It would hurt to learn what a doofus I am if readers were not so wonderfully kind in presenting my mistakes in their letters to me. I give you this note from Bill Davis about my Harry Potter’s Bookshelf and Deathly Hallows Lectures as a case in point. He wrote (and I share this with his permission):

John,

I just read “The Deathly Hallow’s Lectures” and “Harry Potter’s Bookshelf”.  I found them to be quite interesting.   However, in both books (and I suspect some of your other Harry Potter books),  there are frequent references to King’s Cross tube station.   You stress the significance of this being an underground location.

I think that you may be confusing the King’s Cross train station and the King’s Cross underground station.  They are right beside each other, but they are separate facilities.  Harry would have traveled from the train station to Hogwarts.  There is no reference to the King’s Cross tube station in any of the seven books (as far as I remember).  Harry travels by tube at least twice (in book 1 and Book 5), but he wasn’t close to King’s Cross tube station based on the descriptions.

I happened to have been in the King’s Cross underground station a few weeks ago, and I don’t recall seeing in cathedral like ceilings.  It looked like a typical tube station (although it is a big station and quite busy).  The tube station has only 8 platforms (numbered 1 through 8).

The adjacent train station does have features that are more consistent with Harry’s description.   It is also the location that he must have traveled through most every year.  King’s Cross train station (currently under renovation) has 12 platforms (platform 0 through platform 11, I believe).   This would may sense with platform 9 and ¾ and the fact that Harry is traveling by a full size train.  (Even though it is a magical train, it makes more sense for it to left from King’s Cross train station for a long journey to the north  than King’s Cross tube station.)

The train station (like most train stations) is at about the same level as the streets outside.  It could not be reasonably described as being underground.  It does have high ceilings (at least in some areas) that might be considered to be cathedral like.

Thanks,

Bill Davis

What’s great is the guy thanks me after doing me the favor of correcting an important oversight (um, ‘point of ignorance’ is probably closer to the fact).

Thank you, Bill Davis! If ever my publishers go to a second edition of the two books you name, I’ll clean up the mess I’ve made of this simple but important distinction.

Gratefully,

John, blushing

[The picture above is of the new concourse at King's Cross Station, whose cathedral like ceilings may have been inspired by Harry's trip to Logos-land in Deathly Hallows.]

In celebration of the release of the first Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie on 19 November, I begin my Deathly Hallows Speaking Tour today. With stops as far west as Moline, Illinois, north as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, east as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and south as Columbia, South Carolina, the next four weeks promise great fun that will literally be all over the map!

I’m excited about this trip because of the number and variety of venues, of course, but also because I’ll be sharing for the first time with a larger audience the mind-blowing discovery that Ms. Rowling, as her name suggests, is a Ring Writer. Not only is her series a seven book cycle conforming to the four traditional markers of Ring Composition that we find in ancient, biblical, medieval, and modern works, but all seven books, to include every one of the 198 chapters and epilogue, are shaped by ring formula.

Below the jump you’ll find a list of the twenty stops I’ll be making in the next four weeks and the several topics I’ll be addressing. I hope to see you at one or more! If you cannot make it, say, because you live well west of the Mississippi, I have put together a Harry Potter as Ring Composition and Ring Cycle special limited edition book for this tour that is available either as a paperback book or pdf file to download. It’s an expanded version of my talk to TGTSNBN earlier this month and it will only be available until the much longer version is published early next year. It’s not as much fun as a talk — but it does have all the diagrams and charts detailing Ms. Rowling’s remarkable ring artistry.

Read on for details about The Deathly Hallows Speaking Tour and a brand new Potter pundits publication!

• Tuesday, 19 October, 9-10 pm; Augustana College, Founders Hall

Harry Potter Chapter Rings, Character Names, and Magic Mirrors:  The Genius Inside the Planning of the Hogwarts Saga

Joanne Rowling has told interviewers for more than a decade that the secret of her success was her intensive “planning” of the series, a “boring answer” she always apologizes for. But what exactly was she planning that took five years to sketch before she began writing the books and six months prior to each novel’s composition? Potter Pundit John Granger, author of Harry Potter Unlocked: Seven Keys for the Serious Reader and editor of Harry Potter Smart Talk, believes she was working on embedding within her story the structures and symbols that would reflect her most profound meaning. Want to learn why Harry’s name as well as all the alliterative names and those with reduplicated letters are what they are? Curious about the Deathly Hallows symbol and what it really tells us about Ms. Rowling’s novels? Interested in why specific events happen in the chapters they do in each book and why there are seven novels? Come hear John Granger reveal at last the genius in Rowling’s planning and how it generated Potter-mania

• Wednesday, 20 October, 7 pm – 8 pm, The University of Chicago (aka ‘Chicagwarts’), Hitchcock Hall (1009 E. 57th Street)
  

Harry Potter Chapter Rings, Character Names, and Magic Mirrors (see above)

• Friday, 22 October, 6:30-10 pm, Emmanuel Community United Methodist Church, N84 W16707 Menomonee Ave., Menomonee Falls, WI 53051; (262) 251-3830. Tickets are available via their website.
  

The Christian Content  and Symbolism of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’

Ms. Rowling told reporters in 2000 that the last book would answer all their questions about her faith – and Deathly Hallows was no disappointment in that regard. John Granger was the first serious reader of the books to argue the stories were Christian in conception and meaning back when some Christians were burning the books. In this popular talk, he explains how the series finale is Ms. Rowling’s story about the difficulty and importance of faith, what we shouldn’t believe, and the transformations right belief make possible. The seventh book delivers on all the foreshadowing and themes of the previous books and John explains this in inspiring fashion.

• Sunday, 24 October, 4 pm, Black Bear Books, Boone, NC
• Monday, 25 October, 10 am, Mayland Community College, Spruce Pine, NC
• Monday, 25 October, 7 pm, Lees-McRae College, Banner Elk, NC
  

Harry Potter Unlocked: Seven Keys for the Serious Reader

Ms. Rowling is a brilliant writer who uses specific tools to craft her meaning and create the effects in her readers that she wants. John Granger, the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars” (TIME), raids Ms. Rowling magic tool chest and shares how she wields the tools of narrative misdirection, ring composition, literary alchemy, the hero’s journey, postmodern themes, genre combination, and traditional symbolism to engage and entrance us well beyond suspended disbelief. Always a hit with Potter fans of all ages, this lecture opens up the mystery of fine writing and Potter-mania without destroying the magic.

