THOMAS FLEMING: SLYTHERIN TOWARDS GOMORRAH? (A Review of Harry Potter)

I must be one of the few Americans who have not seen Harry Potter. I have been, therefore, shut out from the main topic of conversation among “Christian intellectuals.” In the past several years, nearly everyone has weighed in on the great Harry Potter Controversy: Many evangelicals (and their legions of Catholic and Lutheran imitators) have denounced the book as part of a Satanic plot to arouse an interest in the black arts, while Harry’s defenders point to the examples of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and George McDonald as proof that fantasy, even a fantasy with witches and warlocks, is compatible with a Christian imagination. (They might have added that some of Harry’s evangelical enemies refuse to let their children read fairy stories or study Latin from books that so much as mention the name Jupiter.)

This is obviously a case requiring the treatment of Chronicles’ cultural physicians, and since I have no intention of ever seeing the most successful picture of all time, I decided to waste part of the weekend reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone--”the book that started it all,” (started all what?) as the back cover of the paperback edition declares (I may be dumb enough to pay $6.99, but that is the limit!).

Before getting into the meat of the controversy, let me just say what Harry Potter is not: It is not a masterpiece of children’s literature. Indeed, it is not by any normal standard literature at all. It is a trite story, rather poorly told in uninteresting prose, punctuated by dialogue that ranges from banal to embarrassing. From what I can tell, J.K. Rowling has borrowed her silly tone from T.H. White’s Once and Future King (among other things, Hogwarts is reminiscent of “Wart,” the young Arthur’s nickname), the schooldays bits from Kipling’s Stalky and Co., and her potty metaphysics from Star Wars movies--her evil wizards turn to the dark side. The monster under the turban may be borrowed from the film Total Recall, which must have been popular about the time she was writing the book.

Unfortunately, the author is not skillful enough to weave her sources and plot elements into anything like a coherent tale, and the story has more loose ends than a sweater knitted by your high-school sweetheart in her home-ec class. She clearly meant Professor Snape to be the villain--Harry’s scar grows hot when he meets Snape--but must have realized how predictable that conclusion was, and without any preparation she substitutes the stuttering Quirrell in the end. Harry Potter can not bear comparison with Edward Eager’s Half Magic, let alone with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Some people, however, obviously like the book. It did not, after all, begin as a publishing hype. So what is there to like? First, there are the obvious clichés of popular juveniles: the hero is a gawky outsider in two worlds, an ugly duckling or Cinderella forced to serve his unworthy relations. Then there is the leftist stereotyping that would endear the book to reviewers, librarians, and elementary-school teachers. Harry’s foster family are beastly bourgeois--a loutish businessman father who spoils his son with expensive toys, a shrewish mother whose long neck is adapted to spying on the neighbors, a blond son who tortures the sensitive Harry. As in all leftist juveniles, values are turned upside down. Ordinary life is boring and oppressive; real life requires magic. Younger people are better and truer than older people, especially those in authority, and even when Harry has no sufficient motive for defying legitimate authority, it all works out in the end.

However, such platitudes and stereotypes are only sufficient to win the seal of approval from the culture-masters. By themselves, they do not guarantee success. For all her obvious lack of talent and originality, Ms. Rowling does possess one quality that is often denied to much better writers. Stephen King hints at her gift in his blurb: “The fantasy writer’s job is to conduct the willing reader from mundanity to magic. This is a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable, and Rowling possesses such equipment.”

I suppose it depends on what you mean by “superior imagination.” What I think Mr. King is talking about is a writer’s (not just a fantasy writer’s) ability to hypnotize the reader into accepting his fictional world as real.

