NP Harry Potter Redux

[JEANNIE BERNIER]

I've noticed a phenomena on Amazon.com lately that no matter WHAT book you
are looking at, J.K. Rowling seems to end up in that list of "Customers who
bought titles by "X" also bought titles by these authors:"  

This could be like a whole new Oracle of Bacon - the Oracle of Potter, six
degrees of separation between book purchases.  

I admit, I participated in the frenzy - bought one for my godson, which was
delivered fed-ex to his house on 7/8, making me, in the words of his
grateful mom, the coolest godmother in the universe.  My godson is 6 (he's a
very advance reader) and he reads loads of other stuff - never goes anywhere
without a book since he learned to read.

Oh, yeah, and I bought one for myself too. I've read all 4, and I do think
once all the commercial crap dies down a bit (which might take a while, now
that they're making a movie) the books will still be around - my take on
their popularity is that it's not strictly related to the "pokemon" effect,
whereby everyone must have one because it's cool - I think the stories
probably really speak to kids in the same way that "Star Wars" spoke to me
when I was 13 - that idea that you're really something special and you're
destined for some sort of greatness when your reality may be less than
perfect (i.e., Luke Skywalker will bring down the emperor, Harry Potter will
be the bane of Lord Voldemort, Charlie gets the chocolate factory, Matilda
gets revenge on her cruel parents, Frodo is destined to bear the ring, Lucy
and Edmund and Peter are royalty in the land of Narnia, etc.etc.)   It's a
very common adolescent fantasy, and even if it's not "original" it's still
pretty powerful.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Derek C. Maus [mailto:dmaus at email.unc.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 10:08 AM
> To: Pynchon List
> Subject: NP Harry Potter Redux
> 
> 
> 
> From Amazon.com's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire page:
> 
> "Customers who bought titles by J. K. Rowling also bought 
> titles by these
> authors:
> 
> Seamus Heaney 
> Michael Crichton 
> Louis Sachar 
> Andrews McMeel Publishing 
> Neal Stephenson"
> 
> Option A is funny ("gosh, mom, this Beowulf guy can't do 
> *half* of what
> Harry can do..."), B is predictable, C actually makes sense (given
> Sachar's audience), D is why I hate this whole phenomenon 
> ("if you liked
> books by this publisher, why not buy books by this 
> publishers") and E is
> just plain unadulterated horse-hockey.  
> 
> I'd like to see some actual proof for this now oft-cited 
> assertion that
> reading this 734-page book is making kids want to read other 
> stuff. From
> what I read in the almost 2000 reader reviews (*almost* all 
> of which seem
> to be written by fairly young readers), it looks like they're 
> all waiting
> breathlessly for Rowling to write her next media event/book 
> than going out
> and reading Roald Dahl or Paul Zindel or Tolkien or what-not. 
> They sure as
> hell don't seem to be asking to read CRYTONOMICON, though.
> 
> Sigh. I really don't have anything against Harry Potter except for the
> self-manufactured buying frenzy that it has set off. In some 
> ways, it's
> very interesting to see 3.8 million kids lined up at bookstores at
> midnight waiting to buy a book. On another level, it's clearly a
> phenomenon fueled by unabashed consumerism (I know, I 
> know...that's what
> modern publishing is about...) of the most reprehensible 
> sort, since it
> fuels a buying frenzy among parents who want to pacify their 
> children with
> the dual goal of a) maybe now they'll shut up about wanting 
> this book and
> b) maybe now they'll sit quietly for the rest of the summer and
> read. Admittedly, b) is better in my mind than sitting in front of a
> Nintendo or the idiot box, but if the net result of it is 
> mostly to create
> brand loyalty to the Harry Potter mosheen rather than a 
> genuine interest
> in reading in general, it seems like a pretty hollow trade-off.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
> Derek C. Maus               |   "Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be
> dmaus at email.unc.edu         |   human beings if you didn't have some 
> UNC-CH, Dept. of English    |   pretty strong feelings about nuclear
> http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  |   combat."  --Major Kong, DR. 
> STRANGELOVE
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>