[davem]

Just found a discussion on the Pope's comments re HP on the Second Spring website. This is from Professor Ted Sherman's post:

Rowling is a more sophisticated and complex author than many literary folks give her credit for. She does write "addictive" page-turners, as Francesca called them, but they are more than that, especially with each successive novel. She is creating a universe that is internally consistent (as Tolkien did), but that is also closely related to our own world. She's doing this for at least a couple reasons: she's writing a fairy-tale (or a series of fairy-tales if you want to look at each story independently) and all fairy-tales are ultimately about our world, the world we inhabit with all its problems. Remember, it was Tolkien who said (and I quoted this in my talk last summer--which was about Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" essay and Harry Potter) that "creative fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as they appear under the sun; upon a recognition of fact, but not slavery to it" ("On Fairy-Stories"). I don't know whether Rowling is familiar with the essay; but her fairy-tale is just as founded upon the hard recognition of fact as any modern, realistic novel. She is first and foremost telling a story, but her story does have a point, and part (at least) of that point is how does one behave and engage in the ongoing battle between good and evil? And the answer she continually shows Harry coming to is that one engages evil on a very personal level, and that the only way to combat evil is to do it oneself. One cannot wait for others to solve the problem, to defeat Voldemort, to report the suspicious package at the tube/train station, etc. As is attested to Burke (which I also quoted last summer), evil thrives when good men do nothing. Lord Voldemort returns in Book 4 and thrives in Books 5 and 6 precisely because the wizarding community turned its back on Harry and Dumbledore who were telling them the truth about Voldemort's return. And as Harry sees, and others in the larger tale only gradually learn and accept, it is up to each of them to decide whether or not to stand in the way of evil. We saw at the conclusion of Bk 4 what happens when an innocent got in Voldemort's way--he was killed.

Rowling's larger story is a parable or fairy-tale of spiritual warfare. As a parable or fairy-tale it can be read on at least two levels, the superficial (literal) level of rollicking good story, and the deeper (analogical) level of spiritual enlightenment. At this deeper level, we see a boy with no spiritual understanding or development when we first meet him develop (by the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) into someone who now ponders the mysteries of life--and death. Indeed, it is the death of his godfather that awakens in him the desire to know what happens to people when they die. And it is through the "loony" Luna Lovegood (notice that surname!) that Harry is reminded about the voices he heard "beyond the veil" (a _very_ biblical metaphor and image there) and taught that he will see Sirius, and indeed his entire family, once again. The name Rowling gives to Luna suggests, I believe, the foolishness of God--she is taken for a fool by most of the students, but only because she is different, she believes things they don't, and she sees and understands things they don't. She is akin to the medieval fool who was commonly thought "touched by God." She is an analogue to many "holy fools" or "fools for Christ."