Tolkien had the gift, and on a lower level, so did Conan Doyle, Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft, and even Robert Howard (the creator of Conan). On the other hand, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton--for all their genius--were less endowed with this capacity than many lesser writers. In Lewis’s case, his imaginative power is limited by a finely developed critical intelligence and a reluctance to invest too much detailed work into his creations. Tolkien, although a good scholar, was less of a pure intellectual, and by the end of his life it sometimes seemed as if he had slipped over into Middle Earth, permanently. If Harry Potter is any indication, Rowling possesses not a drop of critical intelligence, and her imagination is simple enough to be seduced by the serial adventures of Mickey Mouse and Black Pete.

In pop fiction, especially of the juvenile variety, what matters apparently is not a good story or interesting characters--Harry Potter has neither--or even the ability to move the plot along. Rowling takes about 75 pages to get Harry from the island where he receives the invitation to attend Hogwarts to the wizard academy itself, 75 long pages of picking out robes and wands and hearing people ask the 11-year-old if he is really the Harry Potter. The “plot” of the book, the attempt to lay hands on the philosopher’s stone, is introduced belatedly into the story. (The publishers changed it to the sorcerer’s stone for American readers who apparently were not paying attention in the fifth grade when they learned all about alchemy.) For the plot to work, we have to assume that otherwise intelligent grown-ups turn suddenly obtuse when the fate of the world is at stake.

Then, what kind of a world is it that Rowling’s imagination has conjured up? I’ve already listed a few of the obvious things--such as the celebration of childish anarchy over the settled order of the adult world. It is tempting to condemn the book on those grounds alone, but we would also have to throw Huckleberry Finn and a number of other fairly good books onto the bonfire.

The deeper evil in the book lies in Rowling’s inability to understand evil. In her world, evil is all a question of class. Snobs who like wealth and power and social status seem inevitably to turn to the dark side, while the poor are nearly always virtuous. Of a Christian understanding, she betrays no knowledge. There are no overt Christian references, but it is clear that this powerful society of wizards precedes Christianity--the shop selling wands was founded in 382 B.C.--and coexisted with it--one of the ghostly old boys of the college is a fat monk or friar. They celebrate the secular Christmas holiday at Hogwarts, but--as in America today--there is no religious aspect to the happy holiday. Rowling is no kind of Christian, but even my sensitive nose, ever alert to anti-Christianism, failed to pick up a hint.

The problem is not that Rowling is anti-Christian or even un-Christian but that she has no coherent moral order. In Tolkien, whom she is clearly influenced by, wizards are sent by “the One” to help poor suffering humanity and hobbitry. Rowling’s wizards, by contrast, are mildly contemptuous of us “Muggles” and seem to live only for their art. Apart from perfecting their magic and defending themselves from the occasional bad wizard, they don’t actually do much of anything. While Christian morality is essentially positive--adding positive commandments to love God and your neighbor and injunctions to do your duty to the prohibitions of the 10 Commandments--goodness in Harry-Potterland is largely negative: not being nasty or snobbish or greedy. These are parts of moral decency, but trivial even by the childish standards of a Methodist Sunday School.

Writers of fantasy (especially in this increasingly post-Christian) world have three avenues of approach to their imaginary worlds. They can make them overtly Christian, as in most Arthurian poems and tales; they can create them with Christian analogies, as Lewis and Tolkien did; or they can simply ignore Christianity altogether, as Rowling has done. The problem with this approach, so far as Christians are concerned, is that it is not possible. The road to Elfland, though it may appear (in the vision of True Thomas) to run through pleasant meadows, ends ultimately in Hell. As Lewis pointed out in That Hideous Strength, the old world of pagan magic is no longer open, and that kind of magic is no longer licit--if it ever was. Significantly, Lewis’s Merlin, when he finally arrives, proves to be a Latin-speaking Christian.

Rowling herself, at least in her first novel, seems to be naively unChristian, not an enemy of the faith, but it is probably no accident that the anti-Christian publishing and media moguls, who have made it the great book of this new millennium, have seen it as a Devil-send, a grand opportunity to displace the Christian fantasies of Tolkien and Lewis from their preeminent position. Small wonder that some of the same people are planning a de-Christianized edition of the Narnia books.