Extra bonus: real love Owls at the Lees-McRae event!

• Tuesday, 26 October, 7 pm, University of South Carolina (Columbia), Nursing 125

The Spiritual Dimensions of Fantasy Literature

John Granger, author of books on the Harry Potter and Twilight novels, presents his case that high English fantasy is not just another diversion or escape from reality but a pilgrimage of sorts into reality. Arguing from Coleridge’s natural theology and the traditional four layers of interpreting texts, as well as popular books from the Inkling writers, Joanne Rowling, and Stephenie Meyer, John explains Mircea Eliade’s thesis that fiction in a secular culture serves a mythic or religious function — and that it is the spiritual content and experience Harry Potter, Narnia, and Twilight deliver that make them the publishing phenomena they are.

• Thursday, 28 October, 7 pm, Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, NC, Belk Centrum

Lenoir-Rhyne Visiting Writers Series: An Evening with John Granger

A talk to kick-off Lenoir-Rhyne’s two day ‘Harry Potterfest,’ John Granger will explore the artistry and meaning of the world’s best selling books, to include the remarkable traditional literary elements and Christian meaning.

• Sunday, 31 October, 3 pm, Christiansburg Public Library, Christiansburg, Virginia
  

Literary Trick or Treats: Why We Love the Witches and Vampires in the Hogwarts and Forks Sagas

John Granger, author of books explaining the artistry and meaning of both Harry Potter and Twilight, returns to Christiansburg to share the several literary elements the books have in common as well as their obvious and not-so-obvious differences. John’s talks are fun and accessible but come expecting to have your appreciation of book-magic broadened and deepened before you go Trick or Treating!

• Monday, 1 November, 8 pm, Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia

Bella Swan at Hogwarts: The Important Influence of the Potter Novels and Potter Mania on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga

The stratospheric sales of Mrs. Meyer’s Twilight books caused inevitable comparisons between the adventures of Forks High School students and the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But what influence did the Potter books and the mania around the books and films have in creating the series and fan interest in Twilight? John Granger, the Hogwarts Professor, says the key parallel is in each author’s decisions to mix story types, to throw in a bunch of spiritual meaning (death and resurrection!), and to engage with their fans online and in person. Granger argues Rowling and Meyer are an odd-couple and a match! Don’t miss this fun introduction to literary interpretation at four levels — and why we don’t need to be embarrassed about enjoying and admiring Harry Potter or the Twilight novels.

• Tuesday, 2 November, pm, Church of the Holy Comforter, Vienna, Virginia

Unlocking Potter-Mania: The Christian Content of the World’s Best Selling Books

Ms. Rowling told reporters in 2000 that the last book would answer all their questions about her faith – and Deathly Hallows was no disappointment in that regard; Christianity Today reviewed the finale as “Harry Potter 7 is Matthew 6.” John Granger was the first serious reader of the books to argue the stories were Christian in conception and meaning back when some Christians were burning the books. In the advent of the Deathly Hallows film, he explains at Holy Comforter the signature Christian elements of the series as well as how the series finale is Ms. Rowling’s story about the difficulty and importance of faith, what we shouldn’t believe, and the transformations right belief make possible. The books, far from being the “gateway to the occult,” are a treasury of spiritual meaning which John explains in inspiring fashion.

• Wednesday, 3 November, Holy Cross Orthodox Church, Linthicum, Maryland
  

Twilight, Harry Potter, and Your Child’s Soul: How Reading Shapes the Whole Person

Best-selling books have been the object of Christian criticism for fostering a magical and godless worldview but is this the greater threat and promise of popular novels like Twilight and Harry Potter? John Granger, author of books on both series and dubbed “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars and Professor of Meyerology” by TIME magazine’s Lev Grossman, thinks the controversies, criticisms, and most of the defenses of these paranormal fictions miss the great value and potential danger of imaginative literature. He argues that reading fantasy fiction fosters the formation of the Inner Heart, for good or ill, and the ordering of the soul’s faculties. Come learn why Harry and Bella’s adventures are as popular as they are, how they work their mostly edifying magic, and what to look out for in your children’s reading as red flags and as green lights.

• Monday, 8 November, 7 pm, St. Francis University, JFK Lounge

Harry Potter Unlocked: Seven Literary Keys to the Hogwarts Saga

Harry Potter is the “Shared Text” of the young 21st Century and it has created not only a common story vocabulary for readers everywhere but also an imaginative experience we all have been through individually and together. John Granger, who has lectured on Harry Potter as literature at schools like Yale, Princeton, and the University of Chicago, explains how Harry’s adventures with Ron and Hermione provide the tools serious readers need to open up our understanding of English literature and, more important, of human life itself.

With his intellectually challenging but always fun approach, Granger discusses literary alchemy, story setting and genre, postmodern themes, the hero’s journey, ring composition, Christian symbolism, and narrative misdirection to reveal the mechanics of Ms. Rowling’s literary magic, why her themes and symbols resonate within us, and why knowing these details are so useful in interpreting other books and how we understand ourselves and our world. Ever wonder, really wonder, why you love these books the way you do? Come compare your conclusions to what the “Hogwarts Professor” thinks and learn why he believes the Hogwarts Saga will be a cultural foundation for generations.

• A stop in Aurora, Ohio, to see David and Toni Graf, I hope, and maybe give a talk at ‘The Learned Owl’ book store in Hudson, perhaps the world’s most Harry-friendly book emporium!

