For the last however many years, Harry Potter has remained off my radar. I read about half of the first book because someone had given my little bro a copy as a present. He could never be bothered to read it. Only now in his teens has he given into the joys of reading, so whomever gave him HP BITD, bad choice. I didn't think it was bad, but it didn't really hold my interest. It had all the elements of great stories, but when you get right down to it, it's just the classic Heroes Journey with wizards.
I have always found the cross-section of HP lovers intriguing, though. On my flight last Sunday, a large number of passengers, be they junior high kids or grandmotherly types, had their noses in a big yellow book. My stepdad, the biggest loser on the planet, who was an elementary teacher for thirty years, only read one work of fiction in that amount of time and that was Harry Potter. Only the first one, though. Because Little Bro got it as a gift. And because it was enormously popular.
It occured to me that of the 8 million + people who have bought the last installment over the last few days, at least a couple million of those folks are people who don't buy books with any regularity, or probably ever. HP books are probably the only books they ever read or purchase. Were it not for HP being a ginormous blockbuster phenomenon, they probably wouldn't read at all.
Since being in Alpine, I've eaten at McDonalds twice. I haven't eaten McD's food since the late 1990s, but here there isn't much to pick from, and it seems that most of my fellow writers head there in the morning for hot cakes, so I've been joining them. Though I still find the smell at McD's nauseating, I must say that their mass-market version of pancakes are quite good. They are sweet, flavorful, cheap, and most of all consistent. From day to day, city to city, they are all the same. Sure, you can complain that they are served on a styrofoam clamshell or that they're full of HFCS, but only I and my snotty overeducated similars think of that.
If there's anything that will hold back my success as a writer, it will be this, the fact that it takes me so long to see the beauty in the things that bring everyone together.
Posted by Zerd at July 24, 2007 12:46 PMI enjoyed McD's $1 caramel sundaes a few times two summers ago. HFCS ahoy, but it's the only thing on their menu I find at all appealing. Maybe a year before that, I'd sampled one of their salads. Bleah. God help me next time I'm at a highway reststop.
Posted by: swilkes at July 29, 2007 12:12 PM