Harry Potter and the Curse of Silence
Chauncey Mabe - Books Editor
August 18 2002

Where have you gone, Harry Potter? The nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Make that the world.

J.K. Rowling's series of fantasy novels about a kiddie wizard fighting evil at a boarding school for the magically gifted has sold something like a gazillion copies internationally (actually 140 million copies, or thereabouts, in 47 languages).

Harry is credited with saving the publishing industry (Scholastic, Rowling's American publisher, sold $200 million worth of Potter books in 2001 alone); inspiring a return to reading for a young generation previously feared lost to TV, video games and computers; and with attracting adult readers to a juvenile genre.

The Hollywood film adaptation of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, took in more than $300 million to become the top moneymaker of last year, despite lukewarm reviews.

But now Rowling seems stuck on volume five of the projected seven-book series.

After publishing one book a year between 1997 and 2000, Rowling has now missed two deadlines, the latest in July, when the fifth installment was expected in stores. Word now is that you'll have to wait until June of 2003 to read a new Harry Potter book. Or maybe later.

Unless, of course, you are traveling to China, where the fifth book has been a runaway best seller. Titled Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon, the book bears the byline and photo of Rowling, but it's obviously a homegrown rip-off by some as-yet unidentified but enterprising Chinese scribbler.

If the folklorically Asian title doesn't tip you off, the distinctly non-British storyline will; it reportedly includes Harry turning into a hirsute dwarf after a "sour-sweet rain." Maybe it includes recipes.

Rowling's reported title for the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, has a bit more of the old magic, the kind that mesmerized millions of readers, children and adults, in the fourth installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

The delays have pundits and critics wondering whether Rowling has developed writer's block, while fans exchange Internet rumors about plot points. Meanwhile, children keep re-reading the existing books and seeking out similar titles at stores and libraries.

Rowling's camp -- Bloomsbury, her British publisher, and honchos at Warner Bros., which is making the movies -- insists that the Scotland-based author is "happily" working away, "taking the time to write the best book that she can." But an air of desperation surrounds these denials. Harry Potter books, after all, account for 40 percent of Bloomsbury's cash flow.

To be sure, there's no more dishonor in writer's block (Dashiell Hammett, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Albert Camus were just a few of its victims) than there is in impotence, to which it is more than a little related. But few writers want to own up to either malady, for similar reasons of shame and superstition.

Rowling herself, responding to harsh speculation in The Scotsman, has said that there was never any announced deadline, merely the appearance of one as she produced the first four books at roughly 12-month intervals.

Sounding more defensive than she probably intended, Rowling said, "These facts have been on record for over a year and, as children all over Britain have grasped them, I am mystified to know why Scotland's national newspaper is so slow on the uptake."

Well, it's probably a function of journalistic skepticism. While the average reporter may be far less intelligent than the average 10-year-old, we do tend to be a wee bit more distrustful.

Big-screen betrayal?

My feeling is that Rowling is a victim of what might be called Harry Potter and the Curse of Mammon.

I was quite disappointed when Rowling sold out to Hollywood so soon in the development of the Harry Potter corpus.

As everyone who has followed the phenom that is Harry knows, librarians have credited the series with inspiring a renaissance of reading among young adults.

One librarian said last year the Potter series may have delayed the decline in reading by 20 years. Harry has been especially important in bringing boys back to books. Boys are notoriously hard to interest in reading after the fourth or fifth grade. But Harry Potter inspired a passionate desire to read in just those boys who had given it up.

I feared that Rowling would squelch all this good work by allowing Hollywood to render the story of Harry and his struggle against shadowy Lord Voldemort into visual pabulum. Young readers would figure why bother with the books, when you can wait for the movies to come out?

Further, I was leery about all that money and attention curdling Rowling's confidence and hunger, quelling the creative impulse that had rushed her through four complicated, nicely turned fantasy novels in as many years. (This is a major theme in the British press, which notes she has become a bit "grand" in her spending habits.)

And when the movie emerged, another danger presented itself. A book is a collaborative work involving the interaction of the writer's imagination with the imagination of each reader. A movie also is the work of many imaginations, but they are all on the side of the filmmakers. The moviegoer can only passively accept or reject the vision that is presented.

My heart sank when Chris Columbus was chosen as director. With such films as Bicentennial Man, Nine Months and Mrs. Doubtfire to his credit, imagination has never been his strong suit.

Sure enough, when the trailers started to appear, my two youngest children -- 13 and 14 when first introduced to Harry Potter -- rebelled. Devotees of the books, they hated everything they could see of the pending movie, which they flatly refused to attend. They didn't want their vision of Hogwarts sullied.

Perhaps something similar has struck at the heart of Harry's creator. My kids, feeling betrayed, have gone on to other reading -- The Lord of the Rings, the adult mysteries of Laura Lippman, Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes. Perhaps Rowling, having seen her creation fixed onto celluloid by someone else's impoverished imagination, has lost the spark that animated her literary fancy.

Paralyzed by publicity

Certainly Rowling is no stranger to writer's block. She has admitted suffering a bout during the writing of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second in the series. "I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralyzed me," she has said. "I was scared the second book wouldn't measure up, but I got through it."

Imagine how paralyzing it must be to realize you have sold your soul, prostituted your creation, betrayed the world's children. Think of it as Harry Potter and the Chamber Pot of Guilt.

Rowling surely didn't need the money. A single mother on public assistance when she began writing the first book, she was long since a millionaire. By some reports, selling the movie rights elevated her to the status of the world's first billionaire novelist.

It was surprising that Rowling sold her soul, no matter how exorbitant the price. Previously, she had been so careful with Harry's image, personally signing off on advertisements and promotions. (Actually, the British press attributes the delay in book five to Rowling's attempt to control everything she possibly could about the movie, leaving her no time to write.)

As one of the adults charmed by Harry and company, I want to know what happens next; I'm certainly not rooting for Rowling to fail to produce the remainder of the series. But I do take some wicked pleasure in the thought that Rowling is sweating out book five in her new Scottish manor house, consoled by her new husband.

Dark and difficult

On the other hand, Rowling may not be feeling guilty at all. The delay may simply be the increased difficulty the author faces in dealing with adolescent themes. She has, after all, set a difficult task for herself -- taking her character from childhood to the brink of adulthood.

Harry turned 11 in the first book; he ages a year each volume, which means that in the book Rowling is currently writing he is 15. Part of what makes the series so appealing, for adults and children alike, is Rowling's skill and honesty in print. She's not a mere popular entertainer -- though she is that, too -- she is a real writer, and one concerned above all with character development.

This admirable quality can be seen not only in Harry and the other major characters, but also in the most minor ones, each differentiated by a singular voice and personality traits.

Rumors flying on the Internet -- many of them based on Rowling's own comments in interviews -- suggest that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be dark and scary, with danger, death, romance and the possibility of sex. Delicate and thorny matters.

If Harry Potter began in a sunny realm not far from Kenneth Grahame, C.S. Lewis and A.A. Milne, he may wind up only a block or two from Judy Blume, Richard Peck and Robert Cormier.

That's not a bad address, as far as I'm concerned. Kids, who are always tougher and smarter than they seem, will like it too.

Chauncey Mabe can be reached at cmabe@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4710.

Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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