Author Stephen King on Harry Potter Series
[Editor’s note: Hello, I am a great Harry Potter fan. I have always loved it and have written a number of reviews of its various volumes and movie sequels. Yet none of them does any justice to the entire series. In the coming weeks I’ll not only post here my exclusive review of the series but also one or more essays on comparing the series with that of Narnia, Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials. Meanwhile please enjoy Stephen King’s following article on the series. And while I’ll later present a more convincing case let me appeal to Rowling not to let our magical world particularly Hogwarts be orphaned. I am particularly in love with the castle. Please bring us the beautiful world back. Since Hogwarts is a school you can certainly raise any number of protagonists and plots from there. But please don’t let this shining beacon of hope for the children frustrated by the traditional education system die so easily. best, Farrukh]
And so now the hurly-burly’s done, the battle’s lost and won — the Battle of Hogwarts, that is — and all the secrets are out of the Sorting Hat. Those who bet Harry Potter would die lost their money; the boy who lived turned out to be exactly that. And if you think that’s a spoiler at this late date, you were never much of a Potter fan to begin with. The outrage over the early reviews (Mary Carole McCauley of The Baltimore Sun, Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times) has faded…although the sour taste lingers for many fans.
It lingers for me, too, although it doesn’t have anything to do with the ultimately silly concept of ‘’spoilers,” or the ethics of jumping the book’s pub date. The prepublication vow of omertà was, after all, always a thing concocted by publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic, and not — so far as I know — a part of either the British Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution. Nor does Jo Rowling’s impassioned protest (”I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish…reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children…”) cut much ice with me. These books ceased to be specifically for children halfway through the series; by Goblet of Fire, Rowling was writing for everyone, and knew it.
The clearest sign of how adult the books had become by the conclusion arrives — and splendidly — in Deathly Hallows, when Mrs. Weasley sees the odious Bellatrix Lestrange trying to finish off Ginny with a Killing Curse. ”NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” she cries. It’s the most shocking bitch in recent fiction; since there’s virtually no cursing (of the linguistic kind, anyway) in the Potter books, this one hits home with almost fatal force. It is totally correct in its context — perfect, really — but it is also a quintessentially adult response to a child’s peril.
The problem with the advance reviews — and those that followed in the first post-publication days — is one that has dogged Rowling’s magnum opus ever since book 4 (Goblet of Fire), after the series had become a worldwide phenomenon. Due to the Kremlin-like secrecy surrounding the books, all reviews since 2000 or so have been strictly shoot-from-the-lip. The reviewers themselves were often great — Ms. Kakutani ain’t exactly chopped liver — but the very popularity of the books has often undone even the best intentions of the best critical writers. In their hurry to churn out column inches, and thus remain members of good standing in the Church of What’s Happening Now, very few of the Potter reviewers have said anything worth remembering. Most of this microwaved critical mush sees Harry — not to mention his friends and his adventures — in only two ways: sociologically (”Harry Potter: Boon or Childhood Disease?”) or economically (”Harry Potter and the Chamber of Discount Pricing”). They take a perfunctory wave at things like plot and language, but do little more…and really, how can they? When you have only four days to read a 750-page book, then write an 1,100-word review on it, how much time do you have to really enjoy the book? To think about the book? Jo Rowling set out a sumptuous seven-course meal, carefully prepared, beautifully cooked, and lovingly served out. The kids and adults who fell in love with the series (I among them) savored every mouthful, from the appetizer (Sorcerer’s Stone) to the dessert (the gorgeous epilogue of Deathly Hallows). Most reviewers, on the other hand, bolted everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book pages of their respective newspapers. Read more
End of the line - Review of Pervez Musharraf’s autobiography
He was really a fascist — using the most progressive rhetoric to promote regressive ends, the first of which was to stay in power forever. It was a tragedy, because a man of his undoubted capability could have done a lot of good for his country”
- Pervez Musharraf on Bhutto
At the time of purchasing the book, I noted three odd things about it. First, the picture that I was accustomed to seeing on the promotional cover jacket online, in which Musharraf is shown saluting someone, had been replaced with his another photo in a rather meditative mood. The second thing that I noticed was the absence of footnotes. Since we were anticipating his version on uncountable contentious issues, I was at least expecting his book to carry some verifiable references to other works or documents. The third is the issue of the publishing rights of the book, which are reserved in his name. I believe that at least his staff officer Brigadier Afzal Bajwa should have been given some reward for having painstakingly transcribing this magnus opus.
The book has three dimensions: personal, political and personal-political. While his personal life has been really very interesting, some episodes are narrated rather crudely. As for his views on politics before his rise to the power echelons are concerned, I daresay they are mostly politically incorrect. And the third portion that discusses his personal involvement in the contentious political issues, both in the military and the civilian domains, offers challenging reading owing to lack of contextual relevance. It is in this section that you realise that statements even in the same chapters do not match, which essentially implies that they were neither jotted down in long regular sessions nor edited any differently. Perhaps, Musharraf was really in terrible haste to get it published. Read more
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