Though I have never been a fan of Harry, I have always been an ardent devotee of pop culture, so Potter-mania interests me for that reason. I’m marinating in it here, but I’m tickled by what’s going on there, and by there, I mean India.
By 7 am, Strand Book Stall, Fort, Mumbai, who opened their doors at 6.30 am sharp on July 21, had sold 2,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Queues of excited Potterwallahs, who had been in line since 6 am or earlier, wound themselves around the block in this busy Mumbai business district, where Saturday is usually a very quiet day.
Mothers and daughters, teenagers, young working people, plenty of youngsters with their parents and lot of oldies. all stood in a queue calmly clutching receipts for copies booked up to three months earlier.
The paan wallahs and chai wallahs nearby had seen this phenomenon before. “Yes it is for that book,” they said sagely. “I don’t know what the book is about.” [Rediff]
That is almost exactly what I said to a stranger, earlier today! 😉
And you muggle-borns? Did you skip to the last page, like the rowdy teens in Mumbai did?
“Potterwallah.” pure genius, that.
I am not a fan of Harry Potter and have resisted reading any of those books and seeing any of movies so far. But this Friday I went and saw the latest movie – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and hated it. So my distaste of all Pottery stuff continues…
Anna, although I’ve never been a Potterwallah (as I also mentioned in the other thread) – I did read virtually every Three Investigators, Ken Holt, Hardy Boys and Biggles books as a pre-teen!
And while I can’t be completely sure, not having read any – the Harry Potter books are probably some amalgam of these other series – plot and theme wise, if not in detail. And so their appeal to pre-teens worldwide is a given. But, although the Three Investigators were still coming out as I was growing up, and I was really crazy about them, I don’t remember ever queueing up for the new ones as they came out – or anybody else doing that either, anywhere. So the phenomenal rush for the latest Harry Potter books that you see – both here and in India and Pakistan – is something new, and shows how much more the South Asian urban upper-middle class has become an extension of the Western middle class, and how much more deeply these ‘Western cultural products’ are penetrating South Asia, along with the rest of the world, and how much more commercialized the children’s (ok, pre-teen) book market segment has become.
Brij, thanks to your perhaps unintended support, my aversion to all things Potter (no books OR movies yet) shall continue triumphantly. When someone attempts to persuade me to see the phillum, I will point them to your comment. 😀
How funny. I JUST finished watching the fourth video for the first time right now – don’t know how it slipped through. I’m a little late, but, oh my god! Our home is the proud owner of the 7th book – my sister dressed as a Hogswarth school girl and equipped with her Nimbus 2000 was waiting diligently at midnight. I can’t wait to watch the 5th movie, re-read book 6 and read book 7. Yay!
Chachaji, that is EXACTLY what I found fascinating.
Well, that and what the paan/chai wallahs said. 🙂
Globalization at work…For economy and for culture national boundaries will become increasingly irrelevant..
Anna, your allusions are subtle, sometimes too subtle for me. An example of good conflation ? 🙂
I talked to my litte cousin in India today and was shocked to find out that the book launched in India on the same date it did in the US! What’s more concerning is that of 8 am Sunday IST she only had 200 pages left to read.
I’m so used to everything coming out in India months later than it does in the US – movies, music etc. But the growing spending power of the “growing” middle-class is being noticed by West…
An astute comment indeed chachji!
Seen the movies. Finished book seven Saturday afternoon. Potterwallah Zindabad!
I don’t read the books, but I like watching the movies. I have to find a Harry Potter movie buddy for the 5th one. My friends are at extremes, they are either potter maniacs (so went and watched the latest movie the week it came out) or don’t want to go at all!
P.S. Saw Transformers today and it was not as great as everyone said it was. Too long.
Ugh. My sister read it in 15 hours straight, waiting till the very end to read the last page…the sign of a true (and completely crazy) fan.
I, on the other hand, have a Contract Law essay due in three days so don’t have the luxury of locking myself in a darkened room with a small lamp and a mountain of Maltesers, chips, Skittles and energy drinks to see me through Book 7.
Btw am I the only one who finds it tacky that JK Rowling authorised a Harry Potter theme park for an untold sum of money? It’ll be even crapper than the movies, which everyone just watches out of compulsion but which we know will never top the books…
“Globalization at work…For economy and for culture national boundaries will become increasingly irrelevant”.
So Harry Potter is the new MacDonald’s? 😉 you think Ol’ harry can supersize us??!!
Can’t see why this is so surprising.
