Hairy Plant Placement Specialist

Blog forward. Yippee! Last night I finished reading the fifth invigorating and healthy installment of the written phenomenon...Harry Potter. I have come to the conclusion that Jo Rowling (I'll call her Jo since that's what all the chic entertainment writers are referring to her as these days, like Barbara, or J. Lo) is a genius. I know it's been said before, but too many literary types tend to dismiss the Potter tales as a mirthy kids craze. I myself shyed away from the series for many years, fully inflated by my status as an student majoring in English.

I first started in on them last summer on a debt-inducing trip to Spain and Portugal. After the second book, I bought the third at an English-language book store in a Lisbon mall. By the time we got to Coimbra, I was turning in a couple hours before sunset to read by the light of single dim bulb, tinged red by the dusty, transluscent fixture. Emily and I actually fought over who was going to get to read the book first, so we ended up reading most of it outloud together. Within days we were scouring a shop in Salamanca for the fourth installment, which I finished shortly after returning to California.

I hadn't been this insane about a series since reading the Lord of the Rings my second year of college, and before that it was my rabid consumption of Hardy Boys mysteries before I turned 10. This was pure enjoyment unlike anything I'd ever read. Sure it's the most mass-marketed, best-selling print franchise since the Pauline Epistles, but in the end I was forced to accept that something doesn't have to be out-of-print, wallowing in the corner of "quirky" used book store to be fully appreciated. My aversion to spoon-fed consumerism notwithstanding, here was something that deserved to be distributed, even pushed and hawked, by the millions and frillions.

The bottom line is, Rowling has created something that will endure for generations. The pure imagination contained in each book will keep the pages turning for my grandchildren and beyond. As an uncle of mine pointed out, each page in a Potter book has a new word, concept, or plot twist that almost forces the reader to forget whatever they need to be doing and see the story to the end right then and there. And though that can be formulaic at times, the overall effect of the books is nothing less than deeply satisfying; a rare glimpse into a parallel universe that we fervently hope exists and won't end when we turn over the back cover.