On 2009-12-18 Ava Torre-Bueno, San Diego wrote: I found Unlocking Harry Potter interesting, even useful, but fundamentally flawed and deeply irritating. John Granger gives us lenses (keys) through which to view aspects of the Harry Potter novels. Some of them are mysterious and new (alchemy), and some of them are just basic English 101. I´ll start with the 101 material.
NARRITIVE MISDIRECTION
Granger spends a chapter on ´narrative misdirection.´ He shows how the point of view of the novels is intended to keep us looking at all the action through Harry´s limited view. He claims to have been caught by this narrative ruse in novel after novel. In this I can only assume he is being disingenuous. Any serious adult reader can follow the adult story going on around and behind Harry´s erroneous view of the story. At the end of Sorcerer´s Stone, we learn that Snape is working for Harry during the Quiddich match, not against him, and that Snape is completely trusted by Dumbeldore. Nothing in any of the following books would cause the serious adult reader to revert to Harry´s teenage misunderstandings of the situation. Granger is not just a serious adult reader, he is an English and Latin professor. So the first truly annoying thing about this book is that early on, you recognize that the author is lying to you about his own experience.
In elaborating on narrative misdirection, Granger points out that Rowling´s favorite author is Jane Austen, and that her favorite book is Emma, which is indeed full of the same device Rowling uses to keep her readers off-base; the central character is continuously clueless about the motivations of others. On page 186 of his book, Granger calls Austen, ´this Edwardian spinster.´ Red alert, red alert! Austen is not an Edwardian author! Later he refers to her as a Georgian author. You might be able to say she was a late Georgian author, but normally Austen is considered a Regency author. Why does this matter? Because if Granger can be off by nearly 100 years about one of the most famous authors in the English language, how can we trust that what he´s saying about subjects we know nothing about (like alchemy), is remotely accurate?
HERO´S JOURNEY
Another lens we are directed to is the hero´s journey. Again Granger is disingenuous. He must include something about the hero´s journey, but he gives it short shrift. If he went into any depth on the hero´s journey re-enacted in each of the seven novels, it would become clear to the attentive reader that the Jesus myth Unlocking Harry Potter is supposed to represent according to Granger, is just one in a long line of hero´s journeys. Jesus is preceded in his three day ´death´ and subsequent resurrection by such important goddeses as Persephone (Greek) and E-Na-Na (Mesopotamian), and by Osiris (Egyptian). An eight-step formulation of the hero´s journey is given by David Adams Leeming in his book, Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero:
1. Miraculous conception and birth
2. Initiation of the hero-child
3. Withdrawal from family or community for meditation and preparation
4. Trial and Quest
5. Death
6. Descent into the underworld
7. Resurrection and rebirth
8. Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement
If Granger had written even this much about the hero´s journey, it would become clear that the main point he is trying to make in Unlocking Harry Potter, that the Potter books are a Christian allegory, would shrivel into insignificance.
Several times in Unlocking, Granger says that Rowling is a professed Christian. In this country, (and Granger is an American), profession of faith means something more than claiming to go to church, ´more than weddings and christianings.´ If that´s Rowling´s profession of faith, it´s mighty weak and we can ignore Granger´s thesis of Christian allegory entirely.
The Potter novels could just as easily be seen as a Buddhist allegory; sacrificial love is a central theme in Buddhism as well as in Christianity.
For more on the hero´s journey, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero´s_journey
And certainly read The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.
ALCHEMY
Granger spends much of the book explaining alchemy and about how understanding alchemical references is essential to understanding English literature. This was all quite interesting and enlightening and is what makes Unlocking worth the read, maybe. Unfortunately, while he is explaining that alchemy is more about the purification of the soul of the alchemist than it is about turning base metals into gold, and while he points to all the Christian symbolism intertwined with alchemical symbolism, he fails to point out that alchemy, like so many other things, came to Europe from the Arab world. It is a Muslim science and practice and as such demands that we not be so quick to overlay Western meanings onto it.
