Book Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The first few weeks after Daniel's birth were rather surreal.  I was really tired.  I was through the roof hormonal. I was delighted with our new little baby.  I spent quite a bit of time upstairs hiding away from the rest of the family, especially the first week when I had a catheter in due to a bladder problem during the C-section.

At some point during all that, I read the first Harry Potter book, for the first time.

Now that may sound odd, that it took me 'til 2012 to read Harry Potter. Those books have been cultural phenoms for many years.  And I'm a reader.

I didn't get around to reading the book thoroughly because I had heard concerns about the magic in the Harry Potter books. Some Christians said the magic was too similar to true satanic "magick" and the books should be avoided for that reason.

I finally decided during the post partum period to read the first book,  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I decided that I'd evaluate the "non magic" issues before bothering to check on the accusations about the kind of magic in the books.  To be clear, I have read many books with magic and I usually have no problem at all with magic so long as it doesn't replicate demonic activity in real life.

Ok, my verdict: I hated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Hated it.

Why?  Let me count the ways.

First, the book pushed a MAJOR emotional button for me, namely the "kind but irresponsible people not taking care of children" button.

The story opens with some "good" magical person dropping 1 year old Harry Potter on the front porch of his aunt and uncle.  His parents have just been killed by the main evil bad guy, and magical friends of Harry's parents decide he should be raised by near relatives.  All to the good, except that Harry's aunt and uncle and cousin are bona fide abusive.  They are awful. They are cruel.  They make Harry sleep under the stairs.  They torment him in various ways. They treat him despicably.

And where are the magical people who supposedly care about Harry?  Not around.  They show up when he is 10 or 11 and finally whisk him away from his life of torment, but during those formative years the poor kid is living a nightmare.  Yes, the abuse is portrayed as being somewhat amusing but it is NOT amusing.  I hate child abuse of any kind but what REALLY upsets me is when some supposedly good person is a jerk and doesn't take care of an innocent child.  So, major black marks against the supposedly good magical people.

So Harry is eventually whisked away to a boarding school.  Emotional button two. I hate boarding schools, just the concept.  I am sure many people have enjoyed boarding schools but I don't like them in general.  Compared to his abusive relatives, yes, great place.  But overall the boarding school reeks of inane rules and peer pressure and various stupidity.

Harry's personality is actually quite consistent with growing up in a home with abusive parents.  He has no regard AT ALL for rules of any kind.  Throughout the book, he flouts the rules with monotonous regularity -- which is to say, whenever he feels his own wisdom and desires are more important than the rules.  The adults' response to his rule breaking is emotional button #3.  There is zero consistency. Sometimes he is lauded for breaking rules, like when he does something wrong during a Quidditch practice session and is promptly congratulated by a teacher.  Sometimes he just gets away with breaking the rules and no one finds out. Sometimes he is encouraged to break rules, like when someone gives him a magical cloak that lets him sneak around and do things he isn't supposed to do. Sometimes the hammer comes down like a ton of bricks, like when some instructor fines him and his friends heavily with the result that their school group (which is trying to win some kind of contest with other groups) is very angry with them.

Button #4 is that the supposedly strong, good magical adults can't get their own house in order so that Harry and his friends have to save the day at the end of the book. Yes, it makes for fun reading but I don't like books where kids have to save the world while adults fail through vague stupidity.

The magic part?  Seemed fine.  There were wands and spells and other crazy things that definitely don't happen in real life. I had no problem with that part of it.  But the basic truth is that Harry is a very dubious hero.  He has my sympathy because of a rough childhood, but he is a rule breaker, he has little respect for his authority figures, and he isn't particularly kind. The end of the book has Harry going back to his relatives for the summer, cheerfully plotting to use magic to torment the cousin who used to torment him.  (And oh yes, THAT is against the rules as they were forbidden to use magic during summer break.)

Now, am I taking all this too seriously?  Probably.  I am a very serious person and I think about worldview in almost everything I read.  I think about plots. I think about the ideas that come out loud and clear. 

I would say most adults could probably safely read this book and not be affected by it.  I am not thrilled with children reading it.  I don't want my kids reading books where adults are either evil or incompetent, where rules are made to broken, and where children have to do what adults are incapable of doing.  Sometimes children have had to be heroes, but I don't want my children to EVER think that their wisdom is greater than my own, and that they should ignore basic instructions and rules and laws because they are smarter than stupid adults.  And that's one of the messages of Harry Potter.  I also never want our children to imagine that they are responsible for solving adult problems.  Kevin and I are the parents.  We don't need our kids rescuing us, we don't need them taking responsibility for adult level problems.  May our kids never get that crazy idea!

There are many more books in the series but I don't plan to read them anytime soon.  The first one annoyed me enough as it is :-).

P.S.  And now, having jumped on a cultural icon, I will throw out another tantalizing statement. I hated the movie Titanic from 15 years ago.  Hated it!  Why?  Let me count the ways, in another post :-)