Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away . . .
Wait. Wrong story. Once upon a time, in a cupboard under the stairs . . .
Except they’re the same story, boiled down to their essentials: young orphan boy discovers he has magical powers when a mentor figure arrives to take him away from his aunt and uncle. In this new world, he makes allies and enemies, before having to battle against the ultimate evil.
We all know this story, and rightly so: the American mythologist Joseph Campbell’s analysis of storytelling gives us the “Hero’s Journey” structure, which George Lucas cheerfully borrowed for Star Wars and which every writer working with any kind of heroic quest owes something to, whether they’re conscious of it or not. “Originality” as we think of it does not mean ignoring these building blocks; the skeleton is not the finished product.
Nevertheless, even the cleverest of writers may miss this point. Writing for the New York Times in 2003, AS Byatt incurred the wrath of many, most notably Stephen King, with her dismissal of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series (the fifth book had just been released). Byatt described Hogwarts and its surroundings as “a secondary secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children’s literature – from the jolly hockey-sticks school story to Roald Dahl, from Star Wars to Diana Wynne Jones and Susan Cooper”, adding rather smugly that “derivative narrative cliches work with children”. Adults, of course, should know better.
Thirteen years on, this attitude seems even more snobbish and dated, in large part because children’s books are no longer an obscure sliver of the market, known only to the most diligent parents and teachers. In the late nineties, a hugely successful children’s book might have sold in the tens of thousands over the course of a year – this was the scale of Rowling’s success with the release of the second book, Chamber of Secrets, for example. Compare this to the 11 million copies sold of the final volume, Deathly Hallows, within the first 24 hours of its release date in 2007, or the fact that the New York Times bestsellers list added a children’s books category in 2000 specifically to avoid the Potter series dominating the general fiction list. And while the Potter series must be treated as the exception rather than the rule, huge successes in any category mean more money in the field, more titles being published, more awareness of the books that are out there.
The series was a game-changer, a phenomenon, and critics have long pondered why exactly this might be. Rowling’s rags-to-riches biography certainly helps, as does – some have argued – the political and cultural context of the late nineties in Britain and the United States. The series has been read as a response to post-Thatcherism, with the Ministry for Magic standing in for a New Labour government, or as a response to declining faith and Christianity by presenting its own kind of magic and mystery, or as a commentary on declining reading habits in young people (like the protagonists of another late nineties cultural institution, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry and his friends understand the importance of libraries for discovering essential information). The ongoing success of the books, however, suggests that hitting a precise cultural and historical sweet spot is not enough to make a phenomenon. So what is?
American critic Jack Zipes, whose work on fairytales, folklore and children’s literature is essential reading for anyone interested in children’s books, argues that phenomena happen when something is ordinary. For him what is “phenomenal” about the series is that it is conventional; for something to be a phenomenon in Western society “it must be popularly accepted, praised, or condemned, worthy of everyone’s attention; it must conform to the standards of exception set by the mass media and promoted by the culture industry in general. To be phenomenal means that a person or commodity must conform to the tastes of hegemonic groups that determine what makes up a phenomenon” (Sticks and Stones, 2002). In short, to be popular means pleasing everyone – something rather distinct from being any good.
It feels like an unfair assessment of a series that has woven its way into our culture, which – less than 20 years after the publication of the first book – feels like a classic as essential as CS Lewis’s Narnia collection. Quite aside from the theme parks and merchandise, the series has given us a way of categorising everyone we know into Gryffindor (brave and heroic), Slytherin (sneaky and ambitious), Ravenclaw (clever-clogs) or Hufflepuff (kind and loyal). A generation of readers discovered how to pronounce Hermione before encountering her namesake in Shakespeare, learned about a variety of mythical creatures, picked up more Latin than they realise. A generation of readers were fortunate enough to have the very best elements of children’s fiction knitted together for them, in a way that may not be “original” as we typically think of it but is certainly skilful.
Byatt, for all that snobbery, was right; it is an intelligent patchwork. Rowling didn’t invent the school story, after all. Sarah Fielding’s The Governess (1749) or Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (1838) or Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847) all set the scene for what was to become a much-beloved genre in children’s literature. Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) served as a model for other boys’ school tales, while the work of Irish-born LT Meade (A World of Girls, 1886, among others) paved the way for all sorts of jolly japes for schoolgirls. Prolific authors like Angela Brazil (beginning with A Terrible Tomboy, 1904) and Elinor Brent-Dyer (The Chalet School series, 1925 onwards) ensured that fictional boarding schools flourished well into the twentieth century, even as their real-life counterparts declined.
