Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince -- Warning spoilers

[bobov (imported)]

Harry's outstanding virtues are courage and loyalty. His birth situates him - something Brits may more readily admit than Americans - but it is his choices that define him. In fact, another of Harry's virtues is acceptance of personal responsibility; he knows that he makes his own life by what he does.

As a series, the Potter books summarize the developmental psychology of adolescence. As Harry and his pals age, they move through the standard teen phases. That makes the books "realistic," despite the magic. Wizards though they may be, Harry and company are recognizably human.

The Potter books are for children because they lack ambiguity. The causes of love and hate, fear and rage, joy and sadness, are clear and undoubted. Their emotions have the intensity and volatility of the young. They are the opposite of Elliot's Prufrock:

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?"

Rowling sustains an extraordinary narrative energy. Her stories and her vivid characterizations carry readers through her long novels. Like Tolkien, Rowling creates an alternate universe of such density and detail that readers may occupy it in their imaginations.

Finally, the Potter books give strenuous voice to an ethic of tolerance and kindness. Rowling is resolutely against any sort of prejudice or cruelty. Voldemort is a snob and a bully; Harry is a democrat and an ally.

I agree that Order of the Phoenix was disappointing. It was the one in the series I didn't like. Perhaps the fact that she married, had a baby, and bought and furnished a new home the same year she wrote Phoenix may explain it. But she's come roaring back with Half-Blood Prince, which is, I think, among her best. If Harry is Dumbledore's man, then I am Harry's man.

[An Onymus (imported)]

As to the Harry Potter series--Magnificent; but is it literature?

[Patient (imported)]

. . . but is it literature?

Most assuredly yes; see http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=literature

1. The body of written works of a language, period, or culture.

2. Imaginative or creative writing, . . .

3. published writings in a particular style on a particular subject; . . .

"Literature" does not really mean "literature which some particular group of people admire."

[bobov (imported)]

An Onymous, please give us your definition of literature. The Potter books meet any definition with which I'm familiar.