Book review: A Wrinkle in Time

Most books I review here I am very positive about.  I guess I am just very easy to please.  But with my most recent two books I am not so impressed.  One of these is A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle.  (I am still only halfway through the other book, and I plan to review it here once I am finished.)

On the dust jacket, A Wrinkle in Time is called "science fantasy".  This is an appropriate description.  On the one hand, it has elements of science fiction, because it uses some science (and speculative science) in its storyline.  But it is not solidly in the science fiction camp, because it really only hints at the science, and is not clear enough in the explanation.

On the other hand, it has elements of fantasy, because the world the characters inhabit is supernatural.  But it is not solidly in the fantasy camp either because it implies that the supernatural realm is, at least in large part, very advanced science that is beyond human understanding to the point of being mystical.

Whatever the case about that, it is clearly in the speculative fiction genre.

The story itself centres around a young teen, Meg, who ticks all the right boxes for being the protagonist of teenage fiction.  She is smart, reflective and warm-hearted, and inside her head she has got a reasonable and intelligible inner-dialogue going on.  But in the outside world she is awkward, geeky, rebellious, unpopular, ugly, sullen and troublesome.  She gets into fights and doesn't get good grades at school.

Meg lives with her mother, who is a scientist, her twin younger brothers, who are just "normal" because they are sporty and popular and only so-so smart, and her youngest brother (Charles Wallace), who is abnormally bright.  Meg's father has mysteriously gone missing while working on a secret government research project.

The story gets going when Meg, Charles Wallace and a new school-friend, Calvin, meet up with three mysterious women (Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which), who whisk them off to other planets to fight against evil and rescue the dad.

This basic plot might be workable (after all, many successful stories have weirder plots), but its execution, in my opinion, is a near complete disaster.  Each separate aspect of it is bad, to the point where nothing makes the book redeemable.

To begin with, the writing style is fairly amateurish.  While I don't pretend to be a good writer myself, and probably couldn't do any better, I believe I can tell the difference between a skilled writer and a poor writer.  Good writers, like Katherine Mansfield [my book review is lost], are able to give depth and subtlety through what is implied.  Bad writers are clumsy with words.  This was just clumsy.

Secondly, the characters are far too two-dimensional.  Meg never rises beyond the stereotype of the troubled, bright, self-doubting teen.  The dad becomes a joke when we learn that "he's a PhD several times over", and worked at Princeton and Cambridge.  And Charles Wallace is completely unbelievable as the super-bright youngster.  In some ways he reminded me of the children in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.  The things he said were just too ridiculously mature to have been said by someone whose age is still in single digits.  I was hoping that the end of the story would reveal something about him that would explain his super-brightness (the product of a science experiment maybe?), but nothing did.  He was just weirdly, inappropriately, and unbelievably god-like in his ability to understand everything and read other people's minds.

Thirdly, the references to science and bright ideas was disappointingly limited.  For a book that was supposed to be about super-smart people, it was disappointing that nothing particularly deep was said throughout.  I got the impression that the author actually didn't know much about these sorts of intellectual things herself, and was just bluffing her way through it all.  All too often, after brief and shallow references to stereotypically smart stuff, the author simply resorted to mysticism, with the super-smart characters saying it was beyond the other characters' abilities to understand, so they didn't need to explain it.

Fourthly, one of the central themes of the book was good versus evil, but this was done very superficially.  The children in the story were introduced to the issue when they were shown blackness in space.  In the story, they were immediately horrified to the point of near-collapse.  Similarly, when they encountered those on the side of good, they immediately recognised them as good.  Of course, this is ridiculously naive, and good and evil are complex and subtle, coming in various degrees and are sometimes difficult to recognise.

Related to this, there was very dated cold-war propaganda (the book was published in 1962).  The big, bad, alien evil turned out to be a totalitarian regime, where everyone was controlled by a giant brain and all did things in unison.  (In the book, Earth is somewhat blackened by this evil, and the fight is still in the balance.)

This all meant that as I read the book, I repeatedly felt so bugged by this low-quality nonsense that I wanted to stop.  Only two things kept me going -- firstly, that it was short, at 180 pages, and secondly that my Big Sis said there is a twist at the end that explained things better.

Since I don't recommend you read the book, I am happy to give away the ending, for what it is worth.  (Close your eyes as you read this, if you don't want to know.)

SPOILER ALERT!!!  SPOILER ALERT!!!

Finally, towards the end of the book, a version of Christianity was revealed (some Christians may not call it real Christianity).  The central theme can be summed up by this quote:

"The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. ... God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty."

The idea in the story, then, was that the wisest, strongest and smartest human characters -- the dad and Charles Wallace -- were captured by the evil brain (both mostly through ignorance, as the dad arrived there by uncontrolled accident and Charles Wallace was overly confident of his ability to control his own mind).  And even with all their superior smarts they couldn't escape.

But Meg, who was not so smart, could succeed where they had failed.  Firstly, she trusted the three mysterious women (who may have been angels) and faithfully followed their instructions by appropriately using their gifts, and secondly she showed love in the face of evil.  The evil brain couldn't handle love, and Charles Wallace was returned.

