Missing from 'Harry Potter' – a real moral struggle

Boston - If literature truly reflects society, then the end of the Harry Potter series spells trouble for us all.

Because, after 10 years, 4,195 pages, and over 325 million copies, J.K. Rowling's towering achievement lacks the cornerstone of almost all great children's literature: the hero's moral journey. Without that foundation, her story – for all its epic trappings of good versus evil – is stuck in a moral no man's land.

To be clear: This isn't a critique of Ms. Rowling's values. It's a recognition of a disturbing trend in commercial storytelling and Western society.

For those who've yet to finish "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," stop reading now: There are spoilers ahead. If you did, however, embark on a Deathly Hallows marathon, you know that the shady Severus Snape died, not in the name of evil, but in the name of good.

Oh, yeah. And Harry defeated Voldemort. Good prevailed. The problem is, that's not the moral of the story. Good always prevails. It's the hero's struggle – and costly redemption – that matters.

Classic tales such as J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" set the standard for children's fiction. With their unrelenting drive toward "the moral of the story," they form a golden thread in the West's cultural fabric. And yet, like the society in which we live, storytelling itself has, in recent decades, undergone a radical transformation – sliding toward moral ambivalence with alarming speed.

I'm not advocating for the kind of didacticism that dominated Puritan and Victorian children's fiction. Times change. Arguably, postwar, post-Depression America needed the escape value of Disney's adaptations of "Snow White" and "Cinderella." It was a marriage of storytelling and meaning-making quite apart from what the Brothers Grimm envisaged a century before. But while Disney's focus was entertainment, the moral still mattered. And that moral center has all but vanished from much of today's pop culture.

Successful storytelling rests on a few basic principles. One of them is this: A story is about someone who changes, who grows through a moral struggle. What is Harry's struggle? Exactly.

Throughout the series, but especially in book seven, even Harry's darkest moments – of self-doubt, of disillusionment, of skepticism about his greatest mentor, Dumbledore – never ring true. Was there any doubt that Harry would fulfill the task set out for him?

The truth of the matter is that Harry the character had nowhere to go. And thus, the overarching moral dilemma of the series, the compelling inner crisis that begged resolution, had nothing to do with our beloved hero.

First principle of storytelling
Back to that first principle of storytelling: A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow.

But there is one character who does face a compelling inner crisis: Snape. With all the debate – and with all of Rowling's clues – about whether he was good or bad, it's fair to say that the sallow-faced potions professor has entranced many readers. His character ached for resolution.

And it is precisely this need for resolution – our desire to know the real Snape and to understand his choices – that makes him the most compelling character in the Potter epic. His decisions, not Harry's, were the linchpin. And his moment with Dumbledore after the death of Harry's parents, not Harry's last duel with Voldemort, is the authentic climax of the series.

For Harry, there was no choice. The way forward was clear, the conflict – and journey – external. We cared about Snape because this was not the nature of his story. Every action was weighted with the pain and subtext of his choices, or lack thereof. For Snape, there weren't – there couldn't be – any easy answers. And yet, in the end, his moral journey was overshadowed by this fact: It was merely one more plot device to propel Harry toward his pre-destined victory.

Snape: the authentic protagonist
Rowling has publicly expressed mystification over her readers' fascination with Snape, even suggesting that his appeal is simply "the bad boy syndrome." Instead, her readers, whether consciously or not, have tapped into something that Rowling herself may have failed to recognize.

That something was a need for a protagonist who genuinely struggled to define – and do – the right thing. A passive main character with no authentic moral dilemma is not only hard to relate to, he or she is also no guide in circumstances in which right and wrong are anything less than black and white.

In a society increasingly steeped in moral relativism, it's not the Harrys of the world who will make a difference. It's the Snapes. It's those who need redemption, then choose it. It's those willing to press on and fail and then to press on again – especially when there are no clear answers.

There is much to love about the Harry Potter series, from its brilliantly realized magical world to its multilayered narrative. Unfortunately, Rowling did her readers a great disservice by making the story about Harry when it really should have been about Snape.