Rowling cannot be blamed for the bad intentions of publishers and filmmakers, and, at least in this first novel, is innocent of most of the charges that have been hurled at her by members of the evangelical cults. In fact, to the extent Harry Potter has a message, it is entirely compatible with Christianity. Harry is saved twice by the force of goodness in his mother’s love for her child, and the lesson Harry learns in the end is that courage and friendship are more important than wealth and power. The great Christian theme of renunciation is even introduced, when the alchemist Flamel sacrifices his immortality in order to destroy the stone. Rowling, a single mother going through hard times, developed resentments against people of wealth and status, but she also found something to sustain her: a mother’s love for her child. Unfortunately, these moral insights seem more like an afterthought tacked onto the unconvincing conclusion than a leitmotiv running throughout the story.

Harry Potter is not a book I would give to a child or recommend to anyone, but neither would I warn children against it. It is essentially a stupid production, written for TV watchers by (I am guessing) a TV watcher. If children take away a distinctive message, it is not that authority is to be flouted (that is, after all, the consistent message of all pop culture) but that love and friendship count for more than getting and spending. I have heard that some libertarians are praising the book. Can they possibly have read it?

Conservative Christians have once again needlessly exercised themselves over a bit of fluff--a mote in the eye of the unbeliever. In the meantime, Evangelical publishing houses continue to churn out maundering sentimental romance novels and pseudo-Christian sword and sorcery fantasies that make Harry Potter seem, by comparison, like a magic compound of Homer and Dante and J.R.R. Tolkien. Perhaps if they started cleaning their own houses and got rid of Christian rock, pop Christian fiction, and pop end-of-the-world theology, the Christian right would be in a better position to criticize their enemies.

I was expecting another anti-Potter screed but am pleasantly suprised at a well thought out and presented literary criticism. Amazing.

I like the Potter books....as fluffy nonsense. Fluffy nonsense is fun sometimes, like cotton candy. I think the author of this piece is pretty close to the mark.

Good post.

Rowling's inability to understand evil.

Wrong. She understands evil quite well, thank you. And she litters her prose with allusions to it constantly.

Her "Vlabatsky/Blavatsky" anagram is a good example. Recently, I've read that both Charlie Manson and John Hinkley often read the writings of New York theosophist, H.P. Blavatsky.

Rowling keeps fine company, as do the children who read this crap.

"Wrong. She understands evil quite well, thank you. And she litters her prose with allusions to it constantly."

So? The battle between good and evil is what makes a story a story. What do you want in a story, a battle between good and good? Except for the movie Easy Rider, I have never read, or heard a story that did not have good guys and bad guys.

Harry Potter.......much ado about nothing.

Although it always seems there has to be some 'do-gooder' telling you what you can or can't do.....

redrock--Constitutional Terrorist

Have you ever read Blavaysky's books ? Just WHAT do you know about theosophy ? Apparently NOTHING, if you can find it in any of the HP books.

Sodom and Gomorrh were destroyed becuase of sexual practices ( supposedly ) and inhopitality. Neither of which make an appearence in any HP book or film.

Have YOU persinally, at ANY time, been read / have read any fairy tales ? Have you ever read ANY books on / about the KIng Arthur legends ? Have you seen any of the movies or T.V. shows about Arthur ? Have you ever read " THE WATER BABIES ", " THE WIZARD OF OZ ", " THE ODESSEY ", or seen movies about any of these things ? Hmmmmmmmmm ? How about Shakespeare's plays ? Coe on, tell us ; inquiring minds want to know.

I think I understand evil. It's not such a hard concept to grasp. Any 10-year-old child who can read the Bible knows what evil is.

Unlike Rowling, who also understands evil, I would hope I do not advocate it; promulgate it; toy with it; advance it; embellish it; or disquise it as children's literature.

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