Saturday, April 17, 2004

Harry Potter Phenomenon
One of my fellow speakers in the toastmaster club spoke about the Harry Potter Phenomenon, she got me thinking! Why are these books such a phenomenon? Should we love them as they made reading books cool again for the kids? Or should we hate them for dumbing them down without any challenge at all in their prose and language style.

I am not sure where I stand. I am for anything that fights the boob tube, I am trying to break my habit of watching the boob tube and kick start my reading habit again. Aside, I have started reading Ayn Rand’s babble Fountain Head , that's a quite a disturbing book, a insightful (Ya, sure :-)) bolg sometime on Ms. Rand.

Coming back to Harry potter, I guess the phenomenen was started as another innocent children's book project. But soon it was hijacked by the most powerful force on this earth, the smooth well oiled machines of Capitalism. They made this into a 'Must-read', Must-see', 'Must-own' phenomenon and sold it to kids and early teenagers, the most demanding of the customers. Rest is history as they say and Ms. Rowling is getting some tan on the beeches of her Private Island in Caribbean.

Can any one judge what’s wrong and what’s right? Judgment had been one of the topics on which philosophers are scratching their heads for centuries. I don’t really like judging, be it people be it phenomenon. I have question to ask "Is Bad reading better no Reading at all?" Yes I would say any reading is better, even if 10% of kids move on to something else than Harry potter that would be awesome, so I guess Harry Potter Phenomenon is Ok!

Eikes!...I Rambled Again...

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