And yet, it's hard to imagine Snape's story emerging from a society where entertainment is king – and where the moral of the story is that there's seldom a moral at all.


Source - Yahoo Entertainment

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Jason Boyd, Rupert Grint, Weasley, Richard Macklin, Kathryn Hunter, Helena Bonham Carter
Ratings: ***

Pottermania is contagious. The books and the movies are a rage among kids all over the world. And now almost everyone is queuing up to watch the fifth of the movie series called "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".

The film almost coincides with the release of the seventh Potter book by J.K. Rowling on July 21. The latest movie shows Harry Potter's fifth year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and has been well received by fans.

But the fifth movie edition isn't just for kids... adults will also enjoy it as Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe, has now grown into a teenage boy engaged in grown-up adventures.

Harry has not only grown into a good-looking guy, this time he is angry and combating new fears within. He is also shown enjoying his first kiss with his classmate Cho Chang (Katie Leung).

The film has its familiar premise, but the evil Voldemort's return to power is not the only factor that worries Harry now. There is trouble in the form of Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), who enters Hogwarts as a teacher with vengeance and contempt for its students and faculty. And she leaves no chance to show her detestation towards them.

She bans students from practising magic and insists on giving just theoretical knowledge. So Harry challenges her by giving his fellow pupils magic lessons secretly, though Dolores manages to penetrate into their secret chamber. And amidst all this, the students also have to give their final exam.

From the FX to performances and adventures to dark secrets, everything is in place - the animation and special effects are best in the climax. The fireworks triggered off by the Weasley twins during their final exam are awesome.

Though described as the darkest movie in the series, it is the weakest compared to the last four. But at the same time, the film's tone and texture is definitely dark.

Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), Harry's closest friends, have also grown up, but this time they don't have much to contribute. Potter fans will surely enjoy Radcliife's performance as a brooding teenager - the boy wonder not only looks good in the film but also plays his part with finesse.

The film may not appeal to first timers but will certainly be a hit with old Harry Potter loyalists.

Rowling says will miss Harry Potter's world

NEW YORK (Reuters) - J.K. Rowling said on Tuesday that she will miss being able to retreat into the fictional world of Harry Potter after finishing the seventh and final volume on the teen-age wizard.

But in an interview with NBC television's "Today" show, Rowling, 41, said it felt "incredible" to have completed the series she began 17 years ago when the idea came to her as she traveled on a train from Manchester to London.

"At the moment it feels great to be honest with you," she said during the interview at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. "It's a really nice place to be."

"It's a big sense of achievement," she said. "I mean I am sad, but I think (I was) sadder immediately after finishing writing. I felt devastated. For about a week I was hard to live with after finishing this book."

The much-anticipated "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" became the fastest-selling book in history when it was released around the world on Saturday. More than 11 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours in the United States and Britain.

"I think the whole thing, it was this amazing cathartic moment, the end of 17 years' work, and that was just hard to deal with for about a week," Rowling said.

"It brought back a lot of memories of what had been going on in my life when I started writing," said the mother of three who had financial difficulties when she got the idea of Harry Potter but now is estimated to be worth $1.12 billion, making her the first dollar-billionaire author.

"When I started I wasn't in a bad place, then life had its ups and downs, so Harry has been with me through a lot. I think it was that feeling more than any other, that I wouldn't have that world to retreat into again," she said.

INFLUENCE OF HER MOTHER'S DEATH

After Rowling came up with the idea, her mother died in December 1990 after suffering from multiple sclerosis for several years, which Rowling said "changed both my world and Harry's forever."

The following year, Rowling moved to Portugal as an English teacher and met and married journalist Jorge Arantes, with whom she had her first child Jessica. The couple later divorced.

Rowling left Portugal for Edinburgh, where her sister Di lived. There she finished her first novel, writing most evenings and in cafes when Jessica fell asleep in her stroller.

That book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," went on sale in 1997, winning several awards and helping earn the author a U.S. publisher.

In addition to the books, the first five Hollywood movie adaptations of her Harry Potter stories have amassed around $4 billion at the global box office. The final film in the franchise is slated for release in 2010.

In December 2001, Rowling married Neil Murray, an anesthetist. The couple have two children.

