Generation HP

I was an eight-year-old boy like any other, except perhaps in my obstinate refusal to read what seemed like a childish novel with a ridiculous cover by an author whose name I had difficulty pronouncing: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

J. K. Rowling and her now famous wizard orphan were far from being household names back then, but the book’s popularity was certainly growing fast. In fact, that’s what made me suspicious of the book in the first place — how people became spellbound by Harry Potter and his magical world. Later on, when I finally got around to reading the first book, I fell under the same spell. That enthrallment is what made me wait for and read all the other books in the series with the same febrile anticipation — a spell that would last for the next ten years.

I wasn’t much of a reader before I met Harry. In this, Rowling’s book changed my life for the best. The feeling that I found so suspicious — that indescribable beguilement that grabs you by the gut and doesn’t let go, doesn’t let you sleep or eat or talk to anyone without thinking about Hogwarts and quidditch and horcruxes, until you’ve turned the last page — is what got me hooked on reading books in the first place. Once you’ve found that gripping feeling, you start reading books to find it again, until books simply become part of who you are, and you can’t imagine yourself living without them.

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, the magic was still operating. My sister commented to my mother about my strange behaviour the weekend I was reading the book (I was told this afterward). She remarked that I seemed inattentive, strangely mute, dreamy. “It’s Harry,” my mother explained to her. “He’s just reading Harry Potter. He’ll be fine when he’s done.”

*

One of the best tomes in the Harry Potter series is probably the third book: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It is the only book in the series which has almost nothing to do with Lord Voldemort, but it is much darker in both tone and content than the two first books, and it introduces elements and characters capital to the development of overarching narrative: dementors, the patronus charm, the Marauder’s Map, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin…

HP3 is also tremendously well constructed in terms of plot — it is tightly wound, packed with action, suspense, and Rowling’s remarkable humour. The final chapters of the book, which feature time-travel to repeat previous events from a different point of view, are among the most skilfully crafted passages in the entire series. As Carolyn Ross recently pointed out in The Millions, YA novels are all about plot, and so the more time-bending, sleep-preventing plot there is to spoil, the better.

*

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my least favourite book in the series. It is also the longest. I read it on a family vacation in Italy, while we drove through the Tuscan back country. My reading was thus tainted by golden sunsets, delicious foods, and Renaissance architecture. Nevertheless, I was intensely disappointed with the book (which happened to be the only thing I had brought to read on that vacation — never again would I overestimate the time it takes me to read a Harry Potter). I had difficulty connecting with a troubled, angry Harry. Perhaps the problem mostly had to do with age. At 15, Harry is very much a teenager in HP5 — while as a twelve year old travelling in Europe with my parents, I had difficulty relating to some of the stuff he was going through. For the first time in the series, Harry was disappointing me, he seemed to fall short of himself.

For instance, there is a very dramatic scene in the book in which Harry wrecks Dumbledore’s office (Dumbledore is the headmaster at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry — he is old and wise and witty). I was deeply troubled by this act of violence, which I saw as gratuitous, mean, and furthermore committed against one of my favourite characters in the series. I understand now, of course, the emotional crisis that Harry was going through. Looking back, I realize I should have understood him better. Harry is constantly at moral crossroads in the books, constantly forced to live up to his ethos as a hero (the boy who lived), and yet willing to define himself on his own terms. You would expect him to blow a fuse once in a while, with the enormous pressure not only put on his shoulders by others, but by himself. Instead of trying to understand the character I thought I knew, who was becoming rounder and more complex, I was disappointed by Harry, and more importantly I was disappointed by J. K. Rowling.

*

By the time Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out, I felt I had somewhat outgrown the series (ironically, I was then fifteen myself), so I read the sixth book almost half-heartedly. I remember distinctly that I read the chapter in which Dumbledore dies — the most chocking event in the whole book, and probably in the entire series — while watching tennis on TV. Thus Rowling beat me at my own game, because the sixth book really is good, and despite the qualms I had developed about the series, I couldn’t help but get teary when my favourite character was murdered.