MATERIALISM/MATERIALISTIC
Granger talks about the deadness of the material world and the richness of the spiritual world. Like most religious authors, he condemns the ´materialism´ of science. More disingenuously, he conflates the use of the word ´material,´ meaning the world of atoms and objects, with the word ´materialistic´ meaning the value system of the Dursleys. He knows the difference between these two words and what they convey but chooses, in his own brand of misdirection, to conflate them in order to smugly dismiss rational non-believers. This is inexcusable in an English professor. In doing so he also undermines Rowling´s indictment of materialistic, bourgeois, Western culture. This brings us to another of Granger´s keys, post-modern themes. The evil of materialism (the Dursley kind) is only secondary to the ultimate evil of racism and intolerance in Rowling´s work. No problem there, and not a particularly interesting chapter in Granger´s book.
WRITER´S VOICE
In explaining narrative misdirection to us, Granger is talking in part about the ´voice´ we hear the book in. The voice in Unlocking Harry Potter is actually many voices and styles. This is one of the most irritating things about reading this book. Granger goes from scholarly lecture voice to calling Dumbledore ´Dumby´ all in the same sentence. The instances in annoying change of voice in this book are too numerous to recount and persist throughout the book.
COPY EDITS
Finally, Unlocking was either not edited at all, or it was edited in a rush to get to press before Deathly Hallows was released. Granger makes some predictions about Deathly Hallows and the book would have been an afterthought if it had not gotten to bookstores early enough. This is still no excuse for ghastly errors like starting a sentence with a lower case letter for goodness sake! Edits are a small thing, I know, but a totally annoying distraction to an attentive reader.
If I were a literature professor, I´d give Unlocking Harry Potter a 3/5 for content and a 1/5 for form.. And summed up by saying fundamentally flawed and deeply irritating. Currently Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader has an overall rating of 8 over 10.
Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader can also be found in the following searches:
Zossima Press claimed UNLOCKING HARRY POTTER gives you five essential keys for understanding the HARRY POTTER series. Not just who will live or die in DEATHLY HOLLOWS, but how J.K. Rowling created the most successful books of our times. To understand the story behind the stories, John Granger, author of THE HIDDEN KEY TO HARRY POTTER and editor of WHO KILLED ALBUS DUMBLEDORE?, introduces the themes and patterns Rowling uses to write books that resonate with readers of all ages. This book is for ´serious readers´ but Granger writes in a very entertaining style. If you never understood the term ´postmodernism´ or how ´literary alchemy´ is used by great authors from Shakespeare to J.K. Rowling, then this is a fun way to learn. UNLOCKING HARRY POTTER is the only book to examine in depth the importance of what Rowling said in an interview from 1998, that ´to invent this wizard world´ she had to learn about alchemy ´in order to set the parameters and establish the stories´ internal logic.´ - . - . - . - . - Here´s what other HARRY POTTER authors and experts have to say about UNLOCKING HARRY POTTER: - . - . - . - . - ´I got so hooked I had to stop everything else and just read, read, read. I carried it around the house, read it while using the excercycle, I hid in rooms away from the action of daily life so I could take it all in. I haven´t had that reaction to a book since, well, THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. A spectacular read for all serious fans of Rowling´s works. Compelling, well-argued, fun and funny. Engaging. Thought provoking. Erudite.´ - Tom Morris, author of IF HARRY POTTER RAN GENERAL ELECTRIC and PHILOSOPHY FOR DUMMIES. - . - . - . - . - ´John Granger peels back the layers of Rowling´s stories and sees patterns the rest of us miss - and he never forgets to be a fan, engaging in fun speculation about what will come in the finale. Once more Granger has shown himself to be second to none among Potter commentators and literary sleuths. Some books are meant to be ingested quickly. Not this one. Serious fans of HARRY POTTER will relish it.´ - David Baggett, editor of HARRY POTTER AND PHILOSOPHY.
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