Source : Yahoo Entertainment

Harry Potter magic hits bookstores

You wake up with a jolt, your head hurting as if Lord Voldemort has been trying to pry it open. It's still dark outside.

As you walk groggily down the stairs, a small voice at the back of your mind says, 'This is madness.'

You feel the way a certain young fictional wizard felt, when he heard about platform 9 � for the first time -- convinced it was a joke.

Outside, New York is whirring into action, slowly. The milkman is readying his sachets. The sweeper is brushing his teeth, broom in hand. The birds have realised it's their time to sing -- maybe the only time they can be heard in the city of dreams and big money.

You reach a mall in Broadway. Even the most eager mall-rat would be asleep now, you mutter to yourself, shaking your head at the foolishness of it all.

And then you enter.

Bam!

It's like you have walked through the invisible barrier and arrived at the platform from where the Hogwarts Express chugs its way to the most famous wizarding school in the world.

There are at least 150 people standing in line in front of the bookstore Landmark. From toddlers with parents, to tweens with parents, to teens with friends to dreadlocked cool dudes with stuff written on their t-shirts you wouldn't want your child to know, ever.

They are all here, living, talking, coffee-drinking, photo-clicking proof of the publishing phenomenon called Harry Potter to pick up their copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final instalment of a series of books that has transfigured its creator from a former waitress to a global celebrity richer than the queen of England.

There's 7-year-old Vihaan Hingorani, student of class 3 F -- he mentions his section 'F' with so much enthusiasm you don't feel like leaving that out -- with a pointed-hat-and-red-hair-wig cap. He could pass off as Harry's best friend Ron Weasley in first year.

Has he read any of the books? Vihaan shakes his head with a toothy grin. He has just seen the movies.

Then why is he here? "Mom wants the book."

Meanwhile, ever eager television cameras and microphones are everywhere, the young reporters squealing like a gang of first years in Hogwarts. A boy who has been made to dress up like Harry Potter emerges from the store. There are excited whoops and screams.

A store representative emerges and tells the crowd that the books have arrived. The crowd makes the kind of sound that was first heard when the world was struck by another British phenomenon, the Beatles.

You join the line. Hoping to get your copy of the book fast, and get home and give your head a break. But there are voices all around you.

"Do you think Dumbledore is not dead?"

"�Mamma I told you 5:45 was too late! Look so many people are in front of us�"

"..Dude, I dunno how she's going to do it, but I think Dumbledore is gonna come back."

"�Do you know many people die in the book?"

"The New York Times leaked the review�[sic]"

Then there is another roar � the store is open, the line begins moving.

After half an hour more of trudging along, you emerge with the book, eager to know.

Turns out one of the leaked copies on the Internet was a genuine one. Wow. It's a take no prisoners kind of book, with the first death before page 60.

And as you glide down the escalator, someone is whistling the theme from the Harry Potter movies. And whistling pretty well. It reverberates in the empty mall, almost magical, because you can't see who is whistling.

And then you walk out into the Muggle world, where the financial capital of Mumbai is just waking up

Rowling bids her boy wizard goodbye

EDINBURGH, Scotland - Harry Potter's life hangs in the balance. Millions of fans are holding their breath. Meanwhile, his creator is baking a cake — and keeping her secret.

On Saturday, readers around the globe will learn the schoolboy wizard's fate with the publication of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's fantasy series. Will Harry defeat his evil nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and restore order to the wizarding world? Will he die in the attempt, as many fans fear — and as Rowling, an expert narrative tease, has hinted?

"Harry's story comes to a definite end in book seven," is all she will say a few days before publication, serving up tea and home-baked sponge cake in her comfortable Edinburgh house. Writing the final words of the saga felt "like a bereavement."

That sounds ominously final. So have we really seen the last of the staff and students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

"Because the world is so big, there would be room to do other stuff," Rowling says carefully. "I am not planning to do that, but I'm not going to say I'm never going to do it."