I feel somewhat guilty at admitting that for a time I wasn’t that hooked on Harry Potter anymore. But then, how could it not be so? In a relationship that lasts 10 and more years, there has to be some ups and downs.

The launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, however, was definitely an up.

*

HP7 was published in June of 2007. By then, I had finally caught up with Harry, and we were both exactly the same age. But something else had happened, I was now a bookseller, which meant that I had to actively promote the new book, as well as participate in the activities surrounding its launch. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better way of celebrating the end of a series which had marked me and my generation than by tending a Care of Magical Creatures station, fighting in a mock duel, and helping to open that enormous crate, covered in black plastic, and handing out the very first copies of the book on the stroke of midnight.

After finishing the last book, J. K. Rowling declared that she had felt simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric. By some symbiosis with her readers, that’s exactly how she made me feel when I finished HP7 — elated by the happy ending, by all of the strands Rowling had been weaving for thousands of pages which finally came together so majestically; and yet dreadfully sad that I would never have the pleasure of opening a new Harry Potter every again, faintly surprised that it was all over.

I read most of HP7 by night, in the pool of reading-lamp light, while the rest of my house slept peacefully. (This is unworthy of a true Harry Potter fan. My girlfriend, for instance, started reading the book as soon as she got home from the midnight book-launch and read the whole thing in one sitting. By the time her family got up the next morning, she was reading the last sentence: “All was well.”) During the day I worked in a bookstore, having to sell the book; at night, I was carried over in a different world, packed with action.

HP7 is good in an explosive way. For the first time, the three main heroes of the series aren’t at Hogwarts, they are moving around from one action-packed death-trap to another, acting for the most part blindly, questioning themselves constantly on what they should do next, and on Dumbledore’s motives (yes, him again). In fact, the trio only finds out what the deathly hallows are on page 332 (of 607).

HP7 is explosive in a thematic sense, as well. The entire series is about dealing with grief and loss, about growing up, about friendship, about defining yourself through your actions. All of this transpires in the final book of the series, but on a much larger scale, mixing in issues like loyalty, political corruption, racism, guilt — demons bother inner and outer.

And then there is love, of course, which is really Rowling’s ultimate message: that love defines what is good, it is what we should strive for, how we can overcome anything that devastates us.

Of course, Rowling’s writing has its flaws: it is efficacious but not beautiful, her prose is repetitive and sometimes awkward (especially when describing action), and the series is riddled with plot holes. But in essence that’s all superfluous. What’s important is what the books tell us about being human, what they teach us about surmounting fear and terror through everything love encompasses: community, trust, care, passion, loyalty, sacrifice...

Rowling’s message isn’t particularly groundbreaking or original, but she communicates it with such honesty in her books, with such vigour and truthfulness, that it is difficult not be taken with it — it is difficult not to join the movement, so to speak.

Perhaps it is not so surprising that the books have been tremendously popular (400 million copies sold worldwide). It is certainly encouraging, because it means the message has been reaching out. I am specifically interested in what the books did to my generation, people from my age group who grew up with Harry, Hermione, Ron and all the other great characters in the series. We learned and laughed and cried with them — but at an age when we were still developing and growing ourselves. We’ve grown both with them and from them. From the time we started reading to when we became adults, we were Harry Potter readers. We are defined by the series.

Call me romantic or naïve, but I have a firm belief that because of J. K. Rowling a big part of my age group has grown not only to love books, but to understand what can be learned from them. I have much hope in my generation, because I believe that underneath all the dazzling magic and heart wrenching action, through all those bleary-eyed hours of night-time reading, Harry has made many of us better human beings.