Love is good, trust is good.  And I have no problem at all with that.

But what I do have a problem with is the implied (pseudo-)intellectual anti-intellectualism that permeated the last part of the book.

(The Harry Potter series has similar themes of love and relationships, but doesn't emphasise them by trashing reason.)

I am more than happy to acknowledge that there are lots of things in the world that are super-difficult to the point of probably being beyond me.  I am also happy to acknowledge that, despite my best efforts, I am going to get lots of things wrong.  And often I am not going to know which things I am right about and which things I am wrong about.  As I see it, it is about being both humble and optimistic at the same time.

But I don't like anti-intellectual pessimism, which appears to delight in trying to trip up those who strive for excellence.  That quote above sounds pretty nasty to want to try to confound the wise and mighty.  Why not praise them and help raise them up more?  (Dare I say it, but this strikes me as exactly what Friedrich Nietzsche was critical of when he engaged in his deep psychological analyses of slave morality.)

I also don't like the way this idea was phrased in what tried to be intellectual language.  Simply put, it is not intellectual, and to me the author came across as pretty ignorant of, and uneducated about, these sorts of ideas.

To put it in a nutshell, this is one of the worst books I have read in quite a while, and I would not recommend it to anyone.  It worries me somewhat that I got this book from our local homeschooling library.  Our children can do far better than to waste their time with this sort of rubbish.

Book Review: The Hobbit

I finished reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit to Mulan last night.

Once again, Mulan has thoroughly enjoyed the story.  And once again, ideas from the book spilt over into everyday life.  Mulan liked to tell Miya about what was happening in the book, and every once in a while she liked to recall the names of all 13 dwarves in the story (sometimes we missed a pair!).  Miya now knows some of them too, and if we start to say “Thorin”, she will finish his name “Oakenshield”!

Since The Hobbit is about wizards, magic, mythical creatures and the fight between good and evil, and, moreover, it is told from the perspective of the title character (who is an honourable, childlike, everyday person) it is tempting to compare The Hobbit with Harry Potter.  Or, more accurately, The Hobbit could be compared with the first few Harry Potter books, while The Lord of the Rings could be compared with the later Potter books.

When it comes to excitement levels invoked in Mulan, the winner is clearly Harry Potter.  But The Hobbit is not a far distant loser; it is just that Harry Potter was extra-special in how it took over general daily conversation for a while.

With respect to the writing style, The Hobbit is very, very good, and I have no doubt that it was exactly Mulan’s level right now.  I think this was a good time to read it to Mulan.  But as I have said countless times before, the writing style of Harry Potter is brilliant, in being perfectly attuned to children.  I think Rowling is much more sensitive to her readers’ psychology and is much more child-friendly.

How about the story?  The plot of The Hobbit itself is mostly rip-roaring adventure—fighting trolls, goblins, wolves, spiders and a dragon.  There is never a dull moment.  It is simple and direct and exciting.  There is not so much everyday life stuff like with Harry.  Tolkien is a little less sensitive than Rowling, and there is much more violence and death than in the first few Harry Potter books.  If parents are worried about protecting young children from violence, than Harry Potter would be much better than The Hobbit.  But I don’t think Mulan was too bothered by it all.

And the themes?  As I say, both books are told from the perspective of the title character, who is, importantly, the moral centre of the story.  The central character of both books is, essentially, not a physical or intellectual hero who surpasses the abilities of the other characters.  In fact, both are often a lot weaker.

In this sense, these two books are very different from many other sci-fi or fantasy books, where the central character typically has exceptional abilities (such as in Dune or Ender’s Game).  Both Harry Potter and Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, don’t take charge to dominate.  They are often much more passive to let things happen to them.  And yet, when everything else is chaotically going on around them, they maintain their solid, moral cores.  When needed, it is their moral cores which allow them to quietly come to the front and lead, at least for the time it is needed.  It is these moral characters which, I think, are supposed to set the uplifting and encouraging tones of the books.

What then, is the moral centre of The Hobbit?  The important point is that Bilbo is supposed to be the one who doesn’t lose his head in the face of power or riches.  Pretty much everyone else around him, when offered the chance of power and wealth, gets greedy.  But Bilbo, even when he could have it, and even while clearly enjoying it, doesn’t get too carried away by it all, and is just as happy to not have it.  Bilbo, then, centrally, is not at all ambitious and is not much interested in building, or leading or acquiring stuff.

Bilbo, also, is polite and hospitable, though he also likes his privacy.  His sense of justice, which he sticks to even when it might bring him great harm, is focused on honest, open exchanges and no deviousness (his acquisition of the ring is the one big exception to this).  He is not at all prejudiced against other peoples or social groups, and is happy to make friends with anyone who doesn’t offend this basic honesty and decency.

But along with this, Bilbo still likes his simple creature comforts, of a bed and good (and frequent) meals.  He likes singing and dancing, and has a taste for poetry and books.

