[HPforGrownups] A loving companion ( What do you like best about the HP books?)

[Lady Macbeth]

No: HPFGUIDX 72936

Iris Said:
>>> That's what we call "vulgarisation". I love vulgarisation. I love it
since I studied the French philosophers of 18th century when I was a
teenager in the same lyceum where I now teach Spanish. I love the
idea of giving to everyone who wants to use them the keys to
understand the world better, to have a better life. That was the
ideal of Diderot, D'Alembert, the fathers of the Encyclopédie. I
love the idea of explaining something very complicated with a
vocabulary that everyone can understand.
That's what I saw when I started reading Harry Potter.
That's what JK Rowling was doing all along her books. She was
telling us about spirituality, about psychoanalyse, about myths,
about us, in accessible terms. I loved those books because they were
like an open door. A child could read them, a person who hadn't
studied for a long time could read them, and they would have taken
something from what they were told.
But an erudite could read them, and would have found so many
treasures in their pages

 >Snipped<
I love Hans's theory, I agree with it. It helped me to understand
better why I love Harry Potter so much.
Universal books. Easy to read, gripping, full of invention.
Resisting a sharp analyze.
A total work of art. A total micro cosmos. And, yes, a companion for
our own journey.<<<

Lady Macbeth:
I don't think your post was boring or stupid at all!  This is actually a lot
of the reasons why I love the books myself - especially the couple of
sections that I snipped out and left above for reference.

The Harry Potter books, for me, have had the "universal" appeal because I
don't think they ARE written to a specific "formula" or designed to teach a
specific "moral".  While there is very likely one "idea" behind the whole
series, I think it's rather the idea of growth and development and life
itself.  Peoples of varying beliefs, varying backgrounds and varying
nationalities can see so much of "their world" in the books because it is
the story of the world - the story of life itself - told through the eyes of
one boy who is living life after 11 years of not truly knowing what "life"
was.  Here, we have the standpoint of someone who's developed through the
"learning years" without a lot of the freedoms and "rights" that we enjoy,
without real social interaction to help him understand how others perceive
the world and just a basic understanding that he was alive, he was in the
way, and he didn't know why.  Suddenly he's thrust out into "real life".  He
interacts with others by his choice, not the choices of his aunt and uncle.
He makes decisions for himself without considering what their opinion of it
is.  Instead of having the look at life that most of us have, that of
growing and adapting to it from the time we are born, without consciously
thinking about it, we are shown this look at life that someone "new" to
life, but with the intelligence of a fully cognizant human being, sees.

-Lady Macbeth



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