I am writing the Dorothy Sayers & Charles Dickens chapter of Harry Meets Hamlet and Scrooge: The Literary Companion to Harry Potter (Penguin, 2009) and I thought I could share here something I found that some of you may find interesting. As you know, Ms. Rowling mentioned Dorothy Sayers in the Spartz/Annelli interview in 2005:

There’s a theory — this applies to detective novels, and then Harry, which is not really a detective novel, but it feels like one sometimes — that you should not have romantic intrigue in a detective book. Dorothy L. Sayers, who is queen of the genre, said — and then broke her own rule, but said — that there is no place for romance in a detective story except that it can be useful to camouflage other people’s motives. That’s true; it is a very useful trick. I’ve used that on Percy and I’ve used that to a degree on Tonks in this book, as a red herring. But having said that, I disagree inasmuch as mine are very character-driven books, and it’s so important, therefore, that we see these characters fall in love, which is a necessary part of life.

All well and good. I think I found the essay today in which Dorothy Sayers wrote this (or something very much like this) and share the relevant passage for your reflection and comment: [Read more…]

Check out the 9-27-08 post at ‘The Wild Hunt Blog: A Modern Pagan Perspective’ called “Harry Potter Haters.” I think it is interesting both for the video clips of “We are Wizards,” the new wizard rock documentary being released in November, and the dated scare piece from 2001, and also because of its assessment that Harry Haters have become marginalized to the far periphery of even the Christian edge of the Public Square (as in ‘Chick Publications’).

Leaving aside the “pagan” aspects of the Wild Hunt Blog and its disdain for even the legitimate concerns any thinking person has about the occult, I suspect it is true that bashing Harry Potter as a means to identify oneself as a Culture Warrior and True Believer is an activity that has “jumped the shark.” I know there are enclaves of Harry Hating here and there and individuals in many (most?) parishes that still believe the Pope condemned Harry and that reading him is the Gateway Drug to Wicca and the Occult. Dare I say, though, that the war is over except for the soldiers deep in the jungle that refuse to surrender? Or would that be this the literary equivalent of the President landing on a carrier and declaring we have won the war in Iraq?

Here is an mp3 file of the talk-radio interview I did with Jerry Bowyer minutes before my talk last week at Yale’s Saybrook College. If I sound a little tight or hurried, imagine me in suit and tie, looking at my notes and the clock on the wall in the beautiful Saybrook guest suite, and trying to answer Jerry’s excellent questions with what was left of my attention…. The interview begins two or three minutes into the show so hold on or fast forward.