When Potterites Attack

MobyLives has an interesting item about the uprising of Harry Potter fans determined to squelch criticism of their favorite book. David Kipen panned Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and said that the problem isn’t that the novel is dull per se because there are moments resembling suspense but rather “the main problm is that J.K. Rowling has now written six of these bricks.” Kipen’s review appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle but he has since changed his tune. He now writes ” “I was wrong. Harry Potter and the Half???Blood Prince is a masterpiece of all???ages literature that ranks alongside The Lord of the Rings and The Wind in the Willows.”

The reason for his reversal? “It turns out that expressing reservations about the Potter phenomenon can buy you a death threat, it’s worth asking: Is this degree of protective devotion some form of mass hysteria, or a hopeful development in otherwise unreaderly times?” Kipen’s review created such a firestorm of criticism that even his 10-year-old niece wrote into the paper to complain. As MobyLives recounts it, “she called his review ‘a pile of rubble’ ??? a phrase which, says Kipen, ‘for my money, represents a more surprising and memorable use of language than anything in Harry Potter and the Half???Blood Prince.'”

Check out the MobyLives post here and read The San Francisco Chronicle item here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *