Book chats - J.K. Rowling and Saying Goodbye to Childhood

I love the story of the Ship of Theseus. This is an old thought experiment from Ancient Greece. The Ship of Theseus is a tale covered by the historian Plutarch, and relates back to how the mythical founder of Athens, King Theseus once rescued the children of the city from the King of Minos. Afterwards, the Athenians preserved the ship, but after many hundreds of years, a board here and there was replaced until no piece of the original ship remained, leading to the philosophers of the time to hold a debate about whether the ship was truly the Ship of Theseus.

To me, I love what it says about continuity, and how this also plays so deeply into my own fear of death, by no means an uncommon fear. We are each changing, we come to like new things, dislike things we once liked; the very idea of continuity is more a short-coming of our water-logged balls of fat and neurons that we call brains.

I am happy to be back with Bookchats after what feels like a very short break (but it has actually been quite a while), with a piece about J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books.

-The Beginning-

I would like to start by admitting something very personal. I was an extremely intelligent, extremely ADHD child, with an emphasis on the hyperactive side. I was also fairly stubborn and pig-headed. The combination of having a brilliant memory and the foundations of cleverness, while being utterly lazy, is dangerous. When I was in 1^st Grade we were taught to read. My teacher was also a young woman in her first or second year on the job and she was not prepared to deal with wild child like I was. During that year, I failed to see the point of the silly, boring lectures on letters and phonetics and sounding out shit, so I zoned out and daydreamed through them.

The school never picked up on the fact I had no idea how to read because I had memorized, word for word, every story and reading activity we had during the year. This was, for me, far easier and simpler, and more seemingly elegant, than all that stuttering about trying to figure out how letters sound. The school did not catch on until the end of the year, when I completely flunked the year-end reading test, which was the first time I encountered a text we hadn’t gone through in class.

The immediate reaction of the school was that I would have to be moved to Special Ed. Well, my paternal grandmother, who has a Master’s degree in early childhood development and was already, by that time, a veteran kindergarten teacher, was absolutely outraged. She helped my mom talk to the school, and eventually a compromise was made: they would test me again at the start of 2^nd Grade to determine whether I could remain in regular classes or get shunted over to Special Ed. There’s nothing wrong with Special Ed mind you, just that my issue was that my memory was too good and I was lazy and hyper at the same time, not that I had any kind of developmental or learning disorder, so everyone in the family agreed it would have been a terrible fit for me. The issue was that I was bored, putting me in Special Ed, the way it was structured back in the mid-90s in Louisiana, would have been a guarantee to just bore me even more.

That summer, my grandmother spent a month teaching me to read, book by book, worksheet by worksheet, working on my writing alone the way. It wasn’t easy. I’m profoundly lazy and adverse to anything that doesn’t come naturally to me. But she did it. With my grandfather as a draconian enforcer, and with the ultimate bribe: Blue Bell’s Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, she dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of literacy. I went back to school and easily based the benchmark tests they had, and thus I was not put in Special Ed.

I remember a lot of those training books and the little books we read in 2^nd Grade, only as tremendously boring slogs with no pay off. The kind of grating, sterile, generic for-children-content churned out by 17 layers of corporate and government bureaucracy. However, that Christmas, my grandmother gave me a book for one of my presents, some best-selling children’s book that a friend of hers had said I’d probably like. *Groans, a Book!* I thought at the time. And what’s more an absurdly thick one, full of words and no pictures. I remember my sense of exasperation clearly even now, and my first resolution was that I was never going to read this stupid book.

That summer though, back at home in downtown Lafayette with no cable and after the VCR for the 14-inch TV-VCR broke (I would later somehow fix the problem by disassembling the TV and cleaning the inside), boredom broke my will and for search of something to do next to the window A/C unit, I picked up the damned book. That book was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (to this day, I am baffled by the insistence of American editors of renaming the philosopher’s stone as the Sorcerer’s Stone, and also a bit surprised, looking back, that my very evangelical and conservative grandmother even bought me a book, in the 1998, with “sorcerer” in the title).

The book had me hooked from page one. I was very little though mind you, so I can still vaguely recall the short-hand mistakes and misreadings I made of spells and names forever. I’m pretty sure I read “Dumbledore” as “Dummly-or” until I watched the first movie, and the Killing Curse, Avada Kevadra was simply “abracadabra” for years and years. Yet I really enjoyed it. So much so that I asked for the second book for my birthday, then read that. Then in third grade, read the 3^rd book, and in 4^th grade, when the 4^th book came out, bigger than any of the others, read that. I even reread each of the books three or four times.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone literally fucking showed me that reading could actually be fun. I started checking out books from the school library endlessly chasing after a book that could give me the same thrill and not quite succeeding (I find my behavior for many years afterwards more like a junkie; maybe I’d still be like that, carrying a book with me literally where ever I went, if smartphones hadn’t taken that role of mental stimulation for me). It was like a switch flipped. I went from nearly going to Special Ed at the start of 2^nd Grade because I hadn’t learned how to so much as sound out the letter A, to, by the end of 3^rd Grade, being a very close second place for most points in the AR reading quiz in what was probably the best and most academic public school in Lafayette, Louisiana. I only missed 1^st place because I had a tendency to immediately quit a book if I lost interest in at any point in time, and with rare exceptions, like the Little House on the Prairie books, I was generally not very interested in historical fiction or anything that wasn’t fantasy. Simply put I was too picky, and I generally preferred to reread a book I liked and knew I liked, than to try and slog through something that was meh.