These three aspects—lack of ambition, politeness, and enjoyment of simple creature comforts—are the values which Tolkien is clearly advocating in the story.

But just as importantly, while Bilbo is loyal to his friends and acquaintances, he seems not much interested in social justice (unlike Harry Potter).  He stands by his principles when he encounters stuff in his everyday life, but nowhere does it seem that he goes very far out of his way to get involved with others in need.  He is content to keep himself to himself in his comfortable life.  It also appears that Bilbo doesn’t do much to earn a living, and he lives in the home that his father built.  He appears to have mostly inherited his simple, comfortable life, rather than earned it.  Bilbo, then, represents the somewhat self-satisfied, socially unaware and unmotivated middle classes, who might have one big overseas adventure and then return home again.

Throughout Bilbo’s one-year journey in the story, he maintains this central moral core.  The main change in Bilbo’s character, from beginning to end, is that he begins to know himself more.  That is, rather than remaining naively simple, simplicity shows out as a conscious choice of character.  He also grows in self-confidence from his initial flustering and complaining to his later calmer acceptance of things.

In many ways, then, The Hobbit is a very good morality story for children.  Towards the end, when the dwarves, men and elves were lining up to fight each other over the gold in the mountain, Mulan (as I sure was intended by Tolkien) very rightly pointed out, in a very determined voice, that they should not be going to war over the gold.  Similarly, her sense of justice was clearly with Bilbo when he risked great personal harm in his attempt to broker peace between the sides.  And I am sure that she agreed with him about enjoying home and a comfortable life.

But because Bilbo is, basically, a lazy, self-absorbed, elitist lump when it comes to wider social issues, I think Harry Potter is far superior as a moral teacher for children.

The Hobbit is an awesome book, and essential reading for all children.  But it is still nowhere near as good as Harry Potter.

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Note: when Mama read this she said that Bilbo sounds exactly like me.  I immediately protested, and said it was more like her.  I’m not sure who is right.  At the very least, I like to think that I am more socially aware!  But, like Bilbo, I suppose I do have a very British outlook on life, and similarly, my almost-ten-years adventuring in China has clarified to me my central moral core.  Now, like him, I am returning home.

Moving to New Zealand

For those who don’t know, the countdown has started for our move to Auckland, New Zealand.

Mama has already officially quit her job, and we are now a no-income family.

Our cats will depart first.  They are scheduled to be picked up and moved to Hong Kong quarantine on the 6^th of November.  They will stay in Hong Kong for six months, before moving to New Zealand and staying in quarantine there for another two weeks.

We have booked our one-way flights, and we leave Guangzhou on the 12^th of November.

Until then, we will be flat out (like lizards drinking) continuing to box our belongings.  (One of the hugely helpful things that my parents did while here in Guangzhou was to get us started with the packing.)  Sometime shortly after the cats leave, we aim for a truck to come and pick up our stuff and deliver it to a shipping container, which will hopefully carry everything safely to New Zealand.  With any luck, we will start to unpack in our New Zealand home before Christmas.

All this means that I will not be posting much (if anything) on this blog for the next couple of months.

Beijing

We have just got back from a two-week trip to Beijing.

My first time in Beijing was in 2006, and since then we have holidayed up there for a few weeks most years.  I think, on balance, I prefer Beijing to Guangzhou, though I still doubt I would want to live there permanently, with the (literally) killer smog.  (While Guangzhou pollution has visually decreased in the several years I have been here, Beijing seems to just get worse and worse.)

I especially like that Beijing is a more international city than Guangzhou, with all the diversity and pluralistic acceptance that that brings.  I like that I don’t feel quite so noticed, there.

One obvious visual difference is that there are more foreigners around.  In a (typically) packed subway carriage, we might see one or two other non-Asian faces every time, unlike in Guangzhou where we may go several journeys without seeing another foreigner.  We also see far more diversity amongst the Chinese faces, with a far greater display of Chinese ethnicities.

At one modern outdoor café-spot that we stopped at with friends, I took the girls to play in the nearby public space, where there were several other children playing around.  At one point, a Scandinavian mother asked a Chinese boy if her children could please play with his toys.  She spoke to him very slowly and clearly in English, first asking if he understood her.  Her English was fluently excellent, but obviously not native, as she spoke to her children in another language.  He replied to her with a strong, native-level, American accent!  Pretty much all the children in the area were chattering to each other in standard American English.

Another sign of the international feel is that in my two weeks there I even saw, separately, a dozen or more adults on foot-powered, adult-sized scooters.  I like to zip around my local area here in Guangzhou on my scooter, but in my years of living here I have only ever seen a couple of other adults doing the same thing, and when I go scooting by I always get plenty of curious stares.  Apparently not so in Beijing, where adults on scooters is more normalised.

On two separate occasions, too, I saw small groups of cosplayers socialising in the public spaces.  I have never seen that in Guangzhou.

