Drink Deeply From This Goblet

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Dear Diary,

I'm glad you have the stamp of approval from the Ministry of Magic. This diary writing business can be dangerous stuff-or at least, so J.K. Rowling warned us early in her series about that boy wonder wizard.

What? Oh yes, I'm talking about Harry Potter. Come on, you don't really think it's just a kid series, do you? It didn't sit on the top of the bestseller list for weeks and weeks and months just because kids liked it. In fact, I bet there are a fair number of households where the parents and kids are arguing over who gets to read the book first. Isn't that a great turn of events? It sure beats an argument over the remote control.

Besides, you can't not read Harry Potter books and hope to have an intelligible conversation with anyone under 15 these days. Or over 20. I have to think that older teenagers might be the only ones to scorn this series. After all, they're in that tender age where they're too old for anything labeled "children's" and too young to revel in childishness. But that's OK. The books will still be there for them when they get older. And I'm sure more of them are reading this series than will admit to it.

I tried to resist Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Really I did. I mean, I knew I would read it eventually. I was much too in love with the first three books to think that I wouldn't be reading number four. July was really busy though. I have a box of books sitting beside my bed filled with the books I wanted to read this summer. I have several writing projects both at work and at home that need attending to. I have an adorable son who likes to go to the playground, and I wanted to join him on those outings. There would be plenty of time for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in September when things had slowed down and I had finished some of more pending tasks.

Then came the Friday after the book was published. My husband and I were babysitting for three boys who owned the book. They had gone to bed and the book sat there in their mom's totebag on the stairs, singing out my name. Ah, that evil siren. Two hundred pages later my friend was home and I had to stop reading. Two weeks later, another friend loaned it to me after she and her husband finished it (they didn't have kids, so they were able to loan it out relatively quickly). My son was off for a visit with the grandparents and my husband had the car at rehearsal for the entire day. That afternoon I curled up in bed and didn't get out again until the book was done. The fact that I fell asleep during the last 50 pages was an indication of my exhaustion, not the pacing of the book itself.

It's easy to be rapturous about this book. There is a freshness, a creativity, a vibrancy, that makes the series addictive. Yet, Goblet of Fire is very different from the others in the series. It is a book in twilight, and the morning seems quite distant. Shadows begin clouding the sun at the very beginning of the novel and while it burns them away for a time, the sun is setting at the end of this book, and we must resign ourselves to a period of darkness before it again rises.

Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Why tell you about the ending when I haven't told you about the beginning yet? Actually, I'm not going to do either. The joy of this book is in its discovery and knowing anything about the book ahead of time spoils the surprise and wonder. It's so much better to learn things as Harry learns them.

Yet, perhaps the Pottermania and its rocketing sales have not convinced you to jump on the bandwagon. Perhaps you're just not much of a reader or don't care for frivolous fiction. What can I say to you?

Just this: Don't cheat yourself.

But of course you're a reader, what sort of diary would you be if you weren't a reader? In fact, if you're here absorbing my scribble about Potter #4, you've probably already read the first three. So what might you dislike about the book?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire may take you where you don't think you want to go. I've yet to meet an adult who wants to be 14 again. Indeed, the only people I've ever known who wanted to be 14 were those who hadn't yet reached that age. At first, I was very annoyed with Ron and Harry and slightly annoyed with Hermione. Then I recalled that they were at that age where the hormones start coursing through their bodies, doing strange things to their moods and emotions. No, I'm not talking about sex, or even delusions of it. Rather, they are moody, quick to jump to conclusions, and feeling much of the anxiety of becoming a teenager. It is sometimes a painful reminder.

It is also necessary, if one is to truly enjoy these books, to suspend the expectations that the author or her creations will share your values. I get annoyed at the portrayal of women in this book. Or rather, let me say I get discomfited. It is a male-centered novel the way Tom Sawyer is, the way Pippi Longstocking is a female-centered novel. That does not make it bad or wrong, just one less way in which I can relate to it.

The characters are also not of any identifiable religion. Indeed, in some ways, they are very British in their celebrations of holidays without the direct association with the sacred side of it. The book has been criticized for this reason, yet, I must point out that it is a way of life for many people and is simply one less way in which I (and others who share my religious bent) can relate to it.

Yet, there are many other ways in which I can relate. These young folks have a strong sense of what is right and wrong-even though the adults in their world often fail to understand them or impute the basest of motives to their behaviors. They are constantly in a defensive position because they do what they believe to be the right thing, regardless of what they are told to do. It is the difference between obedience and goodness. How lucky our children are to have an example that shows them that obedience is not the highest ideal to which they might attain. Rather, they learn to respect others, to value life, to look beyond their first impressions, and to rely on each other when times are grim.

OK, OK, I'm getting rapturous again. Let me slip into the role of critic for just a moment. There were some unnecessary pages to this book. Good writers (a label I would certainly give to Ms. Rowling) must have a background that is more extensive than what gets into print. There is much more creation that must go on than what is revealed to the reader in the pages of the book. The writer must then decide what goes in and what stays out. It is for this reason that it is much easier (and takes less time) to write long than it is to write short. (Or, at least, it takes longer to write WELL using fewer words). I found myself skimming much too often in this book, whereas Rowling had me hanging on every word in the others. Her discipline slipped a little in this book and she left in things that should have been cut.

The book gets rather dark considering some of her readers are still younger than Harry and his friends. The final six chapters become very intense. There is no putting the book down after this point (never mind that I fell asleep. The spirit was willing, the flesh was weak). It gave me nightmares and I'm 32 years old. Yet, my criticism of this must be gentle and weak. Why? Because even its intensity and darkness provide an opportunity for a parent. It gives parents and children something to talk about, to reassure, to conjecture.

And to repeat myself, it's oh so much better to have parents and children talking about a book than a television show.

Until my next entry,
Bridgette --B. Redman