Admiration for J. K. Rowling

The other night I watched A&E Biography’s episode about J.K. Rowling, the very, very, very successful author of the Harry Potter books. The truth is I have read all of the Harry Potter books published so far while knowing very little about their author. I sort of avoided it because I didn’t want to confuse the magic with the magician. I’ve loved those books and I didn’t want to find out she was a drip or a snot. Well, she’s not. In fact, she’s somebody I’d like to have for a friend. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.

J. K. Rowling has made a heck of a lot of money and I can’t begrudge her one dime of it because anyone who could create such magic with her writing more than deserves to profit from it. She has enthralled millions and that is wonderful. I wish I felt the same way about Dan Brown, the other recent publishing phenomenon, but I don’t. He had a really good idea but he put it together so badly I cannot for the life of me understand why people buy his books. Well, that’s not true — I do know why. They are mesmerized by the concepts he built his book on. If only he wrote better.

Rowling and Brown both had great ideas. The big difference is Rowling crafted hers with some of the most fascinating and likeable characters you could ever hope to meet. I honestly don’t know how she does it. Every new character is just wonderful. My personal favorites in the pantheon are Fred and George Weasley, the twin tricksters who cannot find enough trouble to get into, but there are so many other great ones. I do have one grudge against Rowling. I’ll never forgive her for killing Sirius Black but otherwise she’s great.

What I liked the best in the program was when she talked about how Harry first came to her. She was on a train from Manchester to London and was sort of daydreaming (what author doesn’t spend hours at that?) when Harry Potter suddenly showed up in her mind and, as she put it, she literally saw him. She had neither paper nor pen at hand (a feeling I know well and can sympathize with) so she spent four hours letting Harry develop and unfold in her imagination. She spent five years writing and writing and writing. It took her a long time to find a publisher. Nothing about her story is unfamiliar to most writers.

In the program it showed her sitting on the floor amid piles and piles of paper — drawings, outlines, diagrams, sketches of her fantastical inventions. I loved that she worked that way because I can relate so fully to it. I’ve spent hours sketching and re-sketching street maps for The Old Mermaid’s Tale and building layouts for Each Angel Burns. Seeing Rowlings piles of papers covered with all sorts of diagrams that make sense only to an author in the midst of creating was very reassuring.

Plus she just comes across as a nice person with a pleasant personality, a commitment to her craft, no shortage of personal insecurities and doubts, and a fair amount of astonishment that she has succeeded as much as she has. In other words, someone it is easy to like.

I’m not a big fan of fantasy literature. I read most of the Lord of the Rings and I liked it well enough but it didn’t enthrall me like Harry Potter does. The thing about Harry Potter is that it draws on themes from classical mythology, employs very cleverly classical linguistics, and makes accessible to the modern mind, concepts that have been with us since the beginning of humankind. Harry Potter is the classic hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell wrote about.

So my unadulterated awe and thanks go out to J. K. Rowling for giving us Harry and his universe. Just imagine what she could have done with the themes from the DaVinci Code!

Thanks for reading.