Harry

I’ve made it to the other side.

I’ll admit that I was extremely tempted to put something a little more bombastic or melodramatic as a title for this piece, but then it occurred to me, “everyone will already know”. That name that sits above the text, you see it, is all that’s needed isn’t it? It means such a great deal, “Harry Potter” is so much more than a name, and right now, is there really another ‘Harry’ that I could possibly be writing about?

Before I go any further, it’s probably necessary to explain that although it’s a reaction to the film, this shall not be a particularly critical piece, as, where Harry Potter is concerned, I have always doggedly reserved the right to remain hopelessly melodramatic, desperately lovestruck and perhaps, as my sister would attest, more than a little sad. Simply, the tales of Harry Potter have always not so much struck a chord as hammered one.

The release of the final film created a slightly awkward, difficult to quantify milestone; it’s been an end of sorts, but also another reminder that somehow, we’re now coming exceptionally close to four whole years since Joanne Rowling placed that ribbon upon the top of her sprawling story. Surely we should have moved on by now? A book’s a book. Words on paper. They weren’t even uniformly successful with the critics. English teachers tend to hate the books. Why did we ever even bother?

I wonder if you could sense the self-delusion there? Alas I know I haven’t moved on much, not really. Harry remains the most fluffy of comfort blankets. Yes it is only a book, but Ms. Rowling’s world was carelessly, yet perfectly, attuned to the of reading desires of a generation. Our generation. We were able to truly grow up with these characters, to spend years harbouring their secrets and dreaming their dreams. You just need to do a quick search of the internet to see how affected we’ve been by a specky prat with a ‘saving people thing’. Discussion forums, fan-fiction, fan-art, shipping wars, wizard rock, the Harry Potter phenomenon was perfectly timed to take advantage of the cyber-revolution, to send some of these things into the public consciousness, and to invent whole new terms of its own, ‘submariner’ being a personal favourite. On the other hand though, the closeted obsessive isn’t the typical HP fan, simply because it’s almost impossible to define quite what a typical fan ever was. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was supposedly a children’s book, yet never has the phrase seemed quite so narrow or inadequate, Bloomsbury felt compelled to realise an adult cover for each novel after all! Clearly the travails of Harry Potter have appealed to every kind of person, and that says an awful lot.

After all that, this film only had to offer a little closure, a little reassurance that Harry was only in a different room, still around, still meaning something. To be blunt, it did that and so much more. As with the sixth film, DH2 worked on a cinematic level, even if the 3D seemed extraneous, there were some startlingly good performances, especially from the British acting royalty who’ve long garnished HP. The likes of Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith and Julie Walters were subtly excellent, but Ralph Fiennes’ brutal Lord Voldemort stole the show with a brooding anger which cast a definitely pall over proceedings.

However, the scene I fell in love with was the unnerving, ethereal ‘King’s Cross’. Michael Gambon finally comes to inhabit Albus Dumbledore’s tainted wisdom, and Rowling’s seven wonderful books were encapsulated by that one, oft-repeated line. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

It’s well and truly over now, the madness is passing, the sudden upsurge in Potterism down to this release will soon wane, but in a beautifully diverse diaspora of places, Harry will live on, from children’s bedrooms to the murkiest corners of the internet to Ms. Rowling’s latest ‘Pottermore’ project, there’ll always be someone who’ll never forget.

And surely that makes all the difference in the world.

I’m out the other side, but it’s been obvious for a while that we aren’t in a tunnel.

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Purely for entertainment value, here are the tweets I sent straight after I left the cinema, melodramatic definitely, but perhaps true, and a good deal more concise….

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

Harry Potter. not just the film, Harry Potter, full stop, has been the most uniting, the most wonderful force in my life.

I think by that, I meant that it beats y’know friction and gravity… I did warn you about the melodrama, but when you think about it, it works. How many different people from so many different worlds have fallen in love with reading thanks to Harry?

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

 It taught me to fall in love with my imagination, it taught me to wholly and forever give myself over to hope

I guess that by this I’m trying to get at why I’ve kept reading, and why the act of reading is so important to me.

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

 I feel comfortable saying it is and has been the best children’s book ever written, and it has been so so much more for those of us who….

I’m not being in any way derogatory by calling it a children’s book, just to be clear, that is what I see it has always been, or at least something aimed at the mythical ‘Young Adult’.

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

 ….have been lucky enough to grow up with it. I probably sound melodramatic, and maybe a little sad, but sometimes things mean rather alot.

As, no doubt, this blog has proved.

Raise a glass to the Boy-Who-Lived eh?

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