Bibliomania

{This story was originally posted on the Heart Rape Club in 4 parts. This is the complete, edited version.}

The Old Man had been sitting, quite motionless, reading, for nearly five hours. The only sound that had broken the silence during this time was the crisp, brittle sound of a page being turned every few minutes. Seated comfortably in his worn leather chair, book in hand, he had barely noticed as the sunlight entering from the window had dimmed so much he was forced to squint in order to decipher the words on the pages. When it became truly too dark to read, the old man stretched his arm and turned on the reading lamp. His concentration thus broken, he closed the book, lay it on the armrest of his chair, and took off his glasses with one hand, rubbing between his forefinger and thumb the pressured area between both eyes where all his mental force seemed to be concentrated. His eyes tingled back into focus and scanned the room slowly. As usual, what caught his gaze were the books, and as usual he felt a surge of warm comfort as he studied them. Books were everywhere in the room: most stood on rows of wooden shelves that covered all four walls from floor to ceiling, but they were also piled on the floor, strewn on wooden chairs and tables, falling over one another everywhere he looked in a haphazard cocoon of paper, leather, and wood. Any other person would have found the room chaotic, filthy, stuffed — but not the Old Man. This was his universe, and within the confusion of the thousands of books that seemed to cover every available inch of space in the room, there was a certain order which only he could understand. The Old Man knew at all times where every book was in the room.

Having gazed long enough at the books, the Old Man turned his attention to his other senses. First came touch; and by touch the first thing he felt was the soft leather of his reading chair under his hands. Next he felt warmth, emanating from under him, from the spot on which he had been sitting, immobile, for so long. Finally, the dusty air around him; he could feel it, soft and warm against his worn cheeks. The Old Man then turned his attention to what he smelt, and as usual it was this sense that brought the most pleasure, as if smelling his world made it more tangible, and allowed him to dissect the composition of his well-being. The smell that came to him in his room was strong and musky, recalling mould or burning dust. It came from all of these books, which crammed together in such a tight place had created an atmosphere of their own, exhaling their dry air throughout the Old Man’s home.

When the Old Man had absorbed his universe and the limitless beauty and comfort it provided him he finally stood up slowly from his chair. He left the book he had been reading on the chair and made his way to a shelf that stood at shoulder height, by the door. There, amid the mass of printed works, stood a dozen thick binders, bound in faded black leather. He took out the seventh binder and opened it towards the end, leafing through the paper until he found the appropriate page, on which appeared the bibliographical information of the book he had been reading and a blank space below where some notes had already been scribbled in black ink in the Old Man’s small, messy handwriting. He took out his pen from the breast pocket of his shirt and returned to his chair to scribble down a few more lines of notes on the page.

In this manner, every page of every one of the black binders corresponded to one of the books he owned. Whenever he acquired a new book, the Old Man would take out his typewriter and, on a fresh sheet of paper, type the title of the book, followed by the author and the place, company, and year of publication. Leaving the rest of the page blank, he would then add the page in its appropriate place in the appropriate binder, which served in fact as a miniature version of his universe of books. Like the books in the room, the pages in the binder were not organized per se. They were not placed by alphabetical order of author, or title, subject, or even date of acquisition, but there was certainly a form of organization because invariably the Old Man would know where to place a new sheet of paper, or how to find an old one, just as he knew exactly where to place or find a book in his room. The organization of his world was entirely intuitive.

When the Old Man was finished writing he closed his pen and put it back in his breast pocket, closed the binder, and placed it back in its place on the shelf. Although he was content, as he always was when he had read for some time, surrounded by his books, the Old Man was not completely satisfied with the particular book he was reading. He would have only managed to pull out a dozen lines of his tightly packed handwriting from it when he would be finished, whereas good books, masterpieces of literature, could get him to blacken both sides of a page.