• Wednesday, 10 November, 7 pm, Youngstown State University, ‘The Room of Requirement,’ One University Plaza, Youngstown, Ohio, 44555

Harry Potter Chapter Rings, Character Names, and Magic Mirrors:  The Genius Inside the Planning of the Hogwarts Saga

Joanne Rowling has told interviewers for more than a decade that the secret of her success was her intensive “planning” of the series, a “boring answer” she always apologizes for. But what exactly was she planning that took five years to sketch before she began writing the books and six months prior to each novel’s composition? Potter Pundit John Granger, author of Harry Potter Unlocked: Seven Keys for the Serious Reader and editor of Harry Potter Smart Talk, believes she was working on embedding within her story the structures and symbols that would reflect her most profound meaning. Want to learn why Harry’s name as well as all the alliterative names and those with reduplicated letters are what they are? Curious about the Deathly Hallows symbol and what it really tells us about Ms. Rowling’s novels? Interested in why specific events happen in the chapters they do in each book and why there are seven novels? Come hear John Granger reveal at last the genius in Rowling’s planning and how it generated Potter-mania

• Friday, 12 November, Time and venue to be determined, Dayton, Ohio, The Ohio Harry Potter Huddle
  

Harry Potter Chapter Rings, Character Names, and Magic Mirrors: The Genius Inside the Planning of the Hogwarts Saga (see above)

• Monday, 15 November, 6-7:30 pm, Marion Public Library, Columbus Ohio

Literary Alchemy: The Secret Magic-Formula of Harry Potter and Today’s Best Selling Books

Of the literary keys that unlock Harry Potter, the strangest and most fascinating door-opener is Ms. Rowling’s use in her books of medieval alchemy, the sacred science of changing lead into gold. She said in 1998 that alchemy “sets the magical parameters” and “establishes the internal logic of the series” and, sure enough, everything from the titles, character names, and the transformations Harry goes through in each book have alchemical roots. John Granger, the author of Harry Potter’s Bookshelf (Penguin, 2009) and the Potter Pundit whom TIME calls “the Dean of Harry Potter scholars,” explains the tradition of this artistry from Shakespeare to C. S. Lewis along with the three alchemical stages in each of the beloved Potter books and the series as a whole. With the tools John shows readers how to use, you will see what Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games have in common not only with each other but with Shakespearean drama, the Metaphysical Poets, and novels by Charles Dickens and C. S. Lewis. Come discover how an “alchemical wedding,” (Bill and Fleur!) the “Quarreling Couple” of mercury and sulphur (Ron and Hermione!), and the colors black, white, and red (and the deaths of Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, and Fred Weasley) shape and reveal why we love Harry Potter!

• Thursday, 18 November, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  

Harry Potter Unlocked: Seven Literary Keys to the Hogwarts Saga (see above)

Okay, I’m exhausted just looking at that list. There are also dates and talks not yet nailed down at VMI, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, ‘Potterdelphia,’ and LaSalle University. If you live along the path of any of these travels or far off the path and want to schedule a talk at your school, library, church, or bookstore, write to me at john at HogwartsProfessor dot com and we’ll make a date!

Though this tour is called ‘The Deathly Hallows Tour’ because of the incipient release of the next movie (and because my Deathly Hallows Lectures remains the only book long examination of the world’s fastest selling novel, a record I doubt will be broken in our lifetimes), I’ll be selling a brand new book by the Potter Pundits that has just become on Amazon.com. It’s called Harry Potter Smart Talk: Brilliant PotterCast Conversations About J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts Saga and is a collection of the best Pundit riffs on The Leaky Cauldron with six essays by James Thomas, Travis Prinzi, and myself.

“Is it any good?” I brought copies of it to my talk in NYC two weeks ago and one reader who picked it up there wrote at Amazon:

As an academic (doctoral student) working in ancient literature (Ancient Near Eastern, Hebrew Bible), and an avid Potter fan since just before the release of book 5, Order of the Phoenix, I found this book really engaging.

On the eve of the release of the final installment of the series ( Deathly Hallows), my advice to friends online, who were in full blown mania trying to predict the outcome, was the same as some professors give to students before exams … when you have studied till your eyes are bugging out, take a rest and relax: There is only so much analysis you can do, I said, and maybe a better way to pass the time and torture of waiting was to pick your favorite book, the one you find yourself laughing and smiling the most when you read it, and read it just to enjoy the story (personally, I must admit that Book 6, Half Blood Prince, on audio-book with Jim Dale reading the American version, has caused me to miss my exit on the interstate more than once).

That is sort of how the conversations of the Potter Pundits flow. The content is deep, but the conversations are anything but bogged down. They remind me of the fact that I find just as much to identify with in Potter from having been young and excited about rock and roll, as I do from being older and studying the richness of literary traditions.

The formal essays by the individual pundits are also excellent in the same way. They are fascinatingly informative and profoundly probing, but the writing style is lively and anything but dry. … and these guys really know their stuff – not just what they bring from their respective academic fields, but also just about every detail there is to know from the Potter books.

I highly recommend it.

Gotta love that — and I think you’ll love Smart Talk, too! Here’s the product description from the book’s Amazon page:

‘Harry Potter Smart Talk’ is a Greatest Hits Collection from the Potter Pundits. the three literary mavens on the wildly popular PotterCast of The Leaky Cauldron. Four transcripts of Harry Potter fandom’s favorite podcasts along with two talks each from James Thomas, Travis Prinzi, and John Granger make this a reading experience that will delight the casual Hogwarts reader and ‘wow’ even the most serious Potter maniac. From the secret code of Harry Potter names – why all those doubled letters and initials – to the real world Muggles and Seekers of the English Civil War that are the historical backdrop to Harry’s adventures, with sidetrips to discuss Christmas at Hogwarts and the esoteric meaning of Luna Lovegood’s lovable lunancy, ‘Harry Potter Smart Talk’ is a must-have guide to the world’s best selling books by three geeks who love to laugh almost as much as they love a great book. The Perfect Gift for your favorite Potter-phile! As Melissa Anelli, author of ‘Harry, A History,’ wrote in the Foreword to ‘Smart Talk,’ “here is the Ivory Tower in Hagrid’s Hut!”

That’s right — Smart Talk has a Foreward written by Melissa Anelli, author of Harry, A History, whose last name in Italian, appropriately enough, means “Rings.” And, given the round resonance of Ms. Rowling’s name, maybe I should re-cast this tour as the Ring Compositions Revelation.

Nah.

Here is is the Deathly Hallows Tour promotional info on the Hogwarts Professor. Write soon to schedule a date or to let me know what you think of the new books!

My apologies in advance for the scant posting I’ll be doing here in the next month because I will have limited internet access. Professors Hardy and Freeman, however, should be more than good company in my temporary absence.

See you soon!

John, out the door

John Granger has been dubbed “The Dean of Harry Potter Scholars” by Lev Grossman, TIME magazine’s book reviewer, because John has been well ahead of the critical pack in understanding the Hogwarts Saga, because he is the accepted go-to authority on Rowling’s books for national media, and because of his many appearances as Featured Speaker on university campuses and academic conferences.

