As I wrote at HogwartsProfessor last week, Rita Cipriano, a reporter from the Portuguese online newspaper Observador, sent me questions for an article she was writing about the Harry Potter phenomenon today, eighteen years after the publication of Philosopher’s Stone. Our exchange was delightful, but, as I explained to her, I had to wonder if I weren’t being foolish in expecting fair treatment from a journalist named ‘Rita.’

Well, the results are in. This is not a reporter from the Skeeter School of Quick Quotes Quills. You can read the story, ‘A geração Harry Potter nasceu há 18 anos. A magia não morre‘ online here.

The paragraphs in which I am quoted:

Para John Granger, investigador norte-americano que dedicou os últimos 12 anos a estudar o fenómeno de Harry Potter, apottermania tem apenas uma explicação — a “mestria e significado” dos livros de J.K. Rowling. E nada mais do que isso.

“Vamos apenas dizer que Rowling conseguiu escrever um livro que é simultaneamente um romance de escola, um drama alquímico, um romance gótico, um bilungsroman [um romance de formação] órfão e um ótimo exemplo da melhor fantasia inglesa”, dentro do género de As Crónicas de Nárnia, de C.S. Lewis, e das obras de J.R.R. Tolkien”, explicou o autor ao Observador. “É uma grande façanha!”

Para explicar o fenómeno, Granger desenvolveu aquilo a que chama a “Tese Eliade”. Na obra O Sagrado e o Profano, Mircea Eliade defende que as histórias têm uma função religiosa ou mítica na cultura secular. Ou seja, “quando o divino é atirado para a periferia da praça pública”, o homem experiencia o transcendental através da imaginação.

Para Granger, isto significa que as “histórias que oferecem uma experiência mais profunda, muitas vezes com um conteúdo espiritual implícito, significado e mestria”, são aquelas de que gostamos mais. “Os romances de Rowling são isso tudo. Em resumo, ela dá aos leitores aquilo que eles querem.”

Para além disso, o investigador acredita que o sucesso alcançado por J.K. Rowling fez com que a literatura de fantasia se tornasse num “género mais respeitável para todas as editoras e para a maioria dos autores”. “Iria mais longe e diria que Harry Potter mudou as expectativas de leitura de seis gerações. Estamos a viver a era de Joanne Rowling em termos de história, quer gostem disso ou não.”

“Estas histórias mudaram as expectativas de leitura de várias gerações. Ignorá-las é perder um dos eventos que moldaram o nosso período histórico.”
John Granger, autor de “How Harry Cast His Spell”

Run that through the Google translator for Portuguese and we get:

For John Granger, an American researcher who has dedicated the last 12 years to studying the phenomenon of Harry Potter, Pottermania has only one explanation – the “artistry and meaning” of J. K. Rowling’s books. And nothing more than that.

“Let’s just say that Rowling could write a book that is both a school boy novel, an alchemical drama, a gothic romance, a bildungsroman with an orphan, and a great example of the best English fantasy” within the genre of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S.  Lewis, and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien,” explained the author to the Observer. “It’s quite a feat!”

To explain the phenomenon, Granger has developed what is called the “Eliade Thesis.” In his book The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade argues that stories have a religious function or mythical in secular culture, i.e., “when the divine is thrown to the periphery of the public square,” men will seek transcendental experience through their imagination.

To Granger, Eliade’s thesis means that the “stories that offer a deeper experience, often with an implicit spiritual content, meaning and artistry, “are those that we like more.” Rowling’s novels are all that. “In short, she gives readers what they want.”

In addition, the investigator believes that the success achieved by JK Rowling made fantasy literature become a “more respectable genre to all publishers and for most authors.” “I would go further and say that Harry Potter has changed the expectations of six reading generations. We are living in the era of Joanne Rowling in terms of history, whether we like it or not. “

“These stories have changed the expectations of several reading generations. To ignore them is to lose one of the events that have shaped our historical period.”
John Granger, author of “How Harry Cast His Spell

I haven’t checked this against the answers I sent her, but, just reading the instant translation from the cloud, it’s clear she was very faithful in her turning my English responses into Portuguese sense. [Sigh of relief]

If Joanne Rowling modeled her Rita Skeeter character after a journalist in Portugal, where she lived while plotting and planning the series, her model wasn’t Rita Cipriano. I think we can accept this as negative evidence that, as I’ve argued since my first book, this name is to be read as ‘Read-a ‘Squito,’ which is to say,  The Presence is likening reporters to mosquitos (ahem: blood-sucking, disease-carrying parasites) and other disgusting bugs. Her opinion has if anything hardened in the treatment given the Fourth Estate in the Cormoran Strike novels.

Thank you, Rita Cipriano, for the thoughtful questions and for translating my answers as faithfully as you have in this article!