Rowling (her name rhymes with bowling, rather than howling), looking relaxed in jeans and a sweater, shoulder-length blonde hair stylishly cut, has wildly mixed emotions at leaving behind the character she conjured up during a train journey across England in 1990: a neglected, bespectacled orphan who learns on his 11th birthday that he is a wizard.

She's enjoying the absence of pressure from publishers and fans clamoring for the next installment in Harry's adventures. And she's reveling in the chance to focus on normal life with her husband and three children.

But after finishing the last book, "I felt terrible for a week."

"The first two days in particular, it was like a bereavement, even though I was pleased with the book. And then after a week that cloud lifted and I felt quite lighthearted, quite liberated," she says.

"Finishing is emotional because the books have been so wrapped up with my life. It's almost impossible not to finish and look back to where I was when I started."

It has been an extraordinary journey. When Rowling created Harry Potter, she was a struggling single mother, writing in cafes to save on the heating bill at home. Now, at 41, she is the richest woman in Britain — worth $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine — with houses in Edinburgh, London and the Scottish countryside.

Her first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was published in 1997, with a print run of less than 1,000. Rowling's publisher suggested she use gender-neutral initials rather than her first name, Joanne, to give the book a better chance with boys. Lacking a middle name, she took the K from her paternal grandmother, Kathleen.

By the time the book appeared in the United States in 1998 — as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" — Harry was on his way to becoming a publishing phenomenon.

The six Potter books have sold some 325 million copies in 64 languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek. "Deathly Hallows" has an initial print run of 12 million in the United States alone; more than 2 million copies have been ordered from Internet retailer Amazon.

The novels have produced five movies, mountains of toys, a riot of Internet fan sites and scores of companion books — from academic studies to parodies to pop psychology. A theme park, complete with Hogwarts castle and Forbidden Forest, is to open in Orlando, Fla., in 2009.

The launch of each new book is now accompanied by choreographed chaos and military-level security. No book is sold until a minute past midnight on Saturday.

The series' success has been "a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon," said Joel Rickett, news editor of trade magazine The Bookseller. "It has brought a new generation to reading — got kids absorbed in huge hefty hardbacks the way they wouldn't have been," he said.

While some critics have dismissed the books as lightweight kiddie fare, others have been impressed by their moral complexity and darkening tone. Death haunts Harry Potter, who was orphaned at the age of 1 when Voldemort killed his parents. He loses his godfather Sirius Black in the fifth book and his beloved headmaster Dumbledore in the sixth. No wonder fans fear for Harry's future.

Rowling was profoundly affected by the death of her own mother from multiple sclerosis in 1990 at the age of 45.

"My mum died six months into writing (the books), and I think that set the central theme — this boy dealing with loss," Rowling says.

And she makes no apologies for exposing children to death.

"I think children are very scared of this stuff even if they haven't experienced it, and I think the way to meet that is head-on," she says. "I absolutely believe, as a writer and as a parent, that the solution is not to pretend things don't happen but to examine them in a loving, safe way."

Rowling says her success has been "the experience of a lifetime." But it also has brought an intense level of pressure, scrutiny and criticism. In the United States, her book tours have attracted thousands of screaming children, but also death threats. Some Christians have called for the books to be banned, claiming they promote witchcraft.

But it's only now that she realizes just how intense the pressure has been at the center of the Harry Potter whirlwind.

"I was very lonely with it," she says. "It's not like being in a pop group, where at least there would be three or four other people who knew what it was like to be on the inside. Only I knew what it was like to be generating this world as it became bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more people were invested in it.

After producing a book a year between 1997 and 2000, Rowling took a break. There was a three-year gap between the fourth book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," published in 2003. During the gap, Rowling met and married Neil Murray, a Scottish doctor. They live in Edinburgh with their children David, 4, and Mackenzie, 2, as well as Jessica, Rowling's daughter from her first marriage to a Portuguese journalist.

Rowling now seems reconciled to her success. She says she lives a normal life and is rarely recognized in the street, although her graystone town house on a tree-lined street is protected by an 8-foot stone wall and iron security gates. Like the neighborhood — a leafy literary enclave that's also home to crime novelist Ian Rankin and "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" writer Alexander McCall Smith — the house exudes solid affluence, rather than extravagance.