The Old Man saw all of literature as a kind of web, a great universe of three-dimensional interconnectivity to be studied and analysed. Each book, he knew, made references, direct or indirect, voluntary or involuntary, to other books, which in turn were connected to still more books. This web went on infinitely, joining all works of Literature together in a grand, sprawling net of words and ideas. The Old Man sought, therefore, to map out the different connections between all the books he owned, all the books he read, and he wrote down notes on the various inter-book references in his great binders to help him remember them. Sometimes, in moments of particular clarity, when he was reading a great work, written with impeccable style and intelligence, the connections would appear in his mind, clear and bright as strands of silver catching sunlight, and would etch themselves in the backdrop of his mind, linking concepts and themes from one book to the next, across time and space, throughout Literature. In these moments, the physical cocoon of knowledge he had created in his home, this room with its heavy smell, this place where his books and his binders filled with notes still kept him attached to reality; all of these things, already precarious, crumbled down and were rendered useless. In his mind he could suddenly read with infinite clarity of vision and understanding from any of his books. In fact, and more so he could read any book, written or not, because he had transcended his own existence and become part of Literature. These moments of ecstatic literary clarity were not infrequent, but incredibly ephemeral, and he had only, so it seemed, a fraction of a second to read with great speed and tremendous insight the words that passed before his mind’s eye. When he returned to himself, as if awakening from a trance, the Old Man often found himself confused and dazed for a few minutes, but then, regaining his composure and awareness, he would return to the book he had been originally reading, awaiting in silence for his next moment of transient, transcendent clarity.

Presently, the Old Man passed out of his room of books through its only door, which led to the kitchen, doubling as the entrance to his apartment. A third door gave on the bedroom, which was also connected to tiny bathroom. While the traces of filth and old age were masked by the incredible quantity of volumes in his favourite room, in the rest of the apartment nothing was there to hide the dust on every surface, the grime darkening the corners, and a sickening odour of stale food. The Old Man washed and ate little, and did not take care of his home — half the cupboards in the kitchen were without doors, the yellowed linoleum floor was peeling off in many places and the small windows were greasy and half-opaque with years of humidity and filth. The Old Man did not wash dishes, or make his bed, or clean his clothes — these were all activities he did not even think about, and if he had they would have immediately been disregarded as things that others did, those who did not understand the necessary nature of his occupation. The Old Man was oblivious to all but his books.

*

The white lights of the bookstore, glaring and aseptic, blinded the Old Man for a moment as he walked in, hair dishevelled by the wind, eyebrows contracted in a frown of distaste at the light, the music, the people. The Old Man had a complex love hate relationship with the bookstore he went to every other week to replenish his stock of books. He despised going out of his house, having to dress warmly with a scarf and coat as today; he hated the young people who worked there and asked if he needed help to find a book; the neat, sparse, linear layout of the store confused him. However, what the Old Man hated most about the bookstore was the smell — oddly pleasing, yet lifeless and generic, more akin to a strange mixture of fine candles and coffee than noble books. He could not conceive how a store of this size, containing so many books, did not even smell like ink and paper. Nevertheless, the Old Man was obliged to go if he wanted new material to read and analyse. The bulk of the Old Man’s book collection consisted of a large library he had inherited from his father — books passed down through many generations — but in order to obtain newer publications and titles the original library lacked, he needed to come here, to this lifestyle temple of commercial literature, and do what everyone else did: buy. The Old Man would enter the bookstore, bracing himself for the ordeal, preparing himself for people. Face down, grunting, he set out at a decided pace among the aisles in order to find suitable reading material. Most of the time the Old Man had nothing in mind, he just walked through the store, reading titles and grabbing books by chance as he went. After some time he would bring the great stack of volumes in his arms to a bench in the corner of the store and leaf through his selection there, keeping those he found interesting and leaving those that did not prove decent enough. When he had worked his way through the initial pile, the Old Man would go around the store a second time, this time searching for titles he needed — books and authors he had come across in his other readings. When he was done, the Old Man would haul his books to the cash desk to pay. This was the part he hated the most of his outings, when he had to actually come into contact someone, take out some of the money sent to him by the bank every month, count the bills, ignore the harassing questions of the employee.