John has written and edited six books on the artistry and meaning of Harry Potter with four different publishers. His first book, Looking for God in Harry Potter (Tyndale, now How Harry Cast His Spell), argued that Potter-mania was due to the spiritual content and implicitly Christian meaning of the novels’ predominant symbolism. This argument, though contrary to fundamentalist criticism of the books, was confirmed by Ms. Rowling in 2007. He established, too, again over critical derision, in Unlocking Harry Potter (Zossima) and Harry Potter’s Bookshelf (Penguin), that the story scaffolding was Shakespearean “literary alchemy,” an argument also supported by the author in interviews after John’s work. His essay collections and guides are used in classrooms from Princeton and Yale to Biola and Pepperdine because of his common sense explanation that Rowling’s books sell because they are written well and within the best and most successful traditions of English literature.

In addition to his talks with TIME’s Lev Grossman, John has been interviewed as the Harry Potter ‘subject matter expert by Tomoko Rich of The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Jeffrey Trachtenberg at The Wall Street Journal, as well as more than one hundred radio talk shows and television programs. His interviews on national television include appearances on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, MSNBC’s morning news program hosted by Alex Witt, and the A&E special, ‘The Hidden Secrets of Harry Potter,’ that is now a DVD extra in Warner Brothers’ packaging of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In addition to daily blogging at HogwartsProfessor.com, John also podCasts regularly on Harry Potter Fandom’s premiere website’s ‘PotterCast’ as a Potter Pundit.

John has been a Keynote or Featured Speaker at Nimbus 2003, Lumos 2006, Prophecy 2007, Azkatraz 2009, Infinitus 20010, LeakyCon, Sonorus, Summer School in Forks, Convention Alley 2008, Past Watchful Dragons, Climacus Orthodox Culture Conference, and C. S. Lewis and the Inklings. A graduate of the University of Chicago, chosen in a recent poll as the school campus most like Hogwarts, he has given talks at Princeton, Yale, Penn, Cornell, Augustana, Washington and Lee, Baylor, Biola, LaSalle, and Pepperdine, as well as at secondary schools, libraries, and bookstores across the country.

John is on a month long speaking tour in the run-up to the first Deathly Hallows movie release in November because he is the author of the only book devoted to Deathly Hallows, namely, The Deathly Hallows Lectures (Zossima). In it, John explains the Christian symbolism, the alchemical scaffolding, the reason there are so many floating “eyes” in the story, as well as the passage that Ms. Rowling says is “the key” to the entire series, Harry’s interview with dead Dumbledore at King’s Cross.’ Known by Harry Potter fans and serious readers as “The Hogwarts Professor,” John is a fun, accessible speaker with a decades experience explaining the literary magic in Harry’s adventures that has made them the best-selling books in publishing history!

I am just back from a wonderful speaking tour during which I gave talks at a C. S. Lewis Conference in Oklahoma City, an Anglican church outside St. Louis, a Community Center in Sikeston, Missouri, and at Augustana College. The topics ranged from Lewis’ Space Trilogy and its alchemical relevance in understanding Michael Ward’s astrological Planet Narnia thesis to ‘Why We Love or Despise Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight Books’ with a few stops to unlock Harry Potter and unpack his Christian content. I had a lot of fun, sold a few books, and made a bunch of friends and reconnected with others. Many, many thanks to Messrs Aaron and Steven Taylor in Oklahoma City, Eighth Day Books’ Joshua, Fr. Matthew Mayes and Dr. and Mrs. David Stroud in Missouri (and Sara!), and Pastor Richard Priggie, English Education Elly, and Dental  Stephanie at Augustana for making the trip as enjoyable and edifying as it was for me.

I spoke with Pastor Priggie’s ‘Postmodernism and Harry Potter’ class on Wednesday and then again that night over pizza about the last chapters and epilogue of Deathly Hallows. The class I spoke with last year showed up for the evening discussion (or was it the pizza?) and the discussion largely turned on an observation by Amanda Rodriguez of a story point that had escaped me entirely. She noted that the last three chapters of Deathly Hallows begin with Harry lying face down.

Perhaps you noticed that and have discussed it at length at other Potter fan sites. Forgive me if you caught that as Amanda did and if you think its meaning is straight forward or has been beaten to death. I certainly didn’t make this catch until Miss Rodriguez brought it to my attention and am unaware of discussion of the point because I don’t surf even the better Potter sites (Hog’s Head excepted, of course). And, as comprehensive as The Deathly Hallows Lectures is, this isn’t mentioned in that valuable resource. I think it is worth discussing what this face-first posture means in itself, in relation to the last three chapters, and how they work together.Harry is lying face down at the opening of Chapter 34, as he wakes up in Dumbledore’s office post Pensieve revelations, at the opening of Chapter 35, when he wakes up naked in the palace he dubs “King’s Cross,” and at the opening of Chapter 36 when he comes back to life but plays dead in the Forbidden Forest. I think three things can be said with some certainty about these prostrations but welcome your pushback (and alternative suggestions).

First, the repetition is not accidental or arbitrary but meaningful. Harry’s waking up in the Forest as he did in the Palace called ‘King’s Cross’ that is just continuity. Harry waking up face down in the office and then after being blasted is not because (a) it isn’t a given in the books that characters return from Pensieve adventures on their faces and (b) an AK green blast to the chest can result in a face-plant but as often causes the blastee to fly or move backwards. The combination and repetition points strongly to meaningful intent on the author’s point. These are the key chapters of the series Ms. Rowling says drive the action of the previous six books. Their openings are not a matter of chance.

Second, the point is that Harry’s posture, physical, mental, and even spiritual is continuous through these chapters. The repetition tells us, whatever the intended meaning of the prostrate Harry is, it is highlighted at the beginning of the chapter he walks to his death, the one in which speaks to his mentor in the Kingdom of Heaven, and then again when he returns to the Shadowlands to call the Dark Lord to repentance (“feel some remorse”) as a marker that he is in the same ‘position’ or ‘standing’ in each.

Third and last, I think the meaning is that traditionally given to men lying face down. The human being is designed for standing up right and for forward motion. As persons, then, we are essentially vertical and we assign correspondingly qualitative meaning, pejorative or positive, to words meaning ‘up right’ and ‘bent’ or ‘prostrate.’ Our traditions, political and religious, reflect these meanings in how we understand the face-down human being. It is unmistakeably and nigh on universally the position of “the contrite and broken spirit” that “God will not despise” (LXX, Psalm 50). A person on his or her face has surrendered their persona or ego identity in repentance or in petition or in adorational worship of that which is greater, be it to a person in fealty or to God as devotional prayer.

