the back burner

what to read?

Some little voice in the back of my head is asking me why, when I have such a big list of "required" reading in front of me, I'm reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone again. The short answer is Joanna.

The longer answer is that she's ruddy brilliant. It takes J.K. Rowling about 115 pages to have the title character lined up with other new students in the entrance hall of Hogwarts School. On the other hand, by that time, she's already assembled the main core of characters, with the addition of one or two more the moment the doors open into the Great Hall. She's planted the seeds of each of Harry's future adolescent crises. She's inaugurated some unique, non-formulaic, but also non-pretentious character devices that will spin out in unexpected ways over the next five books.

I found myself relating to these characters in ways that revealed something about myself, as well. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that the author managed to avoid so much cliche that comes with "coming of age" novels. Maybe the situations she creates are in fact cliche to an Englishman, but not to my American eyes. I think it more likely, however, Rowling has held her public's attention on both sides of the Atlanta, partly because she has fashioned a plot that adequately balances believability (in terms of characters, of course, not magic) with freshness and spontaneity. The other part of why she's been so well-received is that so few othes posses the creative nerve to do just that. I mean, look at all of the copy-cat books that have come out since HP first began earning rave reviews? It's disgusting to see people earning money by mimicry.

Ok, that's all for now. I have to get back to calling churches and working on my real reading list. I just wish Augustine, Barfield, and Bonhoeffer were as quickly and easily perceived as children's literature. No, wait. I'm not sure I do...

(Oh. Earlier, I meant J.K. Rowling is ruddy brililant, by the way. But Joanna is too, as everybody knows. Just in case you were confused.)