In Cool Takes, S. D. Kelly offers a fresh reflection on hot topics by exploring the intersection of faith with high and low culture.

Not too long ago, I asked a local author to read from one of his books at an event in the small town where I live. The book was on the topic of a local historic building. With such niche subject matter written for an even smaller audience, it never occurred to me that he would turn down the chance. Much to my surprise, the author declined. “Once I launch a book, I give it a few months.” he told me. “At this point, I have no interest in talking about that book.”

I think about what he said every time I read another one of J.K. Rowling’s revelations about the world of Harry Potter. It’s been nearly ten years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published, yet she just can’t stop talking about that book. In the last several years, Rowling has written an 800-word prequel, a Hogwarts textbook, a book on Quidditch, a book of fairy tales (proceeds from the sales of these works have all gone to charitable causes), and launched a website where information on the Potter universe is ladled out of a leaky cauldron–a website with the typically unsubtle name of Pottermore.

J.K. Rowling can tamper with the characters to her heart’s content, but I can no longer, in good faith, be part of this creator-consumer bargain.

On the other hand, it makes sense that Rowling is something of a monomaniac. As a writer, she emerged whole from the general muddle, a talent that rose of its own volition without the assistance of writing instructors and an advanced creative writing degree. Not to diminish the labor involved, but the entire Harry Potter series seemed to spring out of nowhere, fully-conceived (early career interviews have Rowling projecting the seven books and having a fairly clear sense of the story’s arc and resolution). So perhaps Rowling’s is the sort of creativity that feeds from a single source. When her well runs dry, so will the revelatory speeches giving extra-Potter bits about Dumbledore’s sexual orientation and tweets offering shout-outs to Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Someday, the work of J.K. Rowling will finally, fitfully be complete.

This day can’t come soon enough. Recently, pieces appeared in The New Yorker and Slate bemoaning Rowling’s meddling and ubiquitous presence on Twitter, raising questions about the role of creator in continuing to create (as well as curiosity about how much time Rowling must have on her hands).

But more is Pottermore, and now we have the London debut of a play that gives us a Harry Potter sequel: a glimpse into the doings of Harry and his family 19 years after Hogwarts. It’s called Harry Potter and the Curse of Middle Age, and the plot involves a very modern dilemma: Should Harry get LASIK surgery like a common Muggle, or resort to magic to finally take care of the astigmatism that has plagued him ever since his days in the cupboard under the stairs? Does Harry struggle with hemorrhoid flare-ups, and are his in-laws, the Weasleys, as annoying as Lucius Malfoy always claimed?

No, the play is not really about that. It is about this, as stated in the official synopsis:

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

The actual plot of the play sounds only marginally better than one about male pattern baldness. The only part that doesn’t sound boring is the part we’ve read before in the previous seven books: the stuff about darkness coming from unexpected places.

When the Harry Potter series was published, I was already well beyond the target demographic. All the same, I was an avid reader who placed my pre-order for The Deathly Hallows in an atmosphere of hushed humiliation, painfully aware of the fact that I was way too old to be so wound up about this phenomenon. When the great day of its release finally came, I walked home from the bookstore with my copy in an unmarked paper bag, like a book wino. I realize that, as a reader, old or not, it is a waste of time to protest the fact that Rowling trolls through the Potterverse like a deity, squeezing and reshaping what she has molded, refashioning reality according to her will. Rowling behaves like a deity because, when it comes to Harry Potter, she is one. But as creator she has violated the basic rule of creation (not to mention publishing): free will. We readers have claimed Harry Potter out of our own free will, and out of our own free will we can give him back. At this point, I am giving Harry Potter, at least in all his post-2007 iterations, back. J.K. Rowling can tamper with the characters to her heart’s content, but I can no longer, in good faith, be part of this creator-consumer bargain.