This is Harry’s mental and spiritual bearing, reflected in his physical prostration, through The Forbidden Forest, King’s Cross, and The Flaw in the Plan. Having learned that Snape — a man whom he despised and had sworn he would kill — had loved his mother, blamed himself for her death, and sworn to keep Harry alive as loving penance and in her memory, Harry is shattered. The news that his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, had planned that Harry learn only at the last minute that he must offer himself as a sacrifice to Lord Voldemort because of the Scar Horcrux couldn’t have helped. Harry returns in spirit to the grave he dug for himself on Easter morning for the house-elf who died as savior and loving sacrifice for his friends and master. And winds up prostrate and on his face.

And it is in this sacrificial and edifying humility that Harry is at last in fact the “eye” reflected in the mirror fragment in which he had always expected to see his “I.” He achieves at last in this posture his spiritual identity with love, conscience, and heart that he has represented allegorically and alchemically throughout the books. Without it, he cannot walk the walk into the Forest and die for love of his friends, he cannot know all he knows in Dumbledore’s Palace inside his head resembling King’s Cross, and he cannot be sure the Christ-symbol wand cores will behave as they must in his final encounter with Lord Voldemort.

The repetition, continuity, and meaning of Harry “lying face down” is a great touch I missed and I am grateful to Augustana’s Amanda Rodriguez for the catch. I look forward to your comments and correction.

Where have I been over the holidays? Mostly on Prince Edward Island with Anne of Green Gables. I’m working on a new book, tentatively titled Bella Swan’s Bookshelf (creative, I know) about the literary influences playing on the Twilight series and that requires a lot of reading time with Lucy Maud Montgomery’s green and grey-eyed red-head.

We’ve discussed the possible influence of Anne on the Hogwarts Saga before (see Anne Shirley vs. Harry Potter from the archives of the Anne Lexicon site and my response here if you missed that). I want to re-visit the topic for three reasons:

In order of least to most important:

(1) I have been corresponding this past week with an Anne expert who will go unnamed until she chooses to join this conversation. S/he assures me that Ms. Rowling herself has confirmed that she is an Anne fan and that Lucy Maud Montgomery (hereafter ‘LMM’) was an influence. A quick search at Accio-quotes does not bring up anything more than an aside about Anne but the sources my expert-friend noted seem more than credible. The critical Anne community in Canada accepts the Anne-Harry link as a given.

(2) Reading LMM biographical pieces, it’s hard to miss the Rowling-Montgomery parallels: successful author of Bildungsroman-orphan novels, with something of a Cinderella story, whose work was neglected (despised?) by critics, an unhappy marriage, wish-fulfillment qualities in the writing, and a life struggling with depression. Ms. Rowling got the help and medication she needed to deal with this last; LMM, tragically, did not, through the ‘failing’ of being born too soon, alas.

(3) If you read the Anne novels, I think you have to be struck by the number of Tennyson, Browning, and Wordsworth allusions and quotations. As striking are the near constant descriptions, “florid” literally and figuratively, of the natural beauty of PEI and Avonlea. My Anne expert and correspondent confirms that LMM, like Anne Shirley, was a close reader of the Victorian Romantics and John Ruskin.

So what?

I think it is more than plausible that these books are as popular as they are today — and there is an international Anne fandom, especially in Japan — because of their allegorical and anagogical meanings. The anagogical meaning is in the scaffolding of beauty, the succession of natural landscape paintings LMM draws for the reader, the character of which mind-pictures work subliminally (as do our real world surroundings, eh?) to transform our interior landscape in edifying fashion.

That’s quite the jump from this sort of Modern Painters anagogical artistry to Rowling’s literary alchemy — just as there is a considerable chasm separating the prose heights and comic touches of both writers — but I don’t think that it is here that we see the influence of Anne on Harry. That is in the allegorical meaning they share.

Harry, as I have explained in The Deathly Hallows Lectures, is the allegorical ‘heart’ or ‘spirit,’ as a stand-alone character and subject of the alchemical purification and theosis of the series as well as a member of the series’ soul triptych, body-mind-spirit, Ron-Hermione-Harry. Potter-mania is largely a consequence of reader engagement with Harry and experiencing his spiritual chrysalis imaginatively.

Any reader of LMM’s Anne novels knows that Anne begs her adopted family to call her “Cordelia” at their first meeting, and, unlike the several names she calls herself in the first book (to include a Coleridge Christabel reference in ‘Geraldine’), this name is recalled several times in the follow-on books. Diane Barry, for example, names her first daughter “Little Anne Cordelia” to honor her best friend to the mystification of her family.

Why is “Cordelia” an important marker? I think there is a reason more obvious and more meaningful than the tragic King Lear echoes, which are something of a stretch for the later Anne Shirley to make (or for the child Anne to know!) even given Cordelia’s virtues or the original Welsh meaning (“jewel of the sea”), both of which possibilities are cited in The Annotated Anne of Green Gables as the most likely connections. “Cordelia” is from the Latin for “warm-hearted” and this is the core, if you will, of the Anne books’ allegorical meaning: Anne Shirley is the “heart,” very much as Harry Potter is.

Three quick points in this regard:

(1) In Coleridgean anthropology, the Primary Imagination is the uncreated Logos in the human person and the Secondary Imagination is the same faculty engaged in art. (See Chapter five of The Deathly Hallows Lectures for more on this.) This noetic quality is the “heart” of Christian scripture and Patristic writing, whence Coleridge’s natural theology, and of imaginative literature, especially poetry and fantasy post-Coleridge. Anne Shirley is a creature of “imagination” whose vision recreates PEI and its rather mundane existence into an endless series of visions bordering on the supernatural, which seems to infuse her world. Her life-long hope is only for a “greater scope of imagination.”

(2) There is a brotherhood of people in the Anne books, her “kindred spirits” and the “house of Joseph” from Anne’s House of Dreams, who recognize each other, usually by the light shining in their eyes and their distinctively sacramental or un-empirical way of seeing things. They are as distinct from the non-kindred and as “magical” a group as Witches and Wizards in Rowling’s sub-creation are from her Muggles. This quality of light in the eyes is another pointer to Coleridgean and Romantic cardiac intelligence and logos (cf., John 1:9). Anne Shirley’s enlightened crew are another Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

(3) There is a borderline disdain for religious conformity in the Anne books, which, while never crossing over into impiety or heresy, is nonetheless always a note contrary to hollow devotion or hypocritical faith-without-living-works. The real faith of the books isn’t the Methodism or Presbyterianism LMM gently mocks as being little better than Grips or Tory political parties in their partisan differences but the vibrant faith evident in Anne’s love and her imagination. This is the logos-Christ within her heart that shines through her and transforms her world. The references to books like Drummond’s Natural Law in the Supernatural World and LMM’s constant stream of Romantic poet and scripture citations as well as the story transformations centering on hearts opening highlight this meaning repeatedly.