There are also plenty of adults out running in the evenings in lycra outfits.  Even the local Beijing men don’t seem to have a problem with wearing their tight, buttock-hugging, lycra leggings in public.  Here in Guangzhou, I am almost too shy to wear my lycra leggings outside, for all the staring it causes from the locals.

I also prefer the Beijing weather to that of Guangzhou.  Or, at least I have preferred the weather during the times I have been there.  I have yet to experience a Beijing winter, though that is definitely on my future to-do list.  (I find it so intriguing to read on the signs by lakes “no swimming, fishing or ice skating”.  Wow, frozen lakes and outdoor ice-skating—that is so outside my experiences!)

Local Beijing food is much better, too!

But closely following the smog problem, the next killer issue with Beijing is the cars.  Each time we go there, it is worse, in my opinion.  I remember when I visited Kaohsiung in Taiwan many years ago being surprised to see that motor scooters used the footpaths like car parks.  They would ride up onto the footpath and park, side-by-side, by the dozen, along every street.  In Beijing, it is the cars that use the footpaths as car parks.  If the footpaths are wide enough, they drive along them like roads to find their preferred spot.  If the footpaths are narrower, then they just turn in and mount the curb, covering the entire width of the footpath.  This time in Beijing, we felt that this has all become too much.

Why were we up in Beijing?

Mostly, it was for the oldies.

Firstly, it was for Mama and the girls to say goodbye to Laolao (Mama’s mum).  With us soon in New Zealand and her in China, we won’t see much of her for a while.  Mama and the girls stayed at Laolao’s place for the entire time we were there.

Secondly, it was for Nainai and Yeye (my mum and dad).  They have just returned to New Zealand after a month here in China.  They spent half their time here in Guangzhou, then they took the fast train up north for a bit of stereotypical China-sightseeing.  They stopped off in Xi’an for a few days, visiting the terracotta warriors in their pits.  Then they had a week in Beijing.  I was their tour guide to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and Temple of Heaven.  I had a day off when one of Yeye’s old students took them to the Summer Palace.

For the week that my parents were in Beijing, I stayed with them in a two-bedroom apartment about 30 minutes’ walk from Laolao’s home.  I visited Mama and the girls each day, but it is still the most I have been separated from the girls in their lives.  After Nainai and Yeye flew back to New Zealand, I moved back into Laolao’s crowded home with them.

But truth be told, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Beijing, too, and it wasn’t just a duty trip for the oldies.  These iconic Beijing locations are still breathtaking to experience, even though it was my third time on the Wall and to the Temple of Heaven, and second in the Forbidden City (and about my dozen-th time in the big T-Square—where the security gets tighter with every visit).

I think my most enjoyable times were spent in the Olympic Forest Park.  Laolao lives within walking distance of the 2008 Beijing Olympic centre, and I went three times to the park—once with the girls and twice on my own.  Each of those three days were clear, blue-sky days, and the autumn weather was very mild and pleasant.

It was a great feeling, of course, to walk past the “Bird’s Nest” stadium and “Water Cube” swimming centre.  (Though in my opinion, the area is now, six years after the event, starting to look a little rundown, with rust, weeds and broken bits.)  But the best bit by far is the little slice of heaven of foresty-park in the middle of the city.  It really is quite remarkable.

The park itself is huge, and one can walk for many hours along the paths, beside the lake and through the trees.  (I wouldn’t quite call it a forest, as the trees are planted a little too regularly and with big gaps between them.)  The park can get pretty crowded, but often I was still able to find secluded spots out of the way to lie down and read in peace and quiet.  One time I saw a chipmunk scurry past me as I sat quietly on a rock.  (At the Temple of Heaven, my parents and I watched a squirrel for several minutes as it darted around up and down trees.)

In the Olympic Forest Park, I finally understood why the sports shops in China sell tents.  I have always wondered, because I have never known Chinese to be big campers.  But the big grassy fields in the park were an eye-opener.  In the weekends and public holidays, hundreds of locals set up their tents for the day, side-by-side like a camping ground, where they relax, picnic and play games.  I have never seen this happen in Guangzhou.

In our two weeks in Beijing, we experienced the change of season, from mid-high 20s autumn temperature, to slightly more icy hint-of-winter weather.  While we were on the Great Wall the temperature dropped to 14 degrees, and the mist closed in around us.  In our final few days there, I swapped my shorts for longs, and I even appreciated the sweatshirt I brought with me.

Back here in Guangzhou, we are back to summer again.  It will be nice to have two Chinese autumns this year.

Book review: Harry Potter 7

My review of the sixth and earlier books is here.

The seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series, The Deathly Hallows, is by far the most complex of the books in the series.  It is about adults, and for adults, though of course teenagers will still love the story.

Once again, I haven’t bothered to read anyone else’s reviews of the book.  What I write here is purely from my own thoughts.  And if anyone wants to tell me I’m mistaken, then I would be very happy to be corrected.  Please feel free to comment.

As I read the book, I saw at least four different levels of meaning.

The first level was the direct story itself.  It’s a great story.  As you can probably guess, it is un-put-down-able.  These final few books in the series I have been zooming through in a couple of day each.  (My excuse is that I have been feeling a bit under the weather lately, and so wasn’t up to doing much real work anyway!)

