Aliteracy - something that doesn't apply to any of us...

[Caius Marcius]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., heidit at n... wrote:
> There's an interesting article in the Washington Post today at 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23370-2001May13.html 
> about people who can read, but choose not to. 
> 

These words from the WP article should be pretty chilling for HP 
lovers:

"[Aliteracy is]  the parent who pops the crummy movie of "Stuart 
Little" into a machine for his kid instead of reading E.B. White's 
marvelous novel aloud. Or the teacher who assigns the made-for-TV 
movie "Gettysburg" instead of the book it was based on, "The Killer 
Angels" by Michael Shaara."

In just a little less than a year, parents will be able to do the 
same thing with Harry Potter - that is pop a crummy movie into the 
VCR rather than read the story aloud.  

I've sometimes wondered if Harry Potter is print-culture's last 
hurrah - the final time that a work of such merit will achieve 
sufficient popularity *on its own* (without tie-ins to other media) 
to a degree that its phrases and characters enter into common 
discourse. Think of all the references you've seen to HP in comic 
strips, TV shows, news articles, etc.  It's never surprising to hear 
such references to movies, TV shows, pop groups, etc. - but how many 
other books written in the last decade have achieved such currency?

Alas, the Harry Potter who lives, like his arch-enemy Tom Riddle, 
inside the pages of a book, is about to meet the real (reel?) world. 
It is saddening yet somehow symbolic that Volume Five is being 
delayed indefinitely because JKR is so caught up in the film project 
(mere ink must wait upon its celluloid rival) Whatever kick we may 
derive from seeing kids flying around on broomsticks or SPFX owls 
delivering letters, I suspect that the ultimate effect of HP's 
translation into cinematic form will be disenheartening to those who 
love HP - rather as if Hogwarts School were to be purchased by a 
multinational conglomerate, and turned into a Muggles' amusement 
park. 

   - CMC