Anne of Green Gables and the follow-on books, then, like Harry Potter, are carrying a boatload of meaning, allegorical and anagogical, via the Romantic tradition’s understanding of imagination as the spiritual heart of the human person. I offer for your consideration the thesis which I think obvious, namely, that it is just these levels of meaning and artistry which account for the longevity of fascination with and the power and universal appeal of LMM’s Anne Shirley adventures.

Your comments and corrections are coveted as always.

Harry Potter’s Bookshelf has been out for a week now and there are 8 reviews up on its Amazon.com page. They are all five star recommendations and all are very generous in their praise. Here are four, just in case you’re still on the fence about buying a copy:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most accessible, wide-ranging, and convincing trip yet inside Potter
By Stephen Schumacher (REAL NAME)

John Granger was a trailblazer, sniffing out the (not so) hidden Christian and alchemical roots of Rowling’s work back when just the first few novels had been published and initial critical discourse was often shallow or misguided (or verged on “Burn the witch!”). John’s early prognostications sometimes seemed a stretch back then, but time and further Potter volumes have largely proved them out.

The new “Harry Potter’s Bookshelf” updates and confirms John’s earlier analysis, but widens the field to shows Potter’s strong connections to what seems like practically all English literature! Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Bronte, E. Nesbit, Dracula, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Gulliver’s Travels, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Secret Garden, Lord Peter Wimsey, The Brothers Karamazov, … the hits just keep on coming. (And not just big names – the “Bookshelf” includes surprises like the obscure “The Little White Horse”, which Rowling described as her childhood favorite and most direct influence on her Harry Potter series.)

The “Bookshelf” is truly jam-packed with good stuff, but it’s fun and fast-paced to read – a whirlwind tour rather than a pedantic plod. I don’t think John Granger will have too many doubters this time around: the connections he draws are simply too direct, well-documented, and convincing. His literary targets are hit dead-on – then resurrected within the Potter corpus, drawing readers in both directions.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Books That Stand Behind Harry
By Elisabeth

In Harry Potter’s Bookshelf, John Granger provides an insightful tour through the literary influences that helped to shape the Harry Potter books. He looks at ten literary genres with representative books and authors that he believes were part of the rich mental “compost” from which Harry Potter grew.

But this book does much more than pay respects to Rowling’s excellent artistry in “rowling” together various genres, themes and ideas. It teaches us to think about what it means to be good readers, of Harry Potter and of countless other great books, and what it means to let our experience as readers change us. In his forthright, non-jargony writing style, Granger provides HP enthusiasts with teaching on symbolist literature and how it can and should be profitably read on four levels: the surface, moral, allegorical, and anagogical levels. He explains how this kind of reading, which used to be commonplace, is rarely now understood. And he looks at the Harry Potter books, in light of the great books that came before them, on all four of these levels.

If you’ve never deeply considered Harry Potter’s literary family tree, which includes Dickens, Austen, Bronte, Stoker, Shakespeare, Swift, Chaucer, Goudge and Lewis, you will find much literary food for thought in this excellent guidebook. If I had to choose favorites, the chapters on Gothic elements in Harry Potter (Snape as Heathcliff and Harry as gothic “hero/ine”) and on the alchemical scaffolding of the HP books are especially golden, but there is much to mine in every single chapter as we consider the amazing artistry of Rowling the postmodern symbolist.

I have no doubt that teachers wanting to mine the literary riches of Harry Potter with their students will be especially delighted with this book. Readers already familiar with Granger’s work will find these ten chapters an excellent distillation of some of his most important teaching on narrative voice, postmodern literary characteristics, the hero’s journey, literary alchemy and more. If these themes and Granger’s work are new to you, I encourage you to step from the chapters you find fascinating here into some of his earlier books, especially “How Harry Cast His Spell,” and “The Deathly Hallows Lectures.”

5.0 out of 5 stars Mentally – yours, mine, and ours!
By David W. Stroud (REAL NAME)

I have just completed John Granger’s newest tome on Harry Potter. It is a superb linkage of English literary tradition and the master ideas incorporated into JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I confess to being a huge fan of Harry Potter; I’m in the midst of my ninth re-rereading of the series. Granger’s previous works have been on my reading list inter libra potteris. This one is another corker!!! My re-readings have been enhanced in a major way after each of Granger’s prior books. His insights and explanations have enabled me to delve deeper into the text and its referents as well as my responses.

I had doubted that there was much to be added, quite frankly. I was wrong. HARRY POTTER’S BOOKSHELF is an outstanding addition to Mr. Granger’s prior books. I particularly enjoyed the section on Gothic elements in literature and further appreciated not only Rowling’s work but the works of Charles Williams, CS Lewis, and JRR Tolkien as well. I gained further insight into one of Rowling’s favorite books by Goudge also.

The literary skeletons of Shakespeare and other English Greats laid bare in the discussion of alchemy are worthy subjects of admiration and dissection alone, but coupled with the usage by Rowling in the HP series, are not mere fossils unearthed by careless diggers, but living ancestors whose heritage is made visible! This is not something discussed in my long ago college literature classes but it is an explanatory message of great power to aid the enjoyment of all literature.

I would like to enlighten you on my enlightenment in each of the 10 genres under discussion in this excellent work! But that would be far too long a review. I encourage you most heartily to purchase this book and open your mind to the glorious literature that anticipates and informs Harry Potter. The gifts John Granger makes available are just waiting your reception and opening of them to further your enjoyment of all your reading.

“Are-you-MENTAL?” is Ron’s question to Harry on more than one occasion, but with Granger’s insights you will be: for Rowling and Harry, Shakespeare and many of his plays, Tolkien and Middle Earth, even Dante and the Divine Comedy. Get Granger. Get mental. You’ll love it!