While for the most part the story hung together well, there were a few things that slightly bugged me.  I don’t know whether this was because I missed something in my reading or whether there are genuine plot holes.  Please let me know if I have missed something.

One thing that bugged me slightly was the second to last chapter (the one before “Nineteen Years Later”).  As I read it, I couldn’t help feeling that it was written with a movie in mind.  It was a movie-style ending, and not a book-style ending.  I can only assume that by the time it was written the movies were big successes, and there was more of a movie-mentality to the book, too.

More specifically, I felt it a little strange how all the “stars” had conveniently moved into the Hogwarts school Great Hall, for a final battle.  It was as if we could imagine a movie camera panning around and zooming in to the fights.  Why did they not spread out to other places around the school?  Why all squeeze in together?  Further, why did all the minor “stars” stop fighting and stand back against the walls to watch the two big battles (I won’t say who)?

And further, why did Voldemort get so angry when one of his main underlings was killed?  Up until that point he was completely cold-hearted about everyone, often, in a Darth Vader-ish sort of way simply killing his underlings when they made mistakes.  This seemed out of character for him, though more understandable for a two-dimensional movie baddie.

Also, I wondered why, at the end, some of the baddies who had already been beaten earlier had returned to the fight (I won’t list them by name, but anyone who had read the book will surely be aware of who I am referring to).  Surely when they were beaten they would have been permanently incapacitated for the rest of the battle (particularly given the one-hour pause in the battle).  Again, this just gave the feel of needing a movie-style ending rather than a more thought-through book-style ending.

I was a little puzzled, too, about how the sword of Gryffindor had ended up in the goodies possession again at the end.  Did I miss something?  I thought the goblins had reclaimed it.  When did they give it back?

One of my bigger puzzles, though, was the logic of how wands choose their wizard masters.  If it was simply by the wizard being beaten at any time, and even being beaten when not using that particular wand, then wands would be changing their masters all the time.  This would especially be true at school, where Harry and his schoolmates were often duelling and beating each other.  It would be an everyday occurrence that wands were fizzing and refusing to be used against other people.  So, surely everyone would know the rules of wand ownership?  It shouldn’t be such a mystery to Voldemort.  Since Voldemort’s inability to understand was the whole issue at the end, I was left feeling a little dissatisfied with the logic of the ending.  Was I mistaken?  Can anyone correct me on this?

But whatever the case about these sorts of story plot holes, it is still an excellent story.

The second level of meaning was, as I expected after reading the sixth book, the theme of coping with young adulthood.

This showed up particularly when Harry and his two friends were together independently camping out for months using the magical tent.  The inside of the tent seemed exactly like a cheap student flat, and the disagreements between the three of them seemed just like what goes on between young student flatmates fresh from leaving home.  Naturally, Hermione, the only girl, had to ask why she was the one who always had to do the food.  And naturally, the boys replied that it was because she was best at it (though in this case she was the one best at doing magic).  Naturally, too, after living together for long enough there was a big argument between them and one walked out.

The third level of meaning was a continuation of Rowling’s commentary on social and political issues.

One key theme was expressed by Harry when he said that parents shouldn’t ever leave their children, unless they have to.  The story itself gave evidence of this, as we began to understand the background history of some of the key characters.  Repeatedly it was the characters who had had bad childhoods who were the most flawed or challenged as adults.  Ron’s family, the Weasleys, was clearly intended as the model good family—lots of children, chaotic and messy, somewhat poor, but full of love and fun and loyalty.  The Weasley’s messy, rundown home was contrasted with the spotlessly perfect home of Harry’s horrible uncle and aunt.

It was interesting, too, that one of the first things that the baddies did when they gained political power was to ban homeschooling, and require all children to attend the centrally-controlled school.  Previously, attending the school had been optional, though still chosen by most families.

As I have already mentioned in earlier book reviews, there is a strong egalitarian theme running through the entire book series.  An important part is the equal acceptance of all races and types of people.  The story emphasised that a lot of the current social problems were because of the ongoing generational oppression of minorities by those in power.

The book also made clear that this conflict is made worse because of a failure to properly understand cultural differences, and how these cultural differences impact on everyday interactions.  There was an interesting intercultural miscommunication moment when it was explained that what one culture sees as a permanent purchase another culture sees as a temporary loan.

A further political issue raised particularly in this book was the idea of “the greater good”.  That is, should political rulers knowingly cause suffering to others if it is for the greater good?  The book treated this in a very complex way, and it was not entirely clear what the right conclusion is (which I think is the right approach to take).

The book was very clearly against three types of “greater good” defenders.

Firstly, it was against those who are just mouthing the words but not really applying them—rulers who are really doing it for themselves.

Secondly, it was against young adults who, in their idealistic fervour, wish to change the world.  We meet up with a couple of young, brilliant university-undergraduate-aged men who think they have the answers to all the world’s problems and want to take charge by force to correct things.

