Powerful Addiction

I now own a copy of the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series, and I’m more excited to read it than I thought I would be, because a good story is like heroin—immediately pleasurable and addictive.

I was never interested in reading any of the Harry Potter books. Boy wizard? Didn’t interest me. Give me Gandalf, the gold standard by which all other wizards should be measured. An orphaned boy with silly glasses and a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead sounded too cheesy for me to want to read about.

And then, as in so many stories, I met a girl. She didn’t change my mind right away (in fact, I almost dumped her when I saw her collection of every Harry Potter book printed up to that time—in hardcover). But then I discovered a used, beaten-up copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in a box of books given to me for use in my high school classroom, and thought “Hell, since I didn’t have to pay for it, I’ll give it a chance.”

I didn’t like it much. Too juvenile. But seeds had been planted, so I thought I should at least give the second book a chance. I didn’t care much for that one, either, but water had been poured on those seeds, so I gave the third one a try. And that hooked me.

So when I got the “Reserve Your Copy of Harry Potter 7 Now!” email from Amazon a few months ago, I promptly typed in my credit card number and forked over some digital cash. And I never buy hardcover books. I prefer the way a paperback fits in my hands. Also, I’m cheap. But I had to find out what happens to Harry before some inconsiderate asshole spoils the ending for me.

But the copy of what I have so far only read the first chapter of in is not the copy I ordered from Amazon. That copy is still waiting for me in my UPS Store mailbox.

I had to proctor a two-hour final exam for my online students today. At 11 a.m., the time UPS estimated my book would be delivered. And at 2 p.m., I was going to see Mirror of the Invisible World at the Goodman Theater with a friend from work who had free tickets. That didn’t leave me a lot of time to collect my tests, hop on a train, get back to my neighborhood to pick up the book, and get back downtown to the Goodman. Especially after I was a nice guy and let a student who had shown up 45 minutes late stay an extra 45 minutes to finish his test. By the time he was done, I had about 35 minutes to get my book. The UPS Store closes at 5 on Saturdays, and the play was supposed to be two-and-a-half hours long. With my luck, it would run over, and I’d miss my chance to get HP 7 today, fall behind on my scheduled reading, and thus increase the chances of some idiot spoiling the ending for me.

So at 1:30 I stood at the Brown Line platform at State and Lake, waiting for a train. After six minutes, I knew the train was late. I knew my chances of getting my book and getting back to Goodman before 2 were slim to none. I though about bailing on the play, but I love theater, and I had already made plans. But if the play ran as scheduled, I’d probably still have time to get back to the UPS Store before 5. Except with my luck, the show would run late and the Brown Line would break down.

My train pulled up to the station. I had made my decision, but I wasn’t entirely happy: I’d risk missing the play (or being late, which in my mind is even worse) in order to guarantee getting my hands on HP 7 today. I bent over to pick up my backpack, and as I swung it over my left shoulder, I turned right to face the train—and found myself looking at Ana-Luz, my friend with the tickets, who had just gotten off the train I was about to board. Not two feet away from me. Between me and the train that would take me to Harry Potter. I grimaced. I didn’t have time to explain that I’d be late. I’d probably miss the play, but I had to have HP 7. I’d feel guilty and petty, and I hate feeling that way. So I’d be a nice guy and forego my HP gratification. I’d feel anxious and uptight until I had my hands on HP 7, but I didn’t want to look like a dick in front of a friend (although, by my grimace, I probably already did).

Then Ana-Luz pulled the mostly-orange brick of my obsession from her bag. “Here. I didn’t want to feel guilty that you might miss it today,” she said.

I’m an atheist and a pragmatist. I never attribute anything to luck, or fate, or destiny, or God. The world is what it is, and it is shaped by our actions. Nothing else.

But here was, without a doubt, a lucky break.

I was so confounded by this series of coincidences (remember, I was mainly running late because a student of mine had been running late earlier) that, for a moment, I must have seemed angry, because Ana-Luz asked if I was upset. Not upset, I managed to stammer. Just discombobulated. The core of my philosophy of life could not have been more shaken than if God had suddenly appeared before me to say “Hi. You’re wrong.”

I explained all of this to Ana-Luz during the one-block walk to Goodman. She explained that the book had been given to her by another friend who was trying to convert her to Harry-Potterism (“So why start with the last book?” I asked. “Oh, he got me the first one, too,” she answered. “Still strange,” I said. “Yeah,” she answered.) I successfully managed not to read the book during the play. I waited until several hours later, back on the L, headed for home.

When I pulled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out of my backpack, I felt like Indiana Jones unearthing the Ark of the Covenant. It seemed to glow. I felt the mass of it in my hands, and I don’t just mean its physical weight. I had known for weeks what the cover would look like. I had seen two people reading the book at the Brown Line stop while I struggled with my earlier ethical decision about ditching a friend. I had even felt it in my hands hours earlier, when Ana-Luz had given me this copy. But now, as I pulled the book from my bag, knowing that this time I was going to actually open and read it, it seemed as though I could not only feel the cardboard and paper that the book was made of, but feel the heft of the story within, pulsing between the covers like a living thing.

Because that’s what story is—life.

The power of story is a recurring theme in the works of Neil Gaiman and Dan Simmons and just about every other author I admire. It was the theme of the play I had just seen. Story is the beauty that never fades , the treasure that never loses value. It is the only thing humans can create that even has a chance of being eternal. And for atheists like me, it is the only eternal thing. Story. Narrative. Tales that tell of fanciful exploits and daring loves, horrors beyond imagining and beauty that rends the heart. Harry Potter may not be the most finely-crafted literature in the English language. It will never be placed in the canon beside such monumental works as King Lear or Anna Karenina or The Old Man and the Sea or Madame Bovary. It has no such pretensions. J.K. Rowling just wanted to tell a tale that meant something to her and that might mean something to others. In that, she was successful. The books hit all the major clichés of a successful story: the characters come to life, the plot is both twisting and cohesive, the world comes to life. These elements of the story stay with the reader, with me, long after the last page is read and we move on to another book. A good story is as addictive as heroin, and (I’m guessing here) pleasurable for many of the same reasons. We read and are transported, taken out of ourselves, and yet a good story grounds us in ourselves as nothing else can.

A long-time fantasy fan (I read The Lord of the Rings when I was something like 10 years old and haven’t been the same since), I have recently started struggling with wanting to feel less frivolous in my reading, and so I read more non-fiction, like Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions, Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, Reza Aslan’s No God But God. Serious books about serious things, college-reading-list types of books, books that address real concerns in the real world, political philosophies and spiritual truths.

But just often, although in a different way, a good story can teach me—affect me—just as much. So now I’m going to finish reading Harry Potter.