At last I dare put this post on the list. It's a new version of
something I wrote for HPfGU when OotP was published.
Hans wanted me to post it weeks ago, when he started the `What I see
in `Harry Potter'
thread; but I didn't feel ready yet, especially because the debate
on that group is particularly brilliant. To tell you the whole
truth, you impress me, ladies and gentlemen. So please be kind with
me, and forgive me if I'm clumsy or if I happen to scatter too many
feelings. I'm trying to be sincere and, concerning `Harry Potter', I
realize I can't do it without writing sometimes very personal
things. It's not the easiest way to start when you are rather shy…
I also needed to re-write the post partly, to add a couple of things
I wrote for the Hog's Head, because they happened to complete some
ideas from the original text. I tried not to make it look too much
like a Harlequin suit.
To me, that post sounds rather like a `Bis repetita'. And, as it is
very personal, long, and certainly not free from mistakes, I hope it
won't bother you too much.


A LOVING COMPANION


When I opened `Harry Potter à l'École des Sorciers' (that's the
French title) the day before I went to the movie, I only wanted to
entertain myself, and to do as everybody was doing at the time. I
thought it was only "a story for children", one more Christmas candy
(we were in December), something you read quickly and forget
likewise. I even had some prejudice towards the book, for there was
so much publicity that I thought it was only a commercial affair.

And then it happened. I couldn't keep myself from feeling love for
this little boy who didn't even exist, and though I was trying to
defend myself against him, he was there, standing on the doorstep of
his cupboard, asking for a place in my world. At the same time, I
had opened my old Dictionary of Symbols again: Unicorn,
Philosopher's Stone, Centaur, Sirius, Albus, Black, Potter...

The story didn't seem to be all that childish; it had nothing to do
with the `Famous Five+ Mallory Towers+ Pokemons' formula I had
thought I would find in the book. It was unusually serious,
amazingly written; gripping, fascinating. It was like reading… I
didn't dare add: `Don Quixote', `Hamlet', `La vida es
sueño', `Porporino ou les mystères de Naples'; all those books that
I love so much because they combine a wonderful story and a
masterful writing technique.

However, I had the uncomfortable feeling that my interest in the
books was perhaps exaggerated.
Not knowing what to do with those novels, I tried to talk about
them with a friend of mine, who is a Freemason. I said that it was
amazing how many symbols you can find in the `Harry Potter' series,
and that it was probably as interesting as LOTR. She answered
condescendingly that the symbols in `Harry Potter' were "simple and
superficial", and she said briskly: "You can't compare HP and LOTR!"

As I'm not yet very wise and rather spiteful, I thought to
myself: "Well, woman, I won't accept the invitation to join your
group if that's the way you talk to me." And I stopped speaking
of `Harry Potter' in front of her, except to say that it was
entertaining. But I didn't stop thinking these books were definitely
very interesting.
I don't know whether she'd read them, especially in their original
version, or whether she'd only seen the movies with her children. I
didn't understand her reaction. She had told me once that her
husband, who is a Freemason too, was writing a work about `Sky
symbolism in Star Wars'.

Why did she despise `Harry Potter'? I thought it was much more
interesting than `Star Wars'. Was there something she didn't want me
to discover in these books, because I was too profane for them? Or
was I only a childish nutter? Reading those books didn't give me the
urge to buy a witch costume or the complete collection of the
playing cards. On the contrary, I was thinking that I would have to
read some of my study books again and take a closer look at
esoteric theories if I wanted to understand what was in Harry's
cupboard.


Starting wasn't easy, however. With their entertaining stories and
many-coloured covers, the `Harry Potter' novels didn't look at all
like the other books I had analyzed before. Was there really
something special about them, or was I trying to find a pretext to
read novels intended to children? Maybe all the wonders I was seeing
in them were just my own invention; maybe it was just a fancy
attitude, hiding a simple need of regression… It wasn't a
comfortable situation for a `sensible grown-up'…
And there was something else, something I could hardly admit,
something I didn't find rational: it was the first time I had such
a `relationship' with a fictional character…
I confess that I felt rather disturbed when I realized he was so
often on my mind, waiting for me where I didn't expect that he would
be, at the bend of a thought, of a situation … Though I tried not to
let him take too much place, though I tried to make him stay in his
book, he was standing there, familiar and patient, like a little
genius. And it was as if I had finally found a missing key.

Identification process?
Well, I agree that Harry is a wonderful human mirror and a powerful
Remembrall.
But in my case, there was something more. I'm not sure I can
explain clearly, even by now, and I find irrational when I consider
it: when I started reading the series, it was as if I had been
missing Harry for years.
I wasn't meeting him for the first time. It was rather sounding like
a reunion.
That character was able to talk at the same time to our heart and to
our intellect; we could care about him, as if he had been a true
person, and at the same time we could learn and create thanks to
him, because he and the world he lived in were an inexhaustible
subject. Consciously or not, I had been waiting for what I was
reading.
It was a total surprise and I couldn't explain why it was that way.
And precisely because it was a surprise, because it was unusual,
irrational (as I had no explanation to what was happening), I chose
to let Harry become my guest, intellectually… and emotionally.
I did like Uncle Vernon: I went to seat down in Harry's cupboard,
but with my study books, and ready to listen to what he had to
tell. I didn't regret it.

In spite of all the publicity around it, `Harry Potter' has
something more, something precious: it presents elaborate concepts
in a very accessible way.
I'm not saying that JK Rowling's style is poor; not being a native
English speaker I know that my perception of what she writes is
limited. Nor am I trying to say she should have invented poems,
ballads, or a new language, as Tolkien did. I'm just trying to
explain that her main preoccupations, when she's writing, are
structure and meaning. She is forcing herself to use an `essential
style', banning out of her books the temptation of syntax complexity.