Thirdly, it appeared to be against an anything goes (including torture) style of “greater good” (act utilitarianism?).  The details of this were fuzzy, but it seemed to be suggesting that there should still be a set of non-negotiables, which ought never be violated.

But, the book most definitely wasn’t obviously against a “greater good” mentality that is wiser, truly for a greater good, and properly bounded.  I won’t spoil the story for anyone who hasn’t yet read it, but there is a definite grey issue about grooming and manipulation towards a tragic and foreseeable ending.

This links in with the topic of power.  The book asks the question of whether, if we have the choice, having more power is a good thing.  Without giving the story away, clearly the author’s opinion is that stronger (military) power is rarely the answer.

The fourth level of meaning was theological.

It is obvious, in retrospect, that a book series that is centrally about wizards and magic would have to touch on some theological issues.  But I was very surprised about how strongly Christian this series turned at the end.  I don’t see this turn as a bad thing, even though I disagree with a few of the suggestions made in the book.  This is because I think it was very well done.  At the end of the day, what is most important is opening up a dialogue on these sorts of topics.  This, very clearly, is what the book was doing.

One theological issue raised was that of knowledge.  Like many other well-known literary theological works, we have an ongoing dialogue between two fundamentally different types of characters, with other characters taking different views around them.  That is, Hermione represents the reasoning position, while Harry takes the faith position.  Clearly, given that the book series is called Harry Potter, we are meant to see that faith is superior to reason alone.

Hermione is definitely the smarter of the two characters, the harder worker, and the more observant of people.  Thus, by the time they reach adulthood, Hermione has a far better knowledge of the world around them, and is far better at getting things done.  But Hermione is not merely a cold, rationalistic robot.  It is Hermione who is the most sensitive to the needs of others and understand them better, and it is Hermione who initiates a lot of the equal rights for minorities stuff.  Clearly, the author is saying that human rights, equality, and so on are completely within the realm of reason.

Harry is a bit more of the everyday person.  He is just so-so smart and so-so good looking.  He studies a bit, but not that much.  He likes his sport.  He is decent and honourable (as most people like to think they are!).  Importantly, he acts on his intuitions, which, even when he examines them, he is unable to explain reasonably.  But he mostly trusts these intuitions.  Even more importantly, it is Harry who initially has faith but has a crisis of faith, before returning to his faith in a stronger and more complex way (I won’t spoil the story by explaining too much).  Harry represents the Christian pilgrim.  Unsurprisingly, Harry sees Hermione’s outlook as narrow and limited.

But Harry’s intuition/faith-based outlook is strongly contrasted with what we might call a more crazy form of faith.  This is most clearly represented by Luna Lovegood’s father, who publishes a mostly-nonsense newspaper that in our world would be filled with alien abductions, pyramids, moon-landing conspiracies and tin-foil hats.  Occasionally Lovegood hits on a truth, but for the most part his crazy idea are, well, crazy.  He also sees Hermione’s outlook as too narrow.

I think the point of the contrast of these three types of characters is that Harry represents faith supported by, and not in contrast to, reason. Hermione is Harry’s best friend, and he says she is like a sister to him.  The author is telling us that reason is essential, but we need to go that little bit further and accept things that reason alone won’t get to.  And yet, what we get to through our faith is still reasonable.  It is not against reason, as Lovegood’s position is.

There is also the question of how to understand mythical stories, that at first glance appear to be children’s fairytales.

What about theological metaphysics?

The school divination teacher, who teaches palm reading, crystal ball gazing, astrology, tea-leaf interpretation, and so on, represents another form of crazy.  In the wizarding world, wizards look down upon these types of activities.  Importantly, they call them “unreliable” magic.  Furthermore, the divination teacher is seen as a fraud, and most people (especially Hermione) have little respect for her.

In other words, as I see it, the author is saying two things.

Firstly, that most people who claim to have special knowledge of the occult are frauds.  Yet, just like some of Harry’s fellow students believed the divination teacher, there will always be some gullible people who believe these frauds.

But secondly, in the book the divination teacher had, importantly, two moments of genuine prophesy.  Rowling is saying, I think, that even these frauds may occasionally, accidently, have genuinely supernatural moments.

This final book also has a lot to say about the soul and death.  The book takes the standard Christian position about the literal existence of souls, which continue to exist after a person’s death.  What happens after death is a mystery, but the souls appear to pass over into another world and continue to exist.  Moreover, without giving the story away too much, we learn that when a person murders it literally damages their soul.  Too much of this and the damage will be permanent.  Damaging a soul, or losing it, is worse than death.  This moral dimension of souls, and the contrast between love and murder, is a central aspect of the series.

Finally, self-sacrifice, with love, is in there (repeatedly), along with the protective force from evil that it gives to others.

I’m sure I have missed some other, important themes in the book, but I’ll stop for now.

Overall, then, what do I think of the Harry Potter series?

Martin Heidegger, in some of his later work, writes about the nature of a work of art.  We might identify three necessary components of a Heideggerian work of art:

(A lot of what follows here is copied and pasted from stuff I wrote over 15 years ago!)

