The Harry Potter series is one I long avoided reading, if only because everybody was reading them. It's not that I'm ashamed of reading a children's series, but when every limp moving mouthbreather is seen reading them on the metro it does not make me want to read them myself, oddly enough. But since I was on a camping holiday in England anyway, I had little to read of my own with me and the books were available cheap in a local supermarket I bought them and read the first four over the course of the holiday. They were certainly addictive.

There's always the suspicion that something which so many people like cannot be good and often this is true. This is not the case with the Harry Potter novels. No, they're not the best written novels in the world and J. K. Rowling is not a great stylist, but that doesn't matter. It's the story that is the important thing here and everything else in them is in service to the story. And of course, since this was written for children anyway, you don't want clever stylistic tricks anyway. Instead Rowling writes with a clear, warm voice in a way everybody can understand but still recognisable her own.

One of the themes Terry Pratchett, I guess these days only the second richest British fantasy writer, has been developing in his Discworld series is the power of stories, the way in which stories shape our understanding of the world around us even when we're not conscious of it. As he puts it, the more stories there are of youngest of three princes succeeding in a quest that killed his two older brothers, the more likely it becomes for any youngest of three princes to succeed in their quest. Must suck to be the eldest or middle of three princes though. In the real world this may not happen, but stories are still powerful, especially in fantasy.

Because fantasy, more than any other genre, is all about telling stories, old familiar stories of fantastic voyages, dastardly villains, noble heroes and amazing derring-do. It is the oldest form of storytelling in the world -all the surviving most ancient manuscripts are fantasy: Gilgamesh, the Illiad, you name it, all fantasy. Fantasy stories are something everybody is familiar with and most people enjoy when done even half decently.

So is it any wonder that when J. K. Rowling, who at the very least does have a knack for storytelling, unleashed Harry Potter on the world, it became such a succes? Not when you realise that the basic story behind the series, the lost prince raised as a commoner raised to his proper place in the world as the most powerful defender of good against the forces of ultimate evil, is one of the oldest in the world. Not to mention a common children's fantasy. Who hasn't lain in their bed at night wishing to be a lost prince or princess? Furthermore, there's the metastory of Rowling's own rise to fame, from single mother on welfare to richest woman in the British Isles, which in this capitalist age has great power as well. People want to be part of succes.

All that will help explain why Harry Potter is so succesful, but at the heart of it is that Rowling is a good storyteller, good enough to get me to read the first four books of the series in less than a week. It was only with Order of the Phoenix that the spell broke, but by that time my holiday was over anyway. I won't bother retelling the plot of these novels; surely everybody knows them already, but I would like to give my opinion of the four I read.

The same goes for Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber, which is almost a repeat of the previous book in structure and plot. It's almost as if the series is started again, since it's now clear there is going to be a series. Still very enjoyable, just no development on the first novel.

The same cannot be said for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is where the series get noticably more darker, less silly. It's my favourite as it has not lost any of the charm of the first two, but it finally starts seriously looking at what Harry Potter has to face up to.

Which leaves Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a bit of a dissappointment, as the boarding school adventures creep back in with the Quiddich tournament. Yes, it is entertaining and fun, but it's also pointless, not to mention that it ups the pagecount something fierce. It's almost as big on its own as the first three books are together...

So, should you start this series if you haven't yet? Well, it can't do you any harm and if you like a good story simply told, though with few surprises if you have been reading fantasy for a while, why not?

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J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter, fantasy, book review

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