A few years ago, a journalist wrote a short article about his observation of three adults on a train on the London underground. They were all sitting in the same carriage and were all reading Harry Potter books. He mentioned the fact that as they read, two of them moved their lips and the third rather sheepishly looked around, as if to see if anyone had noticed what they were reading. The journalist, telling a friend about this was met with "Yes, isn't it utterly shameful?" The suggestion being that these adults had the reading age of a child, or should jokingly be labelled as 'liking children's books'.
Carefully reading that article, it occurred to me that it hadn't been written in order to demonstrate any symptoms of a 'dumbing down' in society, or to suggest that adults that enjoy Harry Potter books really do have a child's reading age. The debate about whether Harry Potter books constitute adult literature in any sense, or should be considered as great literary works, has been going on since the first book in the series was published in 1997. As each successive episode hit the bookstores, this debate has been renewed and the article was no more than another attempt to keep that debate alive and to prompt discussion.
Grow Calendar 2011
Some adults don't enjoy the Harry Potter books at all, finding them to be averagely written, rather mechanical, lacking flow and a little unconvincing. Even some intelligent and well-read children have also described them as boring. Personally, I'm with the millions of people (adults and children) who find them highly entertaining and enjoyable. Does it really matter what the target audience is, if they are written in such a way that all ages find something to like about them? In any case, many 'classics' of English literature would seem to be aimed at an adult audience, for example Peter Pan, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows. As to whether the Harry Potter stories will last as long, who can tell? But they begin, as all great children's stories do, with the need to escape from the present, out the window to Neverland, down the rabbit hole or spirited away from the pace of city life.
Should Adult Harry Potter Fans Grow Up? Grow Calendar 2011
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