1.   The artwork brings “world” out of background inconspicuousness into foreground salience.

2.   The artwork allows “world” to be transparent to “earth” in such a way as to allow the former to appear as “holy.”

3.   The artwork gathers together an entire culture to witness this numinous salience of “world.”

What does this mean?

A “world”, for Heidegger, is a fundamental epochal horizon of disclosure; it is a particular way of seeing things for a particular culture.  It is both ontological and ethical.  That is, when we understand our “world” we understand both who we (and others) are and also how we ought to act in relationship with others in our “world.”  Heidegger acknowledges that there are many possible ways of seeing an object (many “worlds”), but we are only ever able to see it in one way at one time (our “world”).  He introduces the term “earth” to signify all the other possible ways of seeing objects.  “Earth” is the background set of all possible, mutually exclusive “worlds.”  “Earth” is unsayable, ineffable, ungraspable, and unmastered.  To use an analogy, “world” is the lighted disc of the moon and “earth” is the hidden spherical depth that cannot be seen.  When we look at the moon all we see is the lighted disc, although in reality the moon has a far greater depth to it.

Hence, an artwork, according to Heidegger, does three things.  Firstly, it shows us who we are and how we ought to act, secondly it shows us that there is a deeper reality than what we can superficially see, and thirdly it does this for its entire culture.  An object may be an artwork for one culture, but not for another.  Heidegger’s favourite example is the Greek temple, which was a Heideggerian artwork for the Greeks.

How does this fit with Harry Potter?

Firstly, as I have been showing in my book reviews, a big part of the book series is that of teaching children important lessons about how to live in the world.  Harry Potter shows us who we are and how we should act.

Secondly, Voldemort exemplifies the failings of modernity, for Heidegger.  The sort of magic Voldemort chased after was of a single type, which was only based on power.  Repeatedly, he failed to see other sorts of magic, such as love and relationships and choice.  In other words, he only saw the lighted disc of the moon, and forgot that there was a greater depth behind it.  Furthermore, Heidegger criticised people who saw everything as mere “resource”, as a result of failing to see this greater depth.  Voldemort again exemplifies this “resource”-based attitude to the world.  Reading the books enables us to get a sense of the deeper things, by showing us how Voldemort could only see the surface.

Thirdly, Harry Potter has become a modern cultural phenomenon.  Everyone knows about the series.  Importantly, as I linked to in an earlier review, academic research is now telling us that young people’s political views have been directly influenced by the books.

It seems to me that all three requirements are satisfied, to make Harry Potter a Heideggerian artwork for our time.

Book review: Harry Potter 6

My review of the fifth and earlier books is here.

In this sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince, the whole wizarding world knows that the Big Baddie Voldemort is back.  They are getting pretty nervous about it too, and the odd mysterious death is not helping things.  Security at Harry’s school is beefed up, but the school remains open and life goes on.

Harry and his classmates are now in their 17^th year.  In the wizarding world, the 17^th birthday is the important milestone when they gain the legal rights of adults.  For one thing, at 17, teenagers may sit the test for the wizarding equivalent of the car drivers’ licence, the licence to magically travel by disappearing and appearing at will.  Harry’s classmates are very excited by this, and the freedoms that it will give them.

Clearly, then, the main theme of this book is the transition from teenager to adult, and the consequent good and bad things that this brings.

We learn of freedom in another sense, too.  An important part of the ongoing story has been a prophecy made about Harry.  In one of the teaching moments, Harry learns from Dumbledore that, in the wizarding world, people have the freedom to turn their backs on prophecies.  Prophecies are not set in stone, and they don’t dictate what will happen.

Clearly, this is intended as a teaching moment from author to reader as well.  Rowling is telling her readers, too, that we don’t have to do anything, and what we do in life is always our choice.  We have our moral freedom.  This is even if, as Harry notes to himself, the choice is only between holding our head up high as we face death or meeting it while being dragged kicking and screaming.  But we are informed that this is not a trivial choice, and there is all the difference in the world between one and the other.

There is also a deeper message in this book.  This is that adulthood, and freedom, is not merely a liberation.  The other side of the coin is the loss of certainty.

Harry has learnt that as long as he keeps returning each summer holiday to his uncle and aunt’s house, and treating it as his home, he is protected.  But at 17, as an adult, he loses that protection.  He loses the certainty of his childhood home.

With adulthood, too, comes the loss of certainty that a parent, or mentor, will be there to have the final say.  This is a chilling freedom to have.  As an adult you have got equals—friends and advisors, but you no longer have the reassurance of an ultimate corrector to step in and take over if things go too horribly wrong.  There is a sense in which you are on your own.  Without giving the story away, the final hundred or so pages of the book hits this message home pretty hard.  As always, Rowling does an awesome job of telling a can’t-put-down story, while simultaneously teaching her message.

The answer to the mystery of who is the Half-Blood Prince hits quite hard, too.  It is a lesson about the perspectives we might have of other people.  Seeing someone in writing can be very different from seeing them in person.