Book shopping was always worth it, in the end. The Old Man loved books not only intellectually, for their literary qualities — he loved them for what they were physically, he loved them with his senses. He found them beautiful: different in size, and shape, and colour, they were sometimes elegant and refined, bound in sober leather, sometimes flamboyant and loud. He liked to see them stacked in neat piles, or strewn with carelessness on the floor, on a chair, on a cushion. He liked to see some open, to observe how dog-eared paperbacks fell limp when they dropped down, like a dead bird. The Old Man liked to touch books, also — from fondling the smallest hardcover, just the right size in his hand, to turning the cover of a large reference book, enormous like the lid of a treasure chest. He enjoyed comparing the grain of the different papers: coarse for the yellowed mass markets, silky for the larger paperbacks, thick and clean for hardcovers, brittle and thin for some old or rare books. He also liked to gently pass his finger over the covers, feeling the paper, cardboard, glue, fabric, and leather from which they were made; and the smell, of course, which he could not help himself from testing for every book he read. If the Old Man liked the smell of books together, as a symbiosis of thousands of books packed tightly in the same room, he also enjoyed smelling each book individually and analysing their unique scents. He found some books smelt strong, like vinegar, and these were often recent and cheap publications, others he found more developed, more complete. Like a oenophile comparing the aromas of different wines and enjoying the complete body of an aged red, he would note what he smelt in his mind, relishing the delicate balance of the odour. Books were better than wine, though, because they were never spent — you could open a book one day, put it to rest, and open in it in a month, in a year, in a lifetime, and understand the evolution of its smell better than that of any wine. The strong odours, deep and grave, outlined by the musky scent of aged paper and ink, he enjoyed the most, but he still liked the crisp, hot ink smell of a new paperback. The Old Man loved his books with passion and determination, with all of his senses and with all of his being, because his books were the essence of his life, and without them he had no purpose, no existence — without books he would just fade away.

*

When he got home that day the Old Man was exhausted from his journey to the bookstore. He carried with him three bags full of books and could not wait to fall into his chair and lose himself in their pages for hours. When he arrived at the door of his apartment, however, he Old Man was surprised to find that it was ajar. He stood absolutely terrified for several minutes, heavy plastic bags cutting through his palms. Someone was in his apartment. Someone was looking at his books, touching them, stealing them, perhaps, or worse, throwing them out the window or into the oven. Someone was attacking his world and he was unable to act. He thought he heard the noise of metal clashing upon metal, and then footsteps.

After interminable minutes of contemplating the tiny crack of the unclosed door in stupefaction, the Old Man had taken his decision: he would simply run away, taking with him what books he had bought that day. He would walk away from his apartment building and go to some park and read for hours and hours, waiting for the stranger in his home to leave, and then when that stranger had gone, he could finally return and assess the damage, hoping that none of his books were missing. The Old Man remembered now that thieves stole TVs, jewellery, and money — not books. This was somewhat reassuring, most of his precious collection should be safe.

Having taken his decision, the Old Man was just about to turn his back to his apartment door and walk away, and there appeared in the door-frame a middle-aged woman holding a plastic garbage bag. A startled look of surprise ran across her features as she saw the Old Man standing their, all dishevelled, but her brow softened in an expression of pity as she noticed his look of absolute terror — his eyes widened by fear, his brow greasy with sweat, his complexion even paler than usual.

“Dad? Oh, Dad, come on in! How long have you been standing there? It’s just me Dad, come on, come on in. It’s me, Dad. It’s Anne. Here, let me take these bags from you. Oh my, they’re so heavy, how were you able to carry them all the way home. So many books Dad, did you buy all of them? You should really think of going to the library instead. Come on, come sit down, I made some tea if you want some, I brought you food as well. Come, come sit down.”

An endless flow of words, spoken with deafening speed, assailed the Old Man as he was being dragged by this woman towards his kitchen table. He cast a glance of panic towards the closed door to his room full of books. The important thing was that his books remain safe from foreign eyes, from foreign hands. Finally the old man was forced to sit down and a mug of steaming liquid was placed before him on the table. For a moment he no longer saw the bags of books he had brought back — where had they gone? What had the woman done with them? The Old Man tuned back to what the woman was saying: something about his books. No doubt she had already penetrated within his sanctuary and now she would want to take them away from him, starting with the ones he had just acquired. He would not even be able to read them, already that woman would whisk them coldly away from him. The Old Man glanced around the room, and found his bags of books left beside the bag of trash the woman had wanted to throw out when she first opened the door on him. The books lay there behind the blurry silhouette of the woman who was still moving about the kitchen with dizzying speed. The Old Man tried to concentrate on her again, on the flow of words that assailed him, endlessly, while she bent over a pot of steaming liquid on the stove. A few minutes later she set before him a bowl of soup, and grabbed his hand to put a spoon in it.

