5 Terribly Common Excuses for Having Not Yet Read Harry Potter

Description: This has been revised and truncated for brevity. The original published article can be located on Associated Content at this link: http://voices.yahoo.com/5-terribly-common-excuses-having-not-read-the-6691450.html?cat=38

I have never stood in line at a Barnes and Nobel for hours waiting, wiggling through a sore back and a full bladder, for the newest installment to go on sale. I have never been to a theater for the midnight showing wearing so much as a hint of gold or burgundy on purpose.

Then? My husband started reading it. It had to be a trap. All his free time was spent with his nose in another Harry Potter book! This was coming from the same man I knew I fell in love with: a film scholar, with unsettling man crushes on Tarantino and Truffaut and a passion for old foreign films that I can only dream of truly appreciating. Here was a man with … refined taste, gazing into a copy of Prisoner of Azkaban like it was the Hope Diamond.  

I eventually fell from grace. The day the Half-Blood Prince was to be released in theaters, we had tickets to the midnight showing and I spent six heavenly, uninterrupted hours on the couch devouring the last three-quarters of Deathly Hallows in order to be “ready” for that night. I even squealed out loud several times toward the end.

That having been said, it is time to shear the wool from your eyes and beseech you to face the five terribly sorry excuses you’ve given for having not yet read this engaging, charmingly enjoyable series.

[#1 cut for length.]
 

#2. You’re a literary snob.

In college, I was hard pressed to even associate with anyone who couldn’t contribute to a conversation about post-modernism. If it had so much as been mentioned in the New York Times, it probably wasn’t worth the read. All the best authors and artistes had died or were hanging on by a thread, in my eyes. But to be totally honest? It was a guise. In fact, all snobbery is. A genuinely confident person can maintain a hobby or interest without all the pomp and circumstance of long talks around a hookah or late-night wine downs. Just before graduating with my English degree I finally matured enough to turn my energy from trying to be some kind of know-it-all, to simply enjoying and appreciating the works I’d been studying. That gave me all the heart necessary to learn about the great stories being written right here, today – lovely stories, like the epic of Harry Potter. Yes, epic! The Odyssey was great and all, but Poseidon doesn’t hold a candle to the damage a dementor can do, especially when you consider the fact that dementors basically eat souls. What’s a club wielding Cyclops got against a SOUL EATER besides a bump or two on the noggin? Give up the fight. If you’re looking for depth and dimension, or the agelessness of a classic yet relatable fantasy, it’s right under that aforementioned upturned nose. 

 [#3 and #4 cut for length.]

#5. You just aren’t that into fantasy stuff.

This was one of my biggest excuses. Lord of the Rings? Fun, but … eh. Beowulf? Yawn. I like reading about people. Actual human beings. Not that fantasy can’t be an incredibly challenging genre both to write and to appreciate, but it has simply never been my thing the way a good character study is. So years went by, book after book came out, but Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s This or the Order of That that just never interested me. When I finally did begin to read it, I found that Rowling was providing for me an experience like I had never had before when it came to fantasy. She was holding my attention by building a story in which Harry Potter really was little more than an actual human being. He was a regular, awkward, gangly kid who just needed someone to throw him a bone in life. As the series progresses, we’re consistently given the opportunity to identify with Harry as a regular teenager, and are just as surprised as he is each time we discover a new skill or secret. By the time you’ve made your way through a few novels, accepting Hogwart’s and the world around it for what it is becomes second nature. Kids get punished by their parents. Girls get crushes on boys. Staring directly into the eyes of a basilisk turns you to stone, nothing out of the ordinary. There is no denying that this series will appeal to dozens of tastes, but you’ll truly never know until you take a bite.

So there it is, for the world to see: the five terribly, lame and common excuses you (and I) have given for not having yet read the Harry Potter series. It is my sincere hope that you will take this essay as a gentle nudge in the right direction, and not wait for your husband, wife, friend, or other loved one to start geeking out without you!