I have read all six books so far but have resisted buying the seventh because I am waiting for the boxed set to become reasonably priced. The tale spun by Rowling is akin to the hold the Magic Faraway tree series had on me when I was a kid growing up in Chennai. Of course the characters and their depth is different but the idea of opening a book and getting sucked up in its tale to the point I do not realize I am reading and not living some story is what the queues are about. If I were part of the generation that started reading these books and grew up on them I can well see myself part of the queue waiting ardently for the release.
The reach perhaps is because of the internet and television. My visit to Chennai/Bangalore late 2006 led me to Landmark/CrossWords a Barnes and Noble kind of chain. Once you are inside the shop nothing is really different except probably the variety of books we can see there.
I’m sure you can get it bootleg on the streets, say in Koramangala near the Forum.
Agreed it was too long. But much better than the Order of Phoenix. It had style unlike the Potter movie.
Is that like a f**k buddy? someone who you don’t care about other than their moderate admiration of the Harry Potter series?
@ 13,
McDonald has been Indianized. In order to survive see its Indian menu – veg and non-veg
Hollywood is one of the American products which India consumes without morphing it ( though Bollywood probably copies its songs & story lines sometimes )
Michael Bay? STYLE???
No. That can’t be.
Dude, I completely dislike the 5th Potter book, but I thought the fifth movie was really well done (given how much there was to cover), and it was surprisingly the shortest Potter movie out of the lot.
I used to hate the Harry Potter series. Not like a latent hate, but a deep-rooted hatred. My (younger) sibs were totally into it, and I was not on it at all. Then I worked in a book store during the release of Potter3 and Potter4 and I really hated HP. The release dates for HP used to be worse than working the week of Christmas — you get crazed, pushy moms, crying kids, lack of stock, broken hearts. I spent one day during the release just stocking the cash/wrap and front display (this takes about 15 minutes to load up and unpack 4-5 boxes). Every time I went for a “refill” of boxes we were out of stock on the display and kids would howl, terrified that the book was sold out. It was my second worst bookselling experience to date.
I finally broke down and started reading the series because I could no longer work children’s books without at least understanding the story. I became hooked. It’s not that HP is brilliantly written (it’s not), and the first two books are a bit like the Babysitter’s Club (you know exactly how the plot is going to unfold and in what order), but the series has become more interesting and more complicated as time goes on. There’s still a lot of irrelevant details, but overall I think JK has done a lot of interesting work tying together different literary and mythological traditions.
My sister has already finished the book, and she already knows she is not to talk to me for the next 48 hours. Tash, I’m with you — working this weekend and trying desperately to exercise some self-control (I almost brought my book to the gym this morning, what was I thinking!? I hate reading when I work out). So please no spoilers. That stupid NYT review already has me disheartened.
Chachaji, Cooperites believe Rowling nicked their girl’s plot. Some point to Gaiman. The trailer of Dark is Rising looked quite awful, BTW. Right now, 50% of my family is marinating in Potter-addled stupor. I find their fandom quite charming and support it wholeheartedly.
The butler did it. Also, watch out for Kevin Spacey.
You can read that big ass book in 48 hours?
“Hollywood is one of the American products which India consumes without morphing it ( though Bollywood probably copies its songs & story lines sometimes )”
watch out for harinder singh potter,
and this guy!
http://desinotes.com/the-indian-harry-potter/
My number in the line 719. Time 1:20 in the AM of 21st July 2007. Currently, very gradually progressing towards the last page (759). The temptation to open the last page and read it is strong , but I resist.
I resisted HP until 2004, at which time I sped through the first 4 books without stopping for anything but bathroom and food breaks. I’ve read each of the first 6 books multiple times — they’re usually my book of choice before falling asleep at night, or one that I take to the cafe. They’re sort of like my literary equivalent of sit-coms or the 80s movies I can watch 100 times and never get sick of — not high art, but certainly entertaining and escapist. I enjoyed HP #1 for the exact reason that it was a simple child’s tale of good vs. evil. I’ve really enjoyed the complexity of the later books, but miss that naive quality the earlier books had. #1 and #7 don’t even feel like they belong in the same series together. I think my problem is that by having HP’s world coexist with ours and striving to create something of an allegory, she leaves too many loose ends in the end. She wraps up Harry’s plot just fine, but all the moral questions she has been praised for raising are left completely unaddressed — what will become of the goblins, elves, and other subjugated non-human creatures? I have no problem picking up young adult fiction — keeps me in touch with the kiddies and for me, better use of time than watching a sitcom or reading US magazine when I just want something mindless to do. (That’s not to say that I think HP is mindless, but when you’re on the 4th read …) I am also a sucker for serials, which is why finishing #7 yesterday afternoon was a blow. Anyhoo, HP is not quite like boy detective series; as many of the reviews point out, it strives to be more like high fantasy, though it ultimately falls short of creating its own mythos. (I don’t actually read said fantasy, but my adolescent informants tell me she has borrowed from LoTR, Dark is Rising, Narnia, etc.) There are bits and pieces of other worlds throughout the series — a Quest-like plot, for example.