No discussion of the twentieth-century school story would be complete without Enid Blyton, of course, and her three series – The Naughtiest Girl in the School, Malory Towers and St Clare’s – remain in print and popular today, even as many of their contemporaries from the 1940s and 1950s have fallen out of favour (most notably Antonia Forest’s excellent Kingscote novels). These schools are separate places from the real world, and magical in their own way – full of midnight feasts and melodramatic French mistresses, improbable acts of daring and crucial life lessons learned.
These are the school stories that Rowling has built on, and used to domesticate and control her fantasy quest narrative. These, much more than other magical-education stories – Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books, the Unseen University of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci books, Anthony Horowitz’s Groosam Grange and Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch series – provide a structure to the Potter books which is adhered to until the final volume in the series. The fantasy is there, for those who yearn for it, but so too is the very real structure of the school day. Once arriving at Hogwarts, there are lessons to be learned – and attention is paid to them, with the reader’s knowledge of the wizarding world increasing alongside Harry’s. History of Magic may be dull, but it is where one might uncover the origin of the Chamber of Secrets. “Wingardium Leviosa” is not simply a charm to practice in class but useful in dealing with unexpected trolls. Defence Against the Dark Arts is not simply an exam subject but a political battlefield, as explored most magnificently in the fifth instalment, Order of the Phoenix, where Professor Umbridge simpers at her young charges that there will be no need to learn anything more than the theory in order to get through their exams – never mind that the murderous Voldemort is on the loose.
The importance of the school setting in the series cannot be understated. Headmaster Dumbledore is perceived as a political threat, while Professor Slughorn has spent a career nurturing his most promising students, including Voldemort. While there are other magical or part-magical dwellings in the British Isles, Hogwarts is the one place they all share; readers critical of the series epilogue, in which the key characters have married their teenage sweethearts, are missing the point. What happens in school matters hugely in the wizarding world, and vice-versa. Harry and his friends win House points for alerting the world to Voldemort’s return, while the tensions between Slytherin house and the rest of the students build until the final battle (at the school, of course), where they dovetail with the wider struggle between good and evil.
And as many an online commentator has wryly observed, it is terribly considerate of Lord Voldemort, villainous though he may be, to wait until the end of each school year and the completion of exams before attempting to murder Harry yet again. But we can forgive this given the importance of Hogwarts, and the way in which the boarding school environment makes Harry’s “saving-people thing”, as Hermione puts it, relatable rather than distant.
Rowling’s certainly not the first person to use the school story in this manner, but she does it with aplomb, using the framework to play around with other genres (crime, political satire) where she sees fit, while still keeping the series on track. The stakes grow higher each year, but we can still be sure that – until the final volume, anyway – Harry will be on the train to Hogwarts each September 1st, ready to cross the threshold from the mundane into the magical world. Stepping through that boundary at Platform Nine and Three Quarters (readers of Eva Ibbotson will know that platform thirteen at King’s Cross also leads to another world, of course) feels possible for readers. Plausible.
Is it wildly original? Not particularly. But that takes nothing away from the pleasure of seeing how Rowling has configured, and reconfigured, a variety of familiar elements in her own clever and – yes – magical way.
WHAT TO READ NEXT
1) For younger readers looking for another delightful, funny and engrossing boarding school series, Robin Stevens’s Wells & Wong series – beginning with Murder Most Unladylike – details the escapades of two young detectives in the 1930s.
2) The late, great Terry Pratchett is also a must-read for this age group – and everyone – and A Hat Full of Sky, about young witch Tiffany Aching, is a good place to start, although it is a later title in the sprawling Discworld series.
3) Neil Gaiman is always a treat: The Graveyard Book, a spooky retelling of The Jungle Book, is an ideal starting point for young readers.
4) For teen readers, Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On is a playful take on fantastical boarding schools that becomes its own compelling story about the cost of magic.
5) Jo Walton’s Among Others is another boarding school tale and a beautiful ode to classic sci-fi novels, narrated by a girl with secret magical powers.
Claire Hennessy’s most recent YA novel is Nothing Tastes As Good
