A sorceress for our time

A sorceress for our time
By Peter Aspden
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: July 7 2007 03:00 | Last updated: July 7 2007 03:00


An unlikely air of solemnity surrounds the release, in two weeks' time, of the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's series of stories about a bespectacled English schoolboy that has entranced the children of the world for the past decade.

Even the book's morbid title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, seems to confirm rumours that the series will end in the deaths of one, or possibly more, of the leading characters. Ms Rowling has confessed that there are two deaths (and one reprieve) that she had not intended, as if the very plot-line of the Harry Potter saga had taken on a supernatural life of its own.

She will spend the evening of the book's publication signing copies in the studious surrounds of the Natural History Museum, where even the dinosaur skeleton must for once take second place in wonderment value to the unravelling of the final instalment of the Harry Potter phenomenon.

Ms Rowling is in understandably bitter-sweet mood over the ending of her opus, claiming to feel simultaneously "heartbroken and euphoric". Those feelings are bound to be magnified worldwide, where more than 325m books in the series have been sold, making their quietly spoken author a dollar billionaire at the age of 41.

As bookshops open their doors at one minute past midnight on July 21, expecting to sell 3m copies of Deathly Hallows in the first 24 hours alone, the plaudits for Ms Rowling will be heard all over again, praising the woman who has single-handedly revived children's reading and created one of the strongest brands in the history of entertainment.

Yet there has always been a churlish undercurrent of criticism beneath the adulation. In quantitative terms, no book has ever captured children's imaginations like Harry Potter. But critics say that, compared with the great children's books of the past, the Harry Potter stories fare badly, appearing derivative, modestly written and superficial.

"Ms Rowling's magic world has no place for the numinous," thundered novelist A.S. Byatt. "It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons and the exaggerated mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip."

Some cultural pessimists have gone further still, lamenting the strange tendency of adults to become as obsessed with the Harry Potter books as their children. Here, they argue, was a perfect metaphor for dumbed-down, Blairite Britain: a nation choosing to escape into facile fantasy and revel in the hype, rather than knuckling down to issues of substance and gravitas.

The successes of Ms Rowling and Tony Blair dovetail with eerie coincidence. The first Harry Potter book was published in June 1997, a matter of weeks after a fresh-faced, new prime minister promised that things could only get better. That was certainly true of Ms Rowling, who had spent the previous years recovering from the sudden death of her multiple sclerosis-stricken mother and an unhappy marriage, and trying simultaneously to bring up a child and write her fledgling children's novel in the cafés of Edinburgh.

Mr Blair and Ms Rowling won instant acclaim for their novelty and charm. Although she had received only a modest advance from her publisher, Bloomsbury, for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Ms Rowling was buoyed by encouraging reviews and word-of-mouth-based sales figures.

But as the Harry Potter books became increasingly successful, it was clear we were in a new era: an age in which business and politics could build elaborate machines to promote their interests. Although Ms Rowling kept herself largely out of the limelight, the Harry Potter machine, which had now spawned a movie franchise, rolled on with consummate expertise in the art of self-aggrandisement.

The midnight store openings were part of the pattern, creating scenes not seen in Britain since the early days of Beatlemania. The young wizard embraced the globalised economy with equal gusto: the books were translated into more than 60 languages (including, with a touch of retro irony, ancient Greek and Latin). Harry and Tony became established global figures, seeming to sprinkle magic wherever they went, but supported by stolid armies of zealous propagandists.

One can take the analogy too far. In truth, Mr Blair was never a Harry Potter fan. Tellingly, however, two other members of the cabinet admitted to including Ms Rowling's books on their bedside tables: David Blunkett and Gordon Brown, who succeeded Mr Blair last month. Mr Brown's interest came as something of a surprise: did he really leaven his literary diet of Enlightenment philosophers and political scientists with bozos on broomsticks?

But Mr Brown had become good friends with Ms Rowling, largely through his wife, Sarah, and their families have spent much time together. That should not come as a great surprise. Quite apart from her obvious appeal as an outstanding British symbol of wealth, success and creativity, Ms Rowling's quietude, lack of ostentation and devotion to charitable causes (particularly towards one-parent families and multiple sclerosis sufferers) strikes a temperamental chord with the new prime minister.

Is it too fanciful to see, in the evolution of the Harry Potter books, that gradual darkening of tone that has matched the nation's impatience with the politics of flash and spin? Ms Rowling has always insisted that one of the most important characteristics of the Harry Potter books is their refusal to avoid difficult subjects such as death. The darkness was there from the start, she would say, with the death of Harry's parents. It is just that we were temporarily dazzled.

The fact is, notwithstanding the timing of her rise to prominence, Ms Rowling never did really fit into the feelgood Blairite story. She was never part of Cool Britannia, having nothing in common with the cocky strutters of Britpop or the irreverent heart-on-the-sleeve antics of the Young British Artists.

Harry Potter may have been a Blairite phenomenon, conquering the world with sleight of hand and boyish allure. But he has served his purpose, and that was only half the story anyway. Ms Rowling, dedicated, spotlight-shunning, modest and morally serious, is now poised to be the first cultural ambassador of the Brown administration. She is in many ways as impressive a phenomenon as her young hero. What she does next could tell us more than we might think about Britain's political future.