Will strike our house this weekend. We’ll likely see the fifth movie on Friday (too busy to see it sooner) and then begin the book the moment our pre-ordered copy arrives. My wife has first dibs; then she’ll read it aloud to my son. I’ll get the leavings. My daughter, only nine, has seen the movies but was too young for the first rounds of book-reading. She may be up for a second cycle, if my wife is.
We’ve also looked at some of the Potter scholarship, having been most persuaded by this fellow that Rowling is writing in the tradition of the Inklings. I may sometime get around to this law review symposium and this scholarly effort to read Rowling as a libertarian of sorts (the cartoon version, so to speak, is here).
I doubt I’ll read the volume of essays on Harry Potter and international relations that IHE’s Scott McLemee (barely) describes, but Michael Berube’s piece is short enough (and he’s smart enough) to be worth a gander.
After avoiding the Potter books for years because of the claim that came through Christian circles that the books were Satanic, someone I respected said that they were actually quite good and worth reading. So, I read one, and was pleasantly surprised to find the book was really about manners and civility. The story was good, too, but the flavor of the book that lingered was that there was a right way and a wrong way to behave towards people. This was not conveyed in any preachy way, but was evident. I liked that.
However, the Rowling stories remind me of E. Nesbit who was a founder of the Fabian Society. I do not know how that might relate to the libertarian claim, except for the common thread of resistance to authority.
Re: Harry Potter is a Sin!
Then I'll see you in Hell!
Opening night, I was walking by a line and I met a couple of girls who were reading Harry Potter books and waiting to see the Harry Potter movie. I Intereviewed them for my podcast.
There's a short essay by one of the editors of the "Harry Potter and International Relations" book up at The New Republic Online.