Stephen Pollard • I worry for Harry's adult readers (Sunday Telegraph)

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June	22
2003

I worry for Harry's adult readers (Sunday Telegraph)

» Posted on June 22, 2003 03:00 PM » Category: General

So have you read it yet? Did you plonk yourself down in your armchair yesterday and feast yourself on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?

Maybe you queued up on Friday night to be among the first to get hold of one of the 10 million copies. In which case - unless you really were just buying it for your children - you should be ashamed of yourself.

I am assuming, given that this is The Telegraph and not The Beano, that I do not have to point out that the Harry Potter books are children's books. But given the number of seemingly intelligent, normal adults who display not the slightest embarrassment discussing the finer points of quidditch with other adults, or who are perfectly happy to sit on a train, in full view of the rest of the carriage, reading any of the four previous instalments, I am probably making an assumption too far.

The unsettling truth - unsettling for those of us who consider one of the characteristics of adulthood as being some kind of mental development from childhood - is that, although the Harry Potter books are written for children, marketed at children and enjoyed by children, many of the real Harry Potter fans are adults.

Bloomsbury, the publishers, says itself that adult readers are a core target, which is why it issues the books in special sober "adult" covers. A survey by the Book Marketing consultancy found that adults bought 64 per cent of all Harry Potter books sold last year. Many of those, of course, were for children to read. But many, clearly, were not. They were bought by adults for adults. That is adults who enjoy childish stories.

The number of adults reading Harry Potter for themselves should hardly be surprising, given the infantilisation of our culture. Ms Rowling's fellow children's author Philip Pullman won the Whitbread Book Prize last year for The Amber Spyglass - the first children's book to win. Pullman's books are now being adapted for the National Theatre - and not as children's entertainment.

Nothing new there. Last Christmas I took my nephew to see The Lion King. Having heard that it was booked up for months ahead, I assumed I would have to turn to the touts. Christmas matinees would surely be the busiest period of all for a Disney musical with talking animals.

Well, no. Matinees, it turns out, are the one possibility for getting tickets. It is only the evening performances that are sold out ahead. Overwhelmingly, the audience for The Lion King is unaccompanied adults.

I managed to avoid the first Lord of the Rings film. The critical reception to the second, however, was so overwhelmingly positive - variations on the theme of "a stunning cinematic achievement" - that curiosity, and the accusation that "you can't criticise it unless you've seen it", got the better of me.

After an hour of elves, monsters and hilarious ham acting - hardly surprising, given the drivel the actors had to work with - I walked out. It was a children's film shot for and marketed at adults.

And very shrewd, too, given the demand for such rubbish. It is not, after all, just books and films. Regression into childhood is the defining characteristic of modern culture. Computer games, pop music, loutishness and fast food are all part of the same phenomenon - behaving as a child but in the body of an adult.

I'd better go now. My Thunderbirds puppets need their batteries changing.

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Comments

I pity you. Although I am 18 years old and I enjoy both Harry Potter and the His Dark Materials trilogy. How miserable must your life be that you deprive yourself of fantasy? I admit that Harry Potter is an incredibly childish book, and no one can pretend that adults are Rowling's target audience. But you are missing one thing, it's a good story, it's a good idea for a story. It's exciting and when reading it you become so involved that it's difficult to stop reading. This is what a good author should be able to do, engage the readers, nomatter how old they are. The fact that adults read it is just a testament to Rowling' talent. As for Philip Pullman, he is without a doubt the most talented author i have ever come across, his books are captivating, for both adults and children. The 'His Dark Materials' trilogy is one of those wonderful books which is unfortunate enough to be branded a childs book and be critisised by an unimaginative 'adult' like you.

Stated by: amanda on December 16, 2003 12:20 PM

I can proudly say that I am one of Harry Potter's biggest adult fans. I am not ashamed to read the books in full view of others. My friend's six year old niece sometimes hires the latest videos. I am not embarrased to sit and watch them with her. Contrary to the allegations that they lead children into Satanism. Hogwash. The books have a better influence than, say the twee-est cartoons pumped out today. Every book has a moral, whether it is about loyalty to ones friends, kindness to others, or just fair play.

Stated by: elisabeth hurley on December 6, 2004 9:43 AM

Stated by: LNoxYfdKhV on October 25, 2005 3:20 PM

elisabeth hurley - You don't think that "loyalty to one's friends, kindness to others, or just fair play" would be installed and functioning in most people by the time they're 12 or 13? Given all the very good novels and collections of essays in the English language, reading a children's book to take lessons in the verities of life is lazy and undiscerning. This is nothing against the author. She is writing for children.

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