WHAT the hell is wrong with you all? It’s only a book. Have you run quite mad? Can you really get so excited about a book? Can a book really be your reason for getting up in the morning? Is it any sensible way to establish a moral code, just because some bright-eyed attention-seeker bumbles around doing good deeds, all on the pages of a book? It’s a book. You’re nuts. Get over it.
There will be hate mail, I know, but I will not be cowed to silence. The influence of this book has become altogether too pernicious, it is ruining our world. And yes, I wish I was talking about a relatively uncontroversial book; the Bible, perhaps, or the Koran. But I’m not. I’m aiming at the biggie. I’m talking about the new Harry Potter.
What’s it called? Harry Potter and The Thingamying Whatchacallit?
Something like that. They all are. What happens today, tonight, at the stroke of midnight, while cannons no doubt blast, doves are released, grown adults whoop and descend upon bookshops, and the actual Prime Minister, you can bet your life on it, sits on his bed twiddling a pointy hat and wondering whether he ought to address the nation — all that, it’s just a book launch. Nothing more.
A book launch. By a publishing company. Not a semi-religious experience. Not a landmark cultural event. Not man on the Moon, or the discovery of the coelacanth. It’s a bloody book launch. Why are we so keen to buy into the hype?
Did you hear about the judge? The bona fide Canadian Supreme Court judge? Some piddling supermarket near Vancouver accidentally sells the book to 14 people a couple of days early. So a judge — an actual judge — pops up and issues a gagging order banning them from reading it. A judge! With a wee wooden hammer and everything! Is this considered a good day’s judging in British Columbia? Does the woman own shares in Bloomsbury? Step back. Breathe. It’s a book launch. Why does it need a judge?
First it was those dodgy geezers with shooters trying to sell copies to the tabloids, now it’s the new Pope expressing concerns about witchcraft. Do they all own shares in Bloomsbury? And it’s not like we don’t already know what will happen, anyway. The speccy kid will be angsty all the time, and the ginger one will keep falling over. There’ll be some reason why they’re worried about being expelled, but they won’t be. Then there’ ll be some sort of adversity which they triumph over, but in a bittersweet way, and still neither of them will have the balls to snog Hermione. Big deal.
I don’t mean to be cruel. I’ve always enjoyed the books, and I haven’t a bad word to say about J.K. Rowling. She works with charity, she keeps her dignity, she’s somehow managed to become a national treasure, a sort of halfway house between the late Queen Mum and Geri Halliwell. But she does play it a little, doesn’t she? All that enigmatic silence, and never giving interviews. As if this were in some way unusual for a children’s author. Because that Enid Blyton was a regular on Newsnight Review, wasn’t she, and forever getting her kit off on Celebrity Big Brother.
And as for A.A. Milne . . . well. Talk about a media whore.
No, she’s not blameless, but it’s not really her fault either. It’s ours. We do it. We don’t just buy into the hype, we make the hype. The publishers must be thrilled — we do all the marketing for them. It’s not just Harry Potter, either. It’s Star Wars, James Bond, the new Coldplay album. We know it’s just marketing, really, but we kid ourselves that we don’t. We kid ourselves that these are cultural events. We dress up in black tie to go to the cinema and queue for hours outside HMV.
And don’t even get me started on those cretins who called themselves “Jedi” on their census forms. It’s like we pretend that it’s our thing, all for us, in the full knowledge, really, that it isn’t at all. It’s their thing, and they are selling it.
Why are we so up for it? Why did we treat Revenge of the Sith as the Second Coming and why do we now await Harry Potter and the Oxblood Doc Marten (or whatever) as though we were waiting for a puff of white smoke from the Vatican? We’re being used, commercially, and we love it. Might it be that, in a world devoid of God or culture, we try to make Him and it out of the trash and fluff that our lives are full of instead? Or could it be that . . .
Oh, wait. Is that the time already? Just nipping out to Waterstone’s to pre-order my copy for tomorrow. Be with you in a moment.
Ye Gods! Not in space
MY apologies. Where was I? Ah yes. Mass-market trash slotting neatly into the cultural holes previously filled by the classics. I remember. Maybe there’s something in it.
Owing to a combination of curriculum quirks and my own craven indolence, I managed to drift through an ancient history A-level and a philosophy degree without having a hint of classical education. Were I ever to go on holiday in Ancient Rome or classical Athens, I wouldn’t even be able to ask my way to the post office.
Their various gods, on the other hand, I’m pretty good on. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it was a childhood interest born out of the names of the planets. Jupiter, Mars and Venus were familiar words, and something about being able to link them to the dominant Zeus, the fiery Ares and the beautiful Aphrodite must have appealed.
And what do I read this morning? That astronomers have discovered a planet shared between three suns, in some distant arm of the galaxy, and, with a knowing little smirk, have decided to call it a “Tatooine” planet. Tatooine, as any male under 40 could tell you, was the twin-sunned home planet of Luke Skywalker, from Star Wars.
Log on, zoom in
HAVE YOU come across Google Earth yet? It’s a new downloadable bit of free software from the Google people and it’s rather amazing. It’s still in the testing stages, so it’s a bit ropey, but still thrilling to use. It lets you swoop around and zoom in on satellite images of our entire planet. You can get a bird’s-eye view of your childhood home, or the Grand Canyon, or your own car parked in your driveway. Most of the UK is a bit patchy, but London is pretty good, and parts of the US are astonishing.
Forget e-mail, train tickets and endless porn on tap. It’s these little unsung gems that make the internet so wonderful. Do you know how many parts of the world are covered by little-known webcams? London is crawling with them. Should you be that way inclined, you can monitor most of our major city centres from the comfort of your own desk. One idle May Day, a few years ago, I actually watched a freeze-frame riot.
In another age, I might have said that this kind of thing makes me feel like Helios, the Sun God. Actually, it makes me feel like Jack Bauer, deep inside CTU headquarters in 24. Not quite the same, is it?
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