This doesn't mean that `Harry Potter's style is dull, easy, or that
she writes `the way it comes'. On the very contrary, I'm sure she
chooses her words and structures with a lot of care.
Simply, she doesn't want to lose touch with the essence of the
story, with the signification of what happens to her young hero. She
doesn't want to close the door she's trying to open to all of
us.


That's what we call "vulgarisation". I love vulgarisation. I love it
since I studied the French philosophers of 18th century when I was a
teenager. I love the idea of giving to everyone who wants to use
them the keys to understand the world better, to have a better life.
That was the ideal of Diderot, D'Alembert, the fathers of the
Encyclopédie. I love the idea of explaining something very
complicated with a vocabulary that everyone can understand.
That's what I saw when I started reading `Harry Potter'.
That's what JK Rowling was doing all along her books. She was
telling us about spirituality, about psychoanalyse, about myths,
about us, in accessible terms. I loved those books because they were
like an open door. A child could read them, a person who hadn't been
lucky enough to study could read them, and they would have taken
something from what they were told.
But an erudite could read them, and would have found so many
treasures in their pages…
My Freemason friend was wrong, or she wasn't sincere towards me.

That's why I started lurking through the Internet, and first joined
HPfGU; I wanted to know if other people read the books the way I
did, from a symbolic point of view.
I wrote a few messages on the subject. Maybe it's because my English
is uneasy (I'm French, and I teach Spanish, so I haven't got many
occasions to practice in my daily life), or I didn't manage to
express my ideas correctly (I'm rather ignorant concerning what I
call "esotericism" because I don't know how to name it properly); to
cut a long story short, I didn't have many results, many answers to
my questions.
No matter; lurking through all the messages, I found very
interesting things, particularly Hans's postings about the Path of
Liberation, and their theory about love.
And now I understand better my friend's reaction, especially after
reading a post titled "More insight into Snape/ Snape's challenge"
(it's on HPfGU, but I'm afraid I forgot the exact number).
Hans wrote:
"The things Rowling tells in HP have in the past always belonged to
secret occult societies and Mystery Schools of Liberation going back
many millennia. Now they are being made public in a symbolic form
for the first time in world history. Truly an apocalypse."

Yes, yes, yes!!! And that's why I love these books so much. That's
also probably why my Freemason friend seems to despise them: they
open too many doors, to too many people.

I love Hans's idea, I agree with it. It helped me to understand
better why I love `Harry Potter' so much.
Universal books. Easy to read, gripping, full of invention.
Resisting a sharp analyze. A total work of art. A total micro
cosmos. And, yes, a companion for our own journey.
When I realized, after my very first reading, what this book really
was, I started crying. It was the first time I did it because of a
book. It was the same emotion as the one I had felt while listening
to Haendel's `Messiah' for the first time, or discovering Giovanni
Bellini's paintings in Venice. Book, oratorio, paintings. Loving
companions.
I received the `Harry Potter' books the way I received Haendel's
oratorio and Bellini's paintings; it was a gift I had been waiting
for, for a long time.
When I was a student, I had to analyze Spanish baroque literature; I
enjoyed the stylistic and conceptual games between the authors and
their readers. I thought at the time it would be wonderful if a book
could combine those intellectual games and the power of pure
emotion. And now it was there, it was called `Harry Potter'. And we
had the incredible luck to see it happen.

That's another reason why I'm so happy this story exists, whatever
happen at the end of the journey: it's going to remain as an
important event in history of literature, it will become a classic,
and we are here to witness it. Can't you feel how lucky we are
because we are waiting for the next book? In fifty years, those who
will discover the series and will love it won't be that lucky. They
will read the seven books without waiting; maybe they even won't
need to read them because the story will be so famous that it will
be part of the common culture. But we are now living its
publication. What happens with those books only happens once or
twice in a century. Tell me how many universal stories and
characters you know besides `Harry Potter'. Generally it took
decades to give such a result. In the `Harry Potter' series case, it
barely took seven years. And no universal book before, except,
maybe, `The three Musketeers' or the Sherlock Holmes series, had so
many people caring for its continuation. However, their authors
didn't have to deal with the expectations of a worldwide fandom.
D'Artagnan never had to face a celluloid double while he was still
riding to the next chapter, and there was no website defending
Moriarty. JKR's position as a popular author is entirely new. For
the first time, we can follow, almost step by step, the progress of
a great classic, and the coming of a mythic literary character. Oh
yes, it's great to witness what is happening now, it's great to be
contemporary with `Harry Potter'…

I also want to add some considerations about psychology in the
books. Hans thinks JK Rowling was inspired by what he calls "the
original Spirit". I would add that she also understood perfectly
well what it is to be a human being. I know that some fans consider
that what she wrote about the characters' reactions or behaviours
happens to be unrealistic, particularly in OotP; personally I find
her painting of human psyche sharp and sensitive. She writes with
her heart and soul, as someone told me one day, responding to one of
my posts.
Hans wrote on HPfGU a funny post about Harry Potter becoming a
religion (and he will probably put it on the list if you ask him
very kindly). Well, I don't know whether one day there will be St
Ron's Basilica or an "Apocalypse according to Colin Creevey", but
I'm sure that `Harry Potter' will join the `Encyclopédie', `Don
Quixote', `Hamlet', etc. in the history of human kind. And publicity
has nothing to do with it.
Neither do I know whether the books were inspired to JKR by "the
original Spirit", though I enjoy this idea and think there are many
funny coincidences in all that happens around them.
What I firmly believe, however, is that Rowling, combining an
amazing narrative structure, a sharp psychological analyze and,
consciously or not, a spiritual purpose, managed to present us with
something wonderful: an open door, a loving companion.

Amicalement,

Iris