The modestly sized lawn holds a soccer net and a colorful plastic jumble of children's toys. In the tidy family room, are crowded bookshelves, an aquarium, photo albums and board games — the trappings of any middle-class family's life.

Rowling predicts that some of Harry's fans will dislike "Deathly Hallows." But she is proud of it. "The final book is what it was always supposed to be, and so I feel very at peace with that fact," she says.

As for the future, she says she has no plans.

"I can never write anything as popular again," she said. "Lightning does not strike in the same place twice.

"I'll do exactly what I did with Harry — I'll write what I really want to write, and if it's something similar, that's OK, and if it's something very different, that's OK.

"I just really want to fall in love with an idea again, and go with that."

Potter everywhere as book release nears

NEW YORK - Leaks. Lawsuits. Profiteering. What a way to treat such a fine young man like Harry Potter. Despite pleas for silence from author J.K. Rowling and some leading Potter fan sites, publishing's secret of all secrets — whether the wizard lives or dies — is in danger of becoming plain gossip as publication approaches for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

"As launch night looms, let's all, please, ignore the misinformation popping up on the web and in the press on the plot of `Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,'" Rowling wrote in a message posted Wednesday on her Web site, http://www.jkrowling.com/.

"I'd like to ask everyone who calls themselves a Potter fan to help preserve the secrecy of the plot for all those who are looking forward to reading the book at the same time on publication day. In a very short time you will know EVERYTHING!"

Alleged images of Rowling's seventh and final Potter book have already been circulating online days before the official July 21 release. More than 100 actual books may already have been received by customers. As of Wednesday morning, the $34.99 release was being offered on eBay, for immediate purchase, for $250.

"That's right — I've got one copy of Harry Potter 7, on July 17, and it can be yours as soon as July 19. Hurry! Confirmed payment by 6:30PM on July 18 will ensure delivery on July 19 by FedEx Priority Overnight!" read a message from a seller identified as "willpc" and based in Atlanta.

"I don't work for a bookstore, and I don't have a magic wand — an online store shipped a copy early."

Two pictures of the book, which sits upon a copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are offered as proof. The seller, who declined immediate comment when e-mailed by The Associated Press, has been an eBay member since 1999 and has a perfect "Feedback" score, according to the "Feedback Profile" for willpc.

Hundreds of copies of "Deathly Hallows" are being offered on eBay, but almost all have been promised only after the book is published.

Meanwhile, Scholastic, Inc. announced Wednesday that it was taking "immediate legal action" against online retailer DeepDiscount.com and distributor Levy Home Entertainment after learning that "some individuals have received copies of `Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' through the mail."

In papers filed Wednesday at Chicago's Circuit Court of Cook County, Rowling's U.S. publisher accused the defendants, based in Illinois, of a "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book." Scholastic is seeking damages "to be determined."

Donna Lindberg, Levy's director of product management, declined comment when contacted by The Associated Press.

According to a Scholastic press release, "around one one-hundredth of one percent of the total U.S. copies" going on sale early Saturday morning were received prematurely. With an announced first printing of 12 million, that would mean about 120 copies. One book was obtained by a reporter for The (Baltimore) Sun and a review ran Wednesday on the newspaper's Web site.

Scholastic on Monday obtained subpoenas ordering two San Francisco Bay Area companies to remove possible copies of the book posted at their Web sites.

Scholastic ordered Photobucket, which provides file-sharing services and has an office in Palo Alto, and Milpitas-based Gaia Online, a social networking site used mostly by teenagers and college students, to remove the material. The company would not say whether the copies were real.

Gaia spokesman Bill Danon said the company gave a two-week suspension to the user who posted the possible copy and removed the material. He did not reveal the user's identity.

Officials at Photobucket refused to comment, but also apparently removed the material.

Despite the strictest security, digital photographs of what looks like the full text of "Deathly Hallows" have been leaked on the Internet. Emerson Spartz, the Web master of the Potter site http://www.mugglenet.com has seen some of the pages and believes they're real.

"It's far too detailed to be an elaborate hoax," he told The Associated Press.

