Harry Potter and the Global Village

It was what one participant called "a communal book experience" (in the best of the summary stories I saw, in the LA Times) and the village was global. It continues as readers dig into the latest and last of the saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

It was a last chance to see the midnight parties that have greeted each new volume, even if in a small way, at Northtown Books here in Arcata, CA. (The pictures above are from that event, as well as more posted at another blog, This North Coast Place. When I first arrived at 11:30 or so, the line was composed mostly of college age and older--product of the late hour, I thought, but then realized that college students have grown up on Harry Potter books. But as midnight approached, more families with children arrived, as well as more students.

Many came in costume, of course, including a cross-dressing witch (it wouldn't be Arcata otherwise.) Those in the front of the line were reading by streetlight; some were gathered around a laptop, watching a Harry Potter movie. Down towards the back of the line, two twentysomethings went into the street with long sparklers of different colors to conduct a nicely choreographed wand battle. When the bookstore door opened and they filed into its dark confines, lit only by candles, I saw that some carried portable reading lights. After their trip to the cash register, a father and several children sat in and around the few chairs by the door--the children began reading, while dad plugged in his earphones to listen to the audiobook.

I also saw the movie from the fifth book this week, which seems like it will turn out to be a very good preparation for this book. But I can say no more. Margaret and I read these books aloud to each other, a chapter each in the evenings. This time we began by listening to the author, J.K. Rowling, read the first chapter--a streaming video from midnight in London which you can access for the next two weeks at the Bloomsbury Books site. Our own reading begins Sunday.

As for the temptation to check out the ending, I confess I read enough of the early reviews to figure I'm not going to be blindsided by anything utterly devastating, and in the process I saw that the book is getting high praise almost universally--so I'm content to let it roll. It may be a book about a mythical magical world, but it is itself literary magic, and global village magic--and when you see how it all came about for this magical creature named J. K. Rowling, you get the idea that the whole thing is magic.