Anyhoo, I think the books are great for a number of reasons, beyond what I wrote above. The global HP phenomenon … a little weird, but I really don’t see it as some horrible Western cultural product infiltrating the East. Is the series’ popularity really due to more aggressive marketing and commercialization of the HP brand? I mean, HP is not exactly cool. It could have just as easily flopped abroad. As far as popular childrens’ literature goes, HP is a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the field. What we should be more alarmed about is the popularity of series like Gossip Girl, now being made into a TV show, where blowjobs are reportedly passe, public sex is in, and Gucci purses are the norm. (And don’t forget that a book marketed at teens is really being read by pre-teens; and it’s 6 year olds who love HP more than 12 year olds. Pre-teens and teens probably like HP the least, compared to very young kids and adults — they are already self-conscious enough to have moved on to “literature.”)Last year, I was much more disturbed about my 19 yr. old “niece’s” (cousin’s kid) obsession with the OC and Desperate Housewives than I was her equally zealous obsession with HP.
And my final point: books fine, movies garbage. I have nothing but absolute disdain for all the movies except #1. I don’t see how anyone could enjoy the movies (plot, not cinematography) without reading the books.
Me, Potterwalah? Guilty as charged.
El Capitan and I stood in the line on friday night and while I went to bed ‘that’ night, eight hours of saturday were dedicated to completing book 7. I am a potwarts grad and el capitan is sitting outside on the patio getting his fill.
I wasn’t into the books at first because I thought that they were targetted to 11 and 12 year olds, which they were. But book four did me in completely. I have been hooked since. I grew up on Enid Blyton and the whole british boarding school scenario coupled with magic took me back to my childhood. I think the kids in India probably had the same Faraway Tree and Famous Five diet and Harry Potter was simply a twenty first century version of it all.
The Potter books are definitely derivation when you read them. I mean, the plot boils down to the good versus evil. I have found referance to Tolkien, Joseph Cambell and even Britian’s treatment of the war on terror. Fun stuff…
Try eight hours. 🙂
It’s a page turner, no doubt.
In our burb, the majority of kids in line were the same age as HP, @17-yr-olds who grew up with the books from the first book which came out when they were 4th graders, my daughter included.
I have not read any of the Harry Potter books. But the analogy to 3 investigators and other books doesn’t hold in terms of building anticipation. Harry Potter was conceived in and ended during the same generation by one writer with a epic narrative arc. Series like 3 Investigators, while enjoyable to read, are just not the same epic scope, were prettty much assembly line creations. If Arthur Conan Doyle was still churning out Sherlock Holmes Books (assuming he was alive), I can see Sherlock Holmes devotees lining up if the last book had the added suspense if Holmes was going to die.
Yeah, about 8 hours for me too. ^__^
Maybe she puts LSD on the pages or something… because I agree… they’re great books, and they’re also terrible books, but the pages keep turning because I want to know what happens next!
Re:
But with time zones HP came out in India BEFORE it came out in the US, yes? ^__^ Thomas Friedman would be much amused.
Quick clarification on my post #25 — my OC/HP obsessed niece is in India, not in the US.
Probably way less, but like I said, I am trying to finish a project for work and am trying to exercise some semblance of self control. It’s long, but not particularly difficult reading (not like Ulysses, my least fave book of all time). I could probably do it in about 8-9 hours — I have to stop to eat/work out or I can’t keep focusing. I know, human fallibility 🙂
Harry Potter is total hyped up series. Why the hell in India people are buying those Harry Potter books instead of reading Ramayana, Mahabharata and chandamama stories. People are blindly copying western things and forgetting their own culture and history…so sad…
Death to Harry! Evil Wizards rule!
Its very naive to assign it a ‘pre-teen’ label to HP. The so called “Harry Potter generation” now ranges from 15 to 24.
Quote:
ANd one can’t do both? People in India used to watch Enter the Dragon and Bond movies in big numbers in the 70s and 80s. Nothing new here.
Yes. Preach it. How dare Indians veer from Ramayana. Mahabharata and er, Chandamama. My childhood was permanently altered after reading a story of a three-breasted woman in Chandamama. Her husband suspects her of infidelity and punches her in the chest. The offending breast vanishes and they live happily ever after. Not sure if it was written by Vyasa or Valmiki.
Can any tell me how this thing ends??? I googled and googled to no avail. You can just link me to a post of a description of the ending so you don’t incur the wrath of Potter fans by posting it here. Or you can email me. Please don’t post it here.