On a recent visit to that amazon of American retail stores, Walmart, I had the opportunity to follow through on my end of the deal. I saw a stack of books displaying Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. My reaction to the sight of a new entry into the Harry PotterEverMore universe was markedly different than that of my reaction to the release of The Deathly Hallows, if just as furtive. What did I do when I saw the book? Reader, I flipped it off. I did. I extended the middle finger, discreetly, to the pile of books with the accompanying silent vow that I will never read a word of it. It was not the most mature reaction, but it was certainly the most fitting. The future of the world of Harry Potter may be in the hands of its creator, but its past is within my own control, and even J.K. Rowling can’t take away the Harry Potter I once knew. The loop is closed, the universe is no longer expanding, and time has stopped for Harry Potter. Avada kevadra.

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S.D. Kelly

S. D. Kelly lives with her family in coastal New England where she writes and works with a local nonprofit.
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5 Comments

  1. “Not to diminish the labor involved, but the entire Harry Potter series seemed to spring out of nowhere, fully-conceived (early career interviews have Rowling projecting the seven books and having a fairly clear sense of the story’s arc and resolution)” — But, from my perspective, you are *precisely* diminishing the labor involved by relegating Rowling’s series-spanning projection work to a parenthetical.

    “The only part that doesn’t sound boring is the part we’ve read before in the previous seven books: the stuff about darkness coming from unexpected places.” – Have you read the play yet? (Or, better yet, seen it? I wish I could; the stage directions are fantastic.) It may “sound boring,” but I think any text is owed the courtesy of being read before being judged boring. I have read it, and, in my opinion, the issues around aging and father-son relationships are actually much more interesting than the latest permutation of Evil On The Rise.

    “talent draws from a single well” – You are aware, I trust, that she has written a non-Harry Potter novel for adults under her own name, as well as a series of mystery novels under a now generally known pseudonym? Whether these books have reached the popularity of Potter (and they haven’t) is beside the point; they are evidence of an artist continuing to work at her craft, and to push herself to try new things. Goodness knows she doesn’t need the money.

    I don’t consider myself a “Potterhead” or a Rowling apologist, but I do think she is owed massive respect for envisioning and putting to paper (and now stage, and pixels) a fully realized subcreation, just as Tolkien and Lewis did. It’s your right, of course, to stop engaging with Rowling and her characters and her wizarding world. It’s your privilege to furtively flip off her books in the bookstore. But I don’t understand what I read as the animosity toward Rowling and her work in your words.

    1. That’s a good question: why would I harbor animosity? I generally don’t, though obviously I did in that moment. It almost feels like a betrayal of the completeness of the early work — obviously this just applies to me personally as a reader. Similar to finding out too many details about an adored family member that start to reshape that person’s status in your life — something like that. I have to absolutely acknowledge (and defer to) Rowling’s right to keep writing and expanding the HP universe, but feel that, as a reader, she risks the universe every time she writes about it, if that makes sense.

    2. Yes, actually – “risking the universe every time she writes about it” I can relate to. Not so much with Harry Potter — I really have no vested interest in that universe — but I have felt the same way every time a new Star Trek project rolls around: “Here’s hoping they don’t mess it up.” :)

      The aspect of Rowling’s universe-expanding that intrigued me the most (I take it she’s not doing it so much anymore) were the tweets about what Harry’s and the gang’s kids are doing “right now” at Hogwarts. I thought that kind of “real time” “updating” could be quite a clever way to leverage social media as a storytelling tool.

      Thanks for the reply!

  2. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize Rowling for loving the universe she’s created and continuing to write in it. You make it sound like a negative thing that her series sprang complete from seemingly out of nowhere. That is an amazing feat, in my opinion! :) By all means, if you are tired of the HP universe, then no one’s forcing you to read any more. But I don’t believe we have the right to demand or criticize that anyone start or stop writing something that they have so painstakingly created. She obviously doesn’t need the money; it’s more probable that she loves the universe and she loves writing, and I can’t fault her for that.

    I, for one, loved reading the play. I greatly enjoyed that it tackled the subject of Harry’s bias towards Slytherin from the previous books. It was fun and witty; I would love to be able to see it performed (I often found myself asking how on earth would they do this stage direction?).

    1. Oh yes, I think Potter fans who want more should carry on, definitely. I would never “demand” that an author stop writing whatever that author wants to write. It’s just diminished for me, as a reader, which is all that I have in this case: the choice to stop reading an author’s work. I’m glad that you enjoyed the play, however, and would love to hear more of your thoughts on it.

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