5.0 out of 5 stars The book about Harry Potter you’ve been waiting for
By Christina Semmens (REAL NAME)

This is the book about Harry Potter that you’ve been waiting for. John Granger spectacularly presents all of the reasons for why the Harry Potter series have not only been so popular, but why readers will come back time and again to reread the series. Mr. Granger does this by providing the reader the fundamental keys to understanding Ms. Rowling’s series. These keys assist a reader in discerning the four levels of meaning contained in the Harry Potter series, but also will assist a reader in appreciating all great English literature.

A must have book for any Harry Potter fan who wants to know the WHY behind how Ms. Rowling was able to entice millions of reader down the rabbit hole into the magical world of Hogwarts, and then keeps you in this magical “wonderland” throughout the Potter series.

Today at lunch I was talking with my family about the talks I’ll be giving at Summer School in Forks: A Twilight Symposium (Register today, if you haven’t already!). The first one will be Bella Swan at Hogwarts: The Important Influence of the Potter Novels and Potter Mania on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. I’ll be discussing the similarities and differences in how Mrs. Meyer and Rowling use story voice to win reader buy-in and identification, apply Gothic touches for a ‘fallen world’ backdrop, build a school setting, blend genres, foster a ‘shipping controversy, push the pervasive message that choice is the life-defining value, and develop a theme of hidden magic in which supernatural reality is just out of sight.

At lunch, though, what I talked about was eyeballs, because both these authors hang much of their meaning on their use of eyeballs in an exploration of ‘vision.’ [If you want to read about this as it applies to the meaning of Harry Potter, see chapter 5 of my The Deathly Hallows Lectures, 'The Seeing Eye.'] My children have heard the Deathly Hallows eyeball lecture enough times that they can verbally reel off the five eyeballs in the series finale without straining and they were curious to hear about the Twilight eyes. I made an aside to my eight year old, Zossima, about Harry being a story symbol for spiritual vision, hence his ability to see but not be seen under the Invisibility Cloak. The Z-Man responded, “Just like in the Flying Car in Chamber of Secrets.”

All of us said “What do you mean?” because we didn’t remember a ‘Harry as Eyeballs’ scene in Chamber of Secrets. But there is one. He ran to the bookshelf, pulled down Chamber, and showed it to me.

Ron pressed a tiny silver button on the dashboard. The car around them vanished — and so did they. Harry could feel the seat vibrating beneath him, hear the engine, feel his hands on his knees and his glasses on his nose; but for all he could see, he had become a pair of eyeballs, floating a few feet above the ground in a dingy street full of parked cars. (Chamber, Chapter 5)

Now, I knew that Deathly Hallows was not the first place Ms. Rowling explored ideas of vision, understanding, and reality via eye imagery. Order of the Phoenix, for example, largely turns on ideas of Occlumency, Legilimency, and eye contact. I haven’t gone through the first six books, though, to run down the more interesting pointers she puts in text to the idea of Harry as divine sight or ‘eye of the heart.’

After Zossima’s find, I guess I should. He has been enlisted in the effort and is now combing the books for every reference to Harry’s and Dumbledore’s eyes.

Can you think of any eyeball occurrences that are perumbrations of the Hallows use? For example, does at least one character in every single book make the “you have Lily’s eyes” comment? Hagrid does on meeting him in Stone, Lupin makes the observation in his office in Prisoner, and drunk Slughorn notes the resemblance in Hagrid’s hut in Prince; can you think of the others? Any more floating eyeball references for Harry?

Mirrors are a big part of fantasy literature in the English tradition. It starts in a big way with the Alice classics by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), an Oxford Platonist, Anglican clergyman, and mathematician, when he sends his heroine Through the Looking Glass and it echos through Goudge’s work (as we saw yesterday), Tolkien’s Mirror of Galadriel and Frodo’s Light which is essentially a phial of water taken from the pool-mirror, up to the Godfather mirror fragment that plays such a large part in Deathly Hallows.

The tradition of mirrors in fantasy fiction and its origin in the natural theology and logos epistemology of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is discussed at length in The Deathly Hallows Lectures, chapter 5, ‘The Seeing Eye,’ so I won’t beat that to death again here. What I want to share today is what I think may be the first and what is certainly the most important pre-Coleridge use of a mirror that reflects the ‘I’ that is, as Lewis says, “a sacred name.”

It’s from Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 2, Section 4, the Delectable Mountains, a passage brought to my attention by James Devine, a dear friend of mine I met in Marine Corps boot camp, believe it or not.

To set the scene in Pilgrim’s Progress, at the passage we’re about to jump into, we’re in the second part of the story during which Christian’s family makes the journey he made solo in the first part. Mercy, Matthew, and Christiana are traversing the Delectable Mountains after escaping the Giants of Despair. Mercy asks for a detour to see “the hole in the hill,” a glimpse of hell, and then, after entering the Shepherd’s Palace (the Shephers defeated the Giants), she discovers a Mirror. Unbelievably, she asks if she can buy it from the Shepherds. Here is the Bunyan passage:

Then said Mercy, the wife of Matthew, to Christiana her mother, Mother, I would, if it might be, see the hole in the hill, or that commonly called the By-way to hell. So her mother brake her mind to the shepherds. Then they went to the door; it was on the side of an hill; and they opened it, and bid Mercy hearken a while. So she hearkened, and heard one saying, “Cursed be my father for holding of my feet back from the way of peace and life.” Another said, “Oh that I had been torn in pieces before I had, to save my life, lost my soul!” And another said, “If I were to live again, how would I deny myself, rather than to come to this place!” Then there was as if the very earth groaned and quaked under the feet of this young woman for fear; so she looked white, and came trembling away, saying, “Blessed be he and she that is delivered from this place!”

They also gave to the other young women such things as they desired, and to their husbands great commendations, for that they had joined with Mr. Great-Heart in the slaying of Giant Despair, and the demolishing of Doubting Castle.

Now to unwrap the allegory:

Note that she looks into the Hole-In-the-Side-of-the-Hill, the By-way to Hell, immediately before the mirror episode. She opens the doors and hears souls in hell lamenting choices they made that sent them there. On the surface, it is a morality play type allegory: repent before it is too late! As preface to the Mirror reflecting the ‘Prince of Pilgrims,’ it is a little more. Mercy looks into a cave (think Plato) or place of darkness. She sees no light (John 1:9). She comes to the home of the Shepherds named Knowledge (gnosis), Watchfulness (nepsis), Experience (pieros), and Sincere, looks in the Dining Room (!) mirror, and sees Christ as her reflection, the Light of the World, because she has “a mind (nous) to see him.”