-The joy of reading as a child -

After that I read all the time. Including during class. I remember reading most of Little House in the Woods during Social Studies class. I poured through The Hardy Boys, Bridge to Terabithia, Old Yeller, this book about young Norwegian boys sabotaging the Nazis and stealing Nazi gold then smuggling it out by snow sled, the name of which I have never been able to recall even as the story left quite an impact on my memory (despite the fact that I also don’t remember particularly even enjoying the book; yet I remember it better than several books I enjoyed, memory is strange like that). By 5^th Grade I was reading Michael Crichton. By 7^th Grade I was reading Bill Clinton’s autobiography and The Grapes of Wrath. By 11^th grade I was reading The Sound and the Fury, Anna Karenina, Steppenwolf, and Great Expectationsamong countless other books. Along the way, I read plenty of more contemporary writers, from the incredibly pulpy Dean Koontz, to the always entertaining and creative Stephen King (though his execution is often somewhat iffy). I also read more of John Steinbeck, read The Old Man and the Sea (and developed a lifelong dislike of Hemingway), and poured over newspapers and nonfiction books alike.

But all the while, I continued reading Harry Potter. The wait for the 5^th book was so long and torturous that I reread all the 4 previous books at least 5 times while waiting for it. I even grew impatient so I bounced around my room while fantasizing and making up my own continuation for the story. The 5^th book came out, absolutely enormous (by far the longest in the series), and I read the damn thing only to immediately, not lying or exaggerating here, flip back to page one and read the whole thing over again from the start to relive the excitement.

Funnily enough, among fans of Harry Potter, Order of the Phoenix gets a bad wrap for being a bit boring and poorly paced, but for me it was always my favorite installment of the series. I think I just had to wait so long for it, that my impression of the book was always going to be addled by the sheer adrenaline rush of finally getting my hands on the damned thing.

The last book came out, and I most have been a sophomore or junior in High School by that point. I reread the entire series, from book 1 to book 6, just to prepare myself for it. Then read it and was blown away by it, as in most of the key points took me completely by surprise, even though they had been foreshadowed from the start. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but even by that point, the sheer, childlike pleasure I took in the series was starting to change and I was starting to change. I had more responsibilities, more things on my mind, dreams of college, ambitions galore, delusions of my own grandeur—the kind of thing most boys go through around age 16 and some never grow out of.

Still, I could no longer simply reread a book again, right after finish it. I recall how by the time I read the last book, I couldn’t quite get completely lost in wonder and joy within the world, just utterly lost, the way it was so easy for me to as a child. The dark and dreary, even violent last book also served to punctuate that; what started off as typical playful, children’s books ended with a book filled with murder, a corpse reanimated by placing a giant python inside it, and the brutal deaths of several major characters. I thought that Deathly Hallows was as good an ending as the series could have though, and I still think that the book is impressive if only for how naturally it ties up what seemed to be an endlessly long list of question and unwieldy task set up in the 6^th book.

-Being a College Freshman –

College was a reality check. It brought me back down to earth at the very least. Especially when I got a bunch of 88~89% final semester goals in a lot of classes, because in college, unlike High School, being brilliant can only get you so far if you have the work ethic of Huckleberry Finn. College flung me hard against a wall that first year, and that wall was seeing tons of other young people just as brilliant as me but much harder working and able to control themselves and apply themselves to ambitious goals. While I may have been a tad more brilliant in terms of how fast I could make connections or maybe had a tad better instant recall, or been a tad bit better as a writer, I was an introvert who also had zero stamina for extra-curricular shit or for doing internships and summer classes.

My initial reaction was to over-compensate. I read through a half-dozen Yukio Mishima books that year (also my own way of exploring my own bisexuality once I was out of the house and feeling a little bolder), among a number of books I started reading or gave up midway. I made it a point to constantly seek out the most challenging books I could. I wanted to cultivate an utterly unique perspective, caught up in trying to present myself as a bookish, literary kid who specialized in non-English literature.

The year didn’t end all that great. I didn’t live up to my expectations, with a few more narrow B’s the second semester too. I was gaining a bit of weight, hadn’t made as many friends or social connections as I’d hoped to, and also proven myself and taken a spot at the top academically. This was just the latest period of struggle against ADHD, a struggle to function properly, to fight executive dysfunction, and to just build healthy self-regulation habits and a normal functioning work ethic. In other words, I was experiencing what are, in all honesty, the common setbacks of youth.

But being in the person in the moment, I of course didn’t see it like that. I felt uniquely miserable, unaware that I was far from the first 19-year-old guy to struggle to adjust to college life. Things later, of course, got better, much better in fact. My memories of college life on the whole are wonderful; I ended up doing many, many things, gaining tons of new experiences, making a number of friends, learning to socialize better, and improved as student, writer, and a person. But at that moment, I was 19, coming home for summer, and I felt like a ball of failure, completely unready to face the competitive world of adults with no training wheels.