And they say indians are illiterate eh….lol
Msichana: I absolutely loved the Magic Faraway Tree series by E.B., and the utterly whimsical nature of those books had me completely spellbound. This series was the first of the genre I ever read (around third grade), and no other set of fantasy books ever enthralled me quite like that, probably because I was so impressionable then.
Shodan: I can’t even immediately come up with the Hindi word for breast 🙂 I wonder what’s more “traumatizing” for kids: witnessing Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunctions or reading about the marital saga of a physiologically idiosyncratic couple. I remember being completely freaked by the three-breasted Martian extra in Total Recall.
wikipedia
The butler did it.
I’d have agreed with you, if you had had the decency to put Champak in that list.
Search Wikipedia. It will take few more days to turn up on top of Google/Yahoo search results.
You know what…the reason Harry Potter probably appeals to so many people is because he is an average kid (in the wizarding world anyway) with a troubled non-priviledged childhood and he has to fight evil for the ‘great good’. I see a lot of similarities between the plots in it and in Hindu Mythology. Also, something tells me that kids reading HP will find more in common with ‘the boy who lived’ then Ravana of the ten heads kidnapping Sita and Eklavya having to cut off his hand so that Dronacharya could say that his student was the best archer in the wold.
At the end of this, pottermania or not, thanks to JK Rowling’s stories, you have kids between the ages of 11 and 17 clamouring in lines to READ a book. To me, that’s just astonishing.
That sounds like the story behind the Meenakshi temple at Madurai.
Mutual contempt is not gonna get us anywhere.
Ah, no … it would be astonishing if the kids were to graduate to reading slightly more complicated stuff than HP
I suspect part of the reason behind the popularity of the books is Rowling’s rather successful combination of two of the staples of children’s literature — the epic fantasy genre (e.g. the Earthsea trilogy, The Dark is Rising sequence, the more recent His Hard Materials trilogy, etc.) and the boarding school genre (e.g. the original Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the Jennings series, the Malory Towers series, the St. Clare’s series, etc.). One can’t help but wonder if at some point some other author might not combine the third staple of children’s literature, the child sleuth genre (e.g. the Five Find-Outers, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Lone Pine Club, The Three Investigators, etc.), with say, fantasy, and produce yet another successful string of lucrative bestsellers.
Now, I don’t believe the popularity of Harry Potter in South Asia is unprecedented. Based on memories of my childhood in Bangladesh, books by Enid Blyton, Anthony Buckeridge, Richmal Crompton, Roald Dahl, and P. G. Wodehouse, as well as the Biggles, Three Investigators, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew series, were extremely popular among the young readers who read fiction in English. However, this particular group was, at that time, rather small — it consisted largely of the few children from the elite schools who didn’t view reading as a chore. The Internet didn’t exist as far as we were concerned; and there certainly wasn’t any orchestrated marketing effort for these books — we chanced upon them only if, say, the British Council Library had ordered them, or if somehow, one of the three or four major bookstores in Dhaka had them in stock. Despite all that, I think one would be hard put to find any avid reader of my generation from South Asia who doesn’t have wistful memories of say, Jeeves or Jupiter Jones.
The sheer scale of the Harry Potter phenomenon in South Asia though, is, I suspect, a reflection of the rapidly increasing educated middle class there (there were a only handful of schools in Dhaka where you could sit for the GCE O-levels when I was a child; now there are hundreds), and the realization by publishing companies and booksellers that this is a market that can be tapped.
But what about the books themselves? Are they any good? Well, I am probably a little biased towards the “classics” of my childhood; but while I believe there are current examples of children’s literature that might be more sophisticated and challenging (e.g. Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy, Reeve’s Hungry City Chronicles, etc.), I don’t think the Harry Potter series deserves to be sneered at. I believe Rowling has improved as a writer as the series progressed and, while the series is still rather soap operaesque (which might explain part of its appeal), it does, especially in the later books, touch on serious themes such as disillusionment with heroes and icons, racism, class issues and subtle elitism, “Uncle Tom”-ism, and more.
Will young readers progress from Potter to more challenging fare? I know several that have, but my sample size is too small to make any broad generalizations.
Sure HP is not a “classic” in the usual sense. But basically it has given kids who normally don’t/wouldn’t read a way to get interested in reading and move on to other advanced books. Usually a passion for something has to start somewhere and if it’s reading HP, so be it. I’m sure many parents are just happy to have their kids reading and I’m sure there are far worse books out there for kids to read – Sweet Vally High anyone? That was soft-core teen pr0n for sure. I remember hiding those books from my mom because she didn’t like my sister and I reading them.