I’m starting the seventh and final book now (review here).  If the other books are anything to go by, I imagine it will be about young adulthood.  About having to do things for yourself, and not having the certainties and protections of childhood.  I’m sure it will be a great read, too.

Book review: Harry Potter 5

I have just finished reading the fifth Harry Potter book, The Order of the Phoenix.  (Here’s my review of the fourth and earlier books.)

In this fifth book, the big baddie, Voldemort, is finally back.  The main problem is that most people, including the wizarding political leaders, don’t believe (or don’t want to believe) Harry that Voldemort is back, and so for most of the book Harry is fighting against the political forces who wish to silence and discredit him.  The politicians appoint an overseer to Harry’s school, Hogwarts, who forces on the school some very strict and repressive rules.

Harry is also fighting with his emotions.  The main theme of this book is clearly that of learning how to deal with the two very different, but equally difficult, emotions of anger and love.  Clearly, once again, the book has an age-appropriate and nicely integrated moral to teach its teenage readers (and perhaps their parents, too).

Harry is now 15, and he is struggling to control his frustrations.  He is angry at the world for not understanding him, and the unfairness that he feels different, and he is taking this out on the people around him.  He is basically a decent person, and he is working hard at being reasonable and understanding, but all too often he can no longer control himself and he explodes at his friends.

In a very clever little plot device, it turns out that Harry’s emotions are connected to the Big Baddie Voldemort’s emotions, which means that Harry feels angry and hatred whenever Voldemort has those feelings (and since he is a baddie, he hates a lot!).  This gives us more sympathy towards Harry, and we accept that in some sense the emotions he is feeling are external to who he really is.

It seems to me that this is intended as a parallel to how hormones are a challenge to teenagers.  In some sense, it is useful to say that hormones are an outside influence on teenagers.  Even when teenagers explode, we can still be sympathetic and not see these explosions as who the teenagers really are at heart.  Hormones are any teenager’s Voldemort.

But acknowledging that Voldemort (i.e. hormones) is external does not excuse Harry when he explodes.  We can be sympathetic and understanding when Harry fails, but Harry still needs to learn how to deal, in socially appropriate ways, with his anger and frustrations.  It is not good enough to yell and throw things around, or sit stewing inside his head.  This book is, at heart, an examination of how Harry struggles to work through his anger.  It is a good teaching tool for its readers.

The other emotion is love.  There is love lost.  There is the discovery that those who you lovingly look up to are not quite so perfect.  And there are issues of how to deal with existing love.

In this book, Harry’s has three quite different moments of love lost.  One is a first girlfriend, one is the death of a close family member, and one is the absence of a mentor.  Each of these three sorts of lost loves challenge Harry in different ways, and he needs to work through each of them.

Harry also discovers that his father, who died when he was one year old, was not so perfect.  It turns out that Harry’s father was a bit of an arrogant bully at school, and not the decent guy Harry thought he was.

The side-issue of Harry’s first girlfriend is a teaching moment for teenagers about first love.  Harry, of course, is a typical boy, and he is clueless about how to interact on a date.  The wise advice on dating comes (in perhaps a slightly plot-inappropriate way) from his long-time friend, Hermione, who give some pretty good explanations of what girls are expecting and how Harry should have responded.  Hermione’s advice is a must-read for any teenage boy.

But the most complicated issue of love is raised towards the end of the book.  Love is, by its nature, partial.  When we love, we have favourites whose happiness and wellbeing we prioritise above that of others.  But sometimes others, who we don’t love, need our help too.  The question raised is how to balance this.  Harry’s mentor, Dumbledore, explains (in another example of how admired elders are not always perfect) that because he cared for Harry so much, he prioritised Harry’s immediate happiness too much, and consequently other people suffered.

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As I am reading these books, another piece of academic research has been reported in the media.  A political studies professor has published a book looking at the political views of millennials who read the books as youngsters and are now of voting age.  To quote:

[T]he evidence indicates that Harry Potter fans are more open to diversity and are more politically tolerant than nonfans; fans are also less authoritarian, less likely to support the use of deadly force or torture, more politically active, and more likely to have had a negative view of the Bush administration. Furthermore, these differences do not disappear when controlling for other important predictors of these perspectives, lending support to the argument that the series indeed had an independent effect on its audience.

Alright then.  Another good reason to get our children to read Harry Potter.

(Update: my review of the sixth book is here.)

UPDATE 21/12/2016: At age 9 3/4, Mulan is currently reading Harry Potter number 5.  I expect she will finish it in the next day or two.  She says that it is no problem for her and she is enjoying it.

At the moment Mama is also reading the series in Chinese, for the first time.  She is also up to number 5, and has enjoyed the previous four.  But Mama is not finding this book so pleasant going, and says she is skipping over some of the more emotionally negative parts.  While she can appreciate the skill and accuracy of the descriptions of the emotions, and can see important teaching points, she is still feeling that as a book the reading is not so enjoyable.