“You have to eat now, dad. Your place is a mess, I didn’t find a scrap of food. There was old bags of stuff I brought you last time, but... I thought you were able to go do the groceries on your own dad, but I don’t think you have, have you? No, of course you didn’t. You can’t live off what I bring you every other week, and I can’t keep on coming here and cleaning up like this. This is ridiculous. Now eat, stop looking around like that, don’t be afraid dad, why are you trembling? Your hands are freezing. It’s me dad, it’s just me, Anne, it’s me, Annie, your little girl Annie. It’s okay. Come on, eat up your soup you must be famished. You have the strength to go buy books, Dad, why can’t you go and buy food? You can’t live off books!”

You can’t live off books.

You can’t live off books.

The phrase fell like a leaden weight in his mind, surging ripples of thought echoed across the vaults of his psyche. Someone else, once, had said the same thing to him, but he had not listened.

“Now listen, Dad.”

He is listening, now.

“Paul and I have been thinking... Paul, Dad. My husband. We’ve been thinking. You can’t go on living like this. You can’t take care of yourself. We’ve decided to move you to a special home, Dad. A place were people will take care of you, where I know you’ll be safe. You’ll be okay, Dad. Everything will be okay. We’ve worked everything out. You’ll be fine.”

*

That night the Old Man did not sleep well. He tossed about in his sheets, sticky with filth and sweat, his dreams mingling with reality — as close as he could come to remembering. He dreamed of his books, of the people he had encountered in them, of the places he had visited, of the things he had done. They replaced his own life, which he was unable to recall now.

There had been a life, of course, before this. There had been a family: a father, a mother, a daughter. Then, the mother had died, and something happened to the father. While the daughter dealt with her grief and moved on, the father stagnated, closed in on himself. He had chosen to forget. Slowly, year by year, he stopped doing normal things like work, see friends, clean, and cook.

All he did was read.

He read and read and eventually replaced everything he had inside himself with the content of his books, channelling the stories and characters within the covers, and losing all contact with reality.

The Old Man could have remembered all this, that night, it was still inside him somewhere, it was his story. He did not, however, remember anything other than his books. He dwelt in literature, instead, dreaming of Alexandria, of Nazi Germany, of dystopian futures where books were prohibited, and murdered monks in medieval Italy.

Suddenly, the Old Man was completely awake. He knew what he had to do. He got up from his bed and walked over to the kitchen. There, he fumbled for a moment with the stove and managed to turn on the gas on all the burners, leaving them unlit. Taking the matchbox in the cupboard, he then went into the room with all his books. He went over to his chair and sat down, easing himself in its dusty softness. In the dark, he waited.

He waited for what seemed like a long time, until he could smell something different. Something warm, but not comforting like the smell of a book. It smelled dangerous, lethal. He waited longer, until he felt light-headed and drowsy. Now the Old Man knew the time had come. He took a match out of the matchbox and scratched it gently against the side of the box.

You can’t live off books, she had said.

Then I can’t live at all, he thought.

ON MY SHELVES

This piece has been removed. It can now be read here.

Mantel Won the Booker

Mantel won the Booker tonight

But all I can see

(I'm shallow, so shallow, I know)

Is her shape --

The shape of her body, that is --

Somewhat like a pear

Under her poncho-like costume

In short: she is fat.

Successful novelists are rarely good-looking.

Except when they're really old

Like Alice Munro or John le Carré

WILFs in their own right

(WILF = Writer I'd Like To Fuck)

But that's just because

Old people are endearing

Successful novelists are never good-looking.

What does that say about my aspirations?

Am I bound to relinquish my good looks

For writing ability

And become a Hemingway

Except fat and ugly and unpopular with women

(Not a Hemingway at all then, really)

Or shall I live forever handsome

And anonymous?