It All Ends

photo by Annie Leibovitz, for Vanity Fair

Tonight at midnight, my childhood comes to close. I speak, of course, of the premiere of the final installment of the Harry Potter phenomenon. These books and films have been markers of my childhood; the anticipation, standing in line with my friends for their release, is something I can recall with perfect clarity for each film and book. 

Vanity Fair

I was eleven years old when I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I first heard about the books at the Scholastic Book Fair (an event that I always looked forward to with bated breath), when the librarian wheeled up the TV and VCR to play a short video. The books sounded odd to me . . . a boy at wizard school. It sounded so mundane, like a picture story. Then my mom brought it home for me to read. It was something she just saw on the shelf and thought I might like. And when I picked it up and opened it to the first page, I became utterly enchanted. It would not be the last time I sat down to read a Harry Potter book and not resurface until I read every last page. 

Entertainment Weekly, via Angliophile meets Bibliophile

In all honesty I forget when and how my Mom and sister read the books, but before I knew it Mom had gone out to get a hardback copy while it was still in the first edition and suddenly the books were a phenomenon. When the first film was preparing for release, we bought the Vanity Fair magazine with the first pictures of the characters I had pictured in my head for so long. And it was just like I had imagined. 

Well. Hermione's hair could have been a bit bigger.

I've never really minded the adaptations Steve Kloves made from page to screen. I've always understood that what translates from the page to your imagination doesn't always work on screen. The films have been so lovely, and the actors have grown up so marvelously.

But what gets my goat (and has, for years) is the movie reviewers who clearly have not read the books (EDIT: I say, have not read the books because while I understand a book just not catching your fancy, but I cannot comprehend reading the entire series and still classifying them as children's literature). I remember after the release of the third film, sending off (or just writing it . . . I can't remember if I ever sent it) a very angry letter to Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post, who, had he read the books, would not have asked so many asinine questions in such a patronizing manner. Even the review today in the New York Times sets my teeth on edge and puts a bitter taste in my mouth. She seems, to me, to indicate that the films have bolstered the books, just silly children's stories, to something greater because the films are "blockbusters." 

(EDIT: my in-house copy editor [my sister] amicably disagrees with me, further proving that interpretation is everything. To go a touch more in depth about it, I find it very jarring when a good review ends on the note that anyone (even someone as magnificently talented as Alan Rickman) "elevated a child's tale of good and evil into a story of human struggle."  Not only does it put a patronizing tone onto an otherwise good review, but the books have always been a story of human struggle. They contain so much more than good and evil. Of course, on a somewhat unrelated note I also take issue with film critics increasing belief that movie-goers need a plethora of explosions and violence to deem it a blockbuster. But that's a debate for another time).

Furthermore, she focuses on the acting talent of the adults and their strengths. She indicated that the children are great in their roles because they have grown up on screen and we are used to them. I find them all to be incredibly nuanced, and each have created some incredible cinematic moments particularly in the last 3 films.
 

Vanity Fair

The Harry Potter books, as all fans know, have never been children's books. Not really. As Rowling herself pointed out, her story begins with a double homicide even if it is off-page. These books have taught me so much about life, about how to be tolerant . . . honestly I can't enumerate all the things that they have taught me. They've just permeated my life.


I don't get angry at people who dislike Potter, for whatever reason. I pity them. As someone said, somewhere on the internet (I can't find it anywhere, of course, but I must give credit to them, whoever they are), I feel sorry that these characters have not lived and breathed with them. The Harry Potter universe is alive, inside my head, and it is as real to me as my friends that live far away. I have cried with them, I have laughed with them, and I have mourned deeply with them. I have thrown these books down in a fit of despair at 4 am, only to pick them up again to find out what happens next. 

Vanity Fair

And when I say I'm not emotionally ready for this, I am kidding for them most part. But believe you me, I will be in tears when I see it tonight. And tomorrow. And the next day.