Towards the end of the second semester, I had gone into one of my manic-depressive spells, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I’ve gradually learned how to raise guard rails and stop the spirals of negative thinking and being overwhelmed that eventually just turn into depressive spells. I needed a break, and the adult, grown up life wasn’t connecting with me, so it makes sense, in retrospect, that I’d look back to childhood.

This came in the form of a movie. I didn’t even go to theaters intending to see the film, and didn’t typically like 3D films. I can’t even recall why I ended up seeing it in the first place; probably that I’d walked 3 miles to get there only to find out the film I’d originally been planning to see was no longer showing. In any case, I watched How to Train Your Dragon, the first installment (which remains the best), and was really enchanted by it. Not only did the 3D seem very natural and well-done, but John Powell is one of the most criminally underrated film composers around and his soundtrack is also a delight.

The film is hardly groundbreaking territory, but I still think it does a great job at hitting all its notes just right and in the combination that appeals to me most (isolated, quirky, socially awkward young man who is smart, but out of place in his social milieu, but with dragons? I mean come on, it was tailored for me). I think what attracted me to the film was the sense of fun; at a time when I was feeling more depressed than I knew, the film was like the rare shot of endorphins and pleasant feelings, in a way that drudging through complex literary works or studying macroeconomics 201 did not. I actually ended up watching the film four or five more times before the school year ended. I’d just go on the weekend or a day I was feeling particularly worn down. The long walk to the theater too was a good meditative experience, or just a time to turn off my mine, and before I knew it had become one of those little micro-obsessions.

But I credit it with snapping me out of my funk. Or better put, I realized I was in a funk. So that summer, I decided to return to my roots. I wanted to read fantasy again after nearly 4 years of obsessively serious reading and feeling the pressure to conform to an ultra-intellectual “literary” diet at all times. Looking back, I think more than that, and unadmitted by myself at the time, was that after a bad start in the adult world, I wanted to take a little time to be a child again, if only to say goodbye.

-       Saying Goodbye –

So that summer, I read more than I had in ages. Diana Wynne Jones Howl’s Moving Castle plus the sequel book. Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series (all 4 or 5 books), the Abhorsen series that I’ve already written about for Bookchats once before, the entire EarthseaSeries and a few others still. I pounded through books with an abandon, like a reformed junk food addict going on a months long McDonald’s binge. If this seems like a suspiciously impressive list of classic and well-regarded fantasy series…well it is and even returning to children’s literature and fantasy, I couldn’t repress my tendency for perfectionism and seeking out the best books around.

It was an impressive summer. I read 20 books in less than two months. Then at the end, with just two weeks left until my sophomore year of college started, I started one last project: I reread the Harry Potter series. I don’t recall how or why, but, on a whim, I decided to reread the series starting from the last book. That is, read from the end to the beginning, something I’d never done before. I poured into the books, reading the some 3000 odd pages in less than two weeks.

But something odd happened. I’m not about to say that the books suddenly no longer appealed to me or that I had grown out them, quite the opposite. As I read, I was also remembering all the times I’d read each book before. The degree to which I felt emotional and even sad shocked me. I hadn’t expected a reaction like that…yet, as I read and Harry grew younger, the story more innocent and child-like, I felt a profound sadness, maybe because of that disconnect. This also the opposite of our own protectories in life.

Yet, by the time I reached book one, I couldn’t suppress a profound sense of sadness, as, at the end of my summer and my adventure reconnecting to my roots in reading, it felt like saying goodbye to my childhood. I could remember the old Depression-era house in downtown Lafayette, sitting by the luxuriant silky coolness that only one of those old window unit A/Cs in the middle of Louisiana summer can provide, reading the book and mangling all the words. There was a sense of tragedy in seeing all the characters on the board before they grew up, before all the cruel and destructive events would happen to them.

Little did I know (maybe I suspected it and that was why I was so sad), but I was also saying goodbye to the Harry Potter books themselves. Since then, in 15 years I’ve never reread another book in the series. I’m not sure I will. Doing so would just ruin the goodbye I said at the time.

Because since then I’ve come to realize many things about the series (helped along by J.K. Rowling’s foul temper, incessant anti-trans activism, persecution complex, and outright bullying of any regular writer or online activist who criticizes anything she says). It took me maybe a decade before I could admit that the Harry Potter series just isn’t that good. Really reading deeply in the field of children’s literature and fantasy made that clearer, as J.K. Rowling’s world building is haphazard, her work mostly derivative, and her ego astonishing. 

I had originally wanted to make this the main topic in fact, but once I started writing, I realized it would be a distraction and make things drag on too long. The discussion of the books faults is another post altogether, and one I didn’t have the heart to jump into after looking back at memories. That’s what made me realize that the books we read as children stick with us forever, even when we outgrow them, even when their authors turn out to be problematic people. And I think everyone has a few books like that.