comes out in the $4 theater to go see it unless a cute girl invites me to come along beforehand. Takers?