The scripture references are St. Paul’s pointers to the idea of a mirror, in which subject and object are dissolved and, in which, “I shall know even as also I am known;” note that the word for “know” here is epigignosko, ‘to recognize’ or, literally, ‘have gnosis (spiritual knowledge) upon.’ Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection and his equating all knowledge with “the coincidence of subject and object” is not anything that St. Paul or Bunyan would have struggled with — and we see how Lewis’ ‘Seeing Eye’ picked it up in MacDonald, Barfield, even Blyton, Hodgson Burnet, and Goudge, as well as in Coleridge.

This idea of recognizing the reflection of the divine aspect or logos within us as represented by a mirror in which we can see Christ, the incarnate Logos, is important in Deathly Hallows because Harry sees the ‘eye’ in the Godfather mirror fragment where his ‘I’ should be. Harry, as spirit in the body-mind-spirit triptychs of Ron-Hermione-Harry as well as Voldemort-Dumbledore-Harry, is the story symbol of the logos aspect within us, the creative principle we experience as intelligence and knowledge because we only know anything through its recognition of its reflection in the inner principles or logoi in every created thing. Like Christiana, Harry sees in the magic mirror he has been given his sacred self and real nature, the eye/I of the Invisibility Cloak that, while not being seen, sees all because it is “continuous with,” as Lewis puts it, “the unity of existence,” the fabric of reality.

For more on the mirror in Deathly Hallows, Harry as spirit and eye, and the meaning of his trip to King’s Cross and the conversation there Ms. Rowling says is “the key” to the series she “waited 17 years to write,” see The Deathly Hallows Lectures. For more on Ms. Rowling’s use of allegory, especially the Platonic, Bunyan, and Swiftian echoes in her ‘Hagrid’s Tale’ from Phoenix, pre-order a copy of Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures. It’s all in there.

Your thoughts, comments, and correction are, as always, coveted. What mirrors in fantasy fiction conform to the Bunyan-Coleridge tradition taken from Christian scripture and hermetic natural theology? Which depart from it? We know this is why vampires have no reflection in a mirror. Are there are such conventions in gothic fiction? Lemmeno!

Tyndale sent me a link this morning to a thoughtful and flattering online review of How Harry Cast His Spell that I recommend to you. The story of the woman’s experience with a Harry Hater and how both she and the woman came to fresh experiences of the novels after looking at them in a different light is a good one.

I’m curious, too, of what you think of this paragraph in the review:

One argument Granger makes would cause a bit of discomfort for any writer, I believe. He admits he has not met Rowling or discussed her views of her work with her. But he challenges the assumption “that only authors understand their books, and everyone else who interprets their fiction is just guessing.” Rowling, he states, “certainly does not have a monopoly on interpreting her books.” That seems to take things a bit far.

I don’t find that a controversial argument but it seems to have struck her as absurd. Is it a common place that only authors know what their books really mean? Or just this woman’s belief?

And there have been three more five star reviews on The Deathly Hallows Lectures‘ Amazon page. Along with Travis Prinzi’s Harry Potter and Imagination, DHL makes a wonderful gift! Thank you for the kind reviews and for supporting your favorite Potter pundits with book purchases.

One in the US, another in the UK. I hope, if you are a Deathly Hallows Lectures reader, that you, too, will write and post your thoughts at the book’s Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com pages.

Thank you, David Stroud and Jeremy Manson, for your kind reviews!

5.0 out of 5 stars FINALS Coming Up? This one’s for you!, November 10, 2008
By David W. Stroud – a reader” (Sikeston, MO USA)

I have now read Mr. Granger’s book twice. The first time I read it in 2 days and marvelled at the material he had elucidated. I let it digest for about a week. Then I went back with my highlighter in hand and read it slowly and methodically, underlining points that struck me. If you flip the pages now like the old Cracker Jack cartoon books, it looks like a firestorm! I am not being extravagant when I note that nearly every page has highlighted sentences and phrases. Some pages appear to have been written on highlight-colored paper.

Professor Granger’s observations and comments and literary tie-ins are well worth your time to read, even if you are a Lit Prof in academia. For the average reader with a wide background, this book of essays is an education in advancing appreciation of literature. For the Harry Potter afficianado, there is much here to explain the recurring delight and insights that engender multiple readings of the texts.

The challenges to deeper enjoyment provided by the references are an education in literary appreciation and will hone enjoyment in the Potter series and other reading materials for years to come. Professor Granger’s appreciation of Rowling’s depth and breadth was able to illuminate the areas which academia never dared tread prior to completion of the series. Now that the series is complete, he continues to mine the depths and produce jewels worth every cent of your investment and every moment given to reading this delightful book. The chapter on eye symbolism and I and mirrors alone is worth the entire price. But there is much more here. I unreservedly recommend this book to your reading and library for future reference. *****

5.0 out of 5 stars The All Seeing “I”, 10 Nov 2008
By Jeremy Manson “JayEm1504″ (UK)

Do you suspect there is more to the Harry Potter books than meets the eye?

If so then The Deathly Hallows Lectures (and John Granger’s ‘How Harry Cast his Spell’) may well be what you are looking for.

Professor Granger’s books are a great way to explore just why this saga is so compelling. Literary analysis ought not to be this much fun!

Exciting discoveries await those who just look a little deeper. Find out what happens when you approach the HP text ‘Diagon-alley’!

In a Scriptorium ‘Middlebrow’ podCast free-for-all, Profs Paul Spears and John Mark Reynolds of Biola University (THI) argue with the Hogwarts Professor about the virtues and the failings of Joanne Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. There aren’t many slow spots in this exchange and no filler. Lively exchange of blows, all Marquess of Queensbury, of course.

Please score this two-on-one pugilist contest on the subject of Harry’s worthiness to be considered “great” on your fight cards at home. Be sure to notice the shout out to the All Pros at the start and my mentioning “Felicity and others” who corrected me about the Fidelius Charm.

I look forward to reading your scoring of the bout, and, yes, win, lose, or draw, I want a rematch.

For more on the depths of Harry Potter, purchase and read The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains Harry Potter Last Adventure — and let me know what you think.

For the first Middlebrow interview and podCast at Torrey Honors Institute, on ‘What Constitutes Harry Potter Canon?,’ click on that link and turn your ears on.