Scholastic has declined to comment on the authenticity of any given spoiler. Spokeswoman Kyle Good says that conflicting editions, all of them believable, have appeared on the Internet.

Hiding the contents of a book, especially when millions have been printed and shipped, has proved nearly impossible over the years. Publishers have tried repeatedly to "embargo" an anticipated work until its scheduled release date, and almost always failed. But early leaks, usually by the media, have not kept such books as Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" or Bill Clinton's "My Life" from blockbuster success.

"I can't think of an example from our publishing list where sales were hurt," says Paul Bogaards, director of publicity at Alfred A. Knopf, which published Clinton's book. "None of the leaks are going to hurt sales of Potter."

As of Wednesday, "Deathly Hallows" remained at No. 1 on the best seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

Source : Yahoo News

Emma Watson amazed by Daniel's Steamy Shots

Harry Potter star Emma Watson was amazed to see steamy shots of co-star Daniel Radcliffe in an American magazine.

Watson was surprised that she realised how handsome Radcliffe is, after looking at the shots.

“I saw that and I was like, 'Hey'... (It's) the first time I've really thought, 'Ooh, wow, actually he's pretty good looking,’” Contactmusic quoted her, as saying.

However, she said that she doesn’t fantasize about the Brit star.

"I know it sounds harsh but... no," she added.

The 17-year-old also revealed that she was hoping that she too would get the chance to drop her nice girl image by shedding her clothes – especially after seeing Radcliffe’s performanc

Harry Potter Grows Older and Darker

Deep into the new movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, our teen wizard (Daniel Radcliffe) finds the strength to face down the dark lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) — and the wisdom to pity him. "You can never know love or friendship," Harry tells the noxious, noseless one. "And I feel sorry for you."

A creature of such magnificent maleficence, who rules less by his own considerable powers than by others' fear of him, feeds on cunning and hatred. And that, Harry believes, should make Voldemort hungry for what he lacks: humanity. He is almost chaste in the purity of his evil, innocent of inner virtue. His genius for mischief leaves no room for the emotions and kindnesses that make Harry both more vulnerable and more formidable than the dark lord knows. That goodness, that love, is what lifts Harry above other heroes of young people's literature; that love, and the amazing detail J.K. Rowling has poured into her imaginary universe, are what attracted readers to the Potter oeuvre. It was love at first sight.

First love is a tumbling passion, an addiction to a substance one didn't know existed. Readers encountering the first Harry Potter books felt something like the glorious enthrallment of first love, the swooning immersion in a strange, seductive new world, without the concomitant misery and an impulse to stroll off the nearest bridge. That's one of the perks of the best popular culture; it offers the ecstasy without the depression.

Another perk: Harrymania didn't become epidemic in the U.S. until The Prisoner of Azkaban, the third in J.K. Rowling's seven-book saga, hit the bookstores. So most fans gleefully consumed nearly half of the total opus in one reading orgy — shot themselves into the canon, so to speak — as they learned the lore, were introduced to the wizarding world and became familiar with its rules. Hogwarts was a secret society, a magical fraternity, that the reader heard about in the first book, joined in the second and had moved into by the third.

And though the books were officially in the 9-to-12 children's section (and banned from the New York Times' main best-seller list), Potterphilia was an affliction that touched adults too. I'm no kid, and I have none that I know of, but in August of 1999 I read all three books aloud to my wife, who stayed up way past bedtime to insist on hearing one more chapter.

An ardor this hot can't be sustained forever, or we'd never get past puberty. I suspect that many Hogwartsolepts, while never losing their affection and fascination for the series, bought and read the later books as a happy habit. The period of delirious courtship gave way to a steady marriage between the storyteller and her listeners. As the story progressed, each volume got longer, heavier, with passages that (one realized with a shock) might have been improved with editing. And Rowling produced her epic at a slower pace. After publishing the first four books in early summer of consecutive years, she took three years to finish the fifth, The Order of the Phoenix (which weighed in at an elephantine 896 pages), with the sixth and seventh emerging after that in two-year intervals. The final episode is due to materialize, if you haven't heard, at the stroke of midnight a week from Saturday.