'The Boy Who Lived'.
A word no smaller than 'phenomenon' could describe Harry Potter for my generation. A bespectacled , lanky ,little boy; ill-treated by his only living relatives, all alone in the world, fighting not just the loneliness in his life but also the feeling of being abnormal in some way; this character was drafted since the very beginning in a way that provoked sympathy in the hardest of hearts.
The journey begins when Harry is just an 11 year old. He fumbles with his new found identity, makes friends , encounters some phantoms of his unknown past, and experiences a head-on with the 'Darkest Wizard of All Time', the infamous He Who Must Not Be Named. The reader weeps with Harry when Dumbledore tells him that it was the power of his mother's love for him that saved him from the killing curse when he was a baby. The emotions of a boy who wants to weep but does not want his tears to be seen register with the reader, his pain can be felt.
While the first three installments of the series were Children's books essentially, J K Rowling achieved the amazing feat of making Harry grow along with his avid readers. The following installments contain emotions like love, jealousy, darkness, fear, loss; and make us witness the coming of age of the protagonist so effectively- his thoughts echo in our heads, we can understand why Harry yells at Hermione in frustration when everyone thinks he is a nutcase to believe Voldemort has returned from the dead , and why he insists on digging the grave for Dobby the house elf, rather than burying it using magic.
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire is the turning point in the basic attitude of the series- it is here that Harry becomes the hero , and starts getting equipped to fulfill his destiny. Till this point Harry was just a kid whose life was in danger and everybody was out to protect him from any harm. It is here that he sets out as a man on a mission, who wants revenge for his parents' death.
Another that appeals to me the most is the ease with which all the characters have been carved so distinctly , it's difficult to absorb that all the characters are actually the product of one person's imagination. With Dumbledore's cryptic monologues ("..but in essence divided?.."), and Hagrid's "..Arr..", she has spun a web of creativity so intricate , the reader gets to know on his own, which character is supposed to be saying the words that he is reading.
I fell in love with Harry when I chanced upon a book (Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix) that I was getting in exchange for a prized Agatha Christey that I owned. I had agreed to this exchange after much deliberation, needless to say, I have not enjoyed any book immensely after that, because subconsciously I start comparing the current writer's prowess to that of my idol.
Being fully aware that these words give the impression of having been borrowed from a hardcore Harry Potter Fan page, I would still recommend Harry Potter to anyone who can read !! You are missing out on a literary experience of a lifetime!
Till some other inspiration drives me to the laptop-Signing off.
Caput Draconis!
