Official Philip Nel Discussion Question #4--Will HP become classic?

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 38089

Hi All,

I've been waiting for this question to come up, which is funny because 
I don't know exactly what my answer is.  I think you're actually asking 
two questions: Are the Harry Potter books classics? And, Will children 
still be reading Harry Potter 20 or 30 years from now?  The latter is 
something I think I can answer, even though the odds are very high 
against me being right.  This is, after all, a discussion about the future 
of a series that is, as another respondant pointed out, only half finished.  
The first question is all but impossible to answer, if for no other reason 
than for the fact that I can't begin to define what a classic is.

When I think of a classic book, the image that springs to mind are the 
Penguin Classics, or maybe The Lord of the Rings, the only book I've 
ever read that I am certain is a classic.  Most people agree that a classic 
is somehow timeless, a work that trascends the limits of its own 
generation, but even that distinction is unclear.  Shakespeare's plays 
were written 400 years ago and are still beloved.  Are they somehow 
"more classic" than the works of Dickens, which have survived over 
less than half that period?  For that matter, there are still people alive 
who remember reading The Catcher in the Rye or the aforementioned 
Lord of the Rings when they first came out. 

I think we can all agree that neither universal popularity nor universal 
critical acclaim can be considered criteria for calling a book a classic.  
Even if we accept that no work is universally liked, if we were to 
measure the value of a work by its popularity, we'd be teaching The 
Valley of the Dolls in schools, and I think I once read that The New York 
Times Review of Books panned The Catcher in the Rye when it first 
came out.  And yet, it seems ridiculous to claim that popularity and 
critical opinion aren't factors in making a book a classic.  

If I had to commit to a definition, I would say that a classic is a work that 
combines some element of the three qualities mentioned with a fourth, 
that of being familiar even to people who haven't read it, of being part of 
popular culture, of appearing, in theft and imitation form, in the works 
that follow it.  And after saying that I would point out that there is no official 
body that stamps Classic on the front cover of any book.  It's a word, like 
masterpiece, that is overused almost to the point of being meaningless, and 
even when the person using it is speaking from great experience and after 
much careful thought, there is just so much of the personal and subjective 
in calling any work a classic.  

I don't like The Catcher in the Rye.  People tell me it's a classic book and I 
believe them, but I don't care for it and I don't get what the big deal is about.  
To ask, so soon after their publication, if the Harry Potter books are classics 
or if they are going to become classics is, in my opinion, an exercise in futility.  
They have no doubt been called that, and will be again in the future, but 
that's just words, people's opinions.  There's nothing *objective* about it, 
and that seems to be the purpose of the people pushing for classic status.  
They seem to want their favorite books to be somehow *legitimate*, in the 
same way that Penguin Classics must be good because they have the familiar 
beige cover.   

(By the way, I'm completely ignoring another kind of classic book - the kind 
that blazes a trail, that introduces a new genre or style, such as William Gibson's 
Neuromancer, a classic of cyberpunk sci-fi.  I think even the most fanatic of fans 
will agree that the Harry Pottr books aren't that innovative.)

Well, that went on for long enough, and now for a question that makes some 
sense to me - how long-lived will the books be?  I'd say the odds are stacked 
in favor of the books surviving at least another generation of kids (and whatever 
the books' appeal to adults today, I think they will survive as children's books if 
only because it will soon be impossible to reach puberty without having read them).  
Children's books have an advantage over adult fiction in the field of longevity.  
Some of the most popular works in children's fiction are decades old - the works of 
Roald Dahl, the Narnia series, Charlotte's Web, and many others.  Children get 
given books, by parents, teachers, older siblings or older aquaintances, and 
usually those books are the ones that were best loved by the adults.  How 
many people have I seen in this group and others, mention that they have given 
copies of the books to many children in their family or acquainance?  And in much 
the same way that Disney can roll out all their old films to the movie theatre every 
few years, confident of a brand new audience, there's a new generation of Harry 
Potter readers being born as I write these words.  

The question is, when the hype dies down, and it will, when the kids who are 
loving the books today have children of their own, will they buy the anniversary 
edition box set for a birthday or christmas present?  Will they be as eager as I 
imagine to share these books with new people?  I think they will, I think the children 
of the people who love Harry Potter today will grow up with the books.  Whether 
they too will love them, and pass them on to their children, depends solely on how 
well the books age.  

On one level, the books seem certain to age well.  There's so very little in them 
that's specific to our times.  In fact, I've always found them a bit old-fashioned, 
in a charming way.  The story of the lost prince is indeed timeless, and the values 
Rowling espouses are just as timeless, if only because they speak out against 
vices that the human race has never managed to overcome.  On the other hand, 
the universality of the story may be what works against it, not because the works 
are derivative, but because 50 years from now, someone might come up with a 
new version of the lost prince story.  If it's any good, it won't matter if the Harry 
Potter books are better - kids will choose the more contemporary work.

And I don't think that would be so terrible.  Nothing lasts forever.   Every work of 
art, ever mastepiece, is eventually consigned to oblivion.  There's very little point 
in being sad about it.  All I want is the chance to share the books with children 
who have never read them before.  I'd like to see their surprise at discovering 
something that's so good and enjoyable, it would be a bit like reading them for 
the first time all over again.

Oh, and also I want not to live to see a world in which, as a poster to another HP 
group once suggested, Harry Potter is a series of classic chilldren's... movies.  
I don't think that's too much to ask.

Abigail