Thoughts on Harry Potter

Sorry, but I gotta get this out of my system.

The buzz is everywhere about tomorrow's release of the final Harry Potter novel. Amazon's got trillions of pre-orders to fill, and I'm sure Harry Potter parties tonight will rival any frat party. (And as icing on the cake, they've just released the latest film in the series.) I've honestly never read the books, and to be honest, I don't have any particular desire to. I did see the first two films (so no, you can't poo-poo me for dissing the series without having been exposed to it), and while the stories were original and innovative, they just didn't appeal to me. (Nor, for that matter, did any of the Tolkien stories—i.e., The Hobbitt or Lord of the Rings.)

I can commend the fact that Harry Potter has incentivized a lot of children to read (which is something our culture has needed badly for some time), but all the same, the stories just never appealed to me personally. So I can't get excited about book seven being released tomorrow.