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Harry Potter and the…. Libation Bearers?
A couple months ago, while still in Rome, I logged into my account for the public library near to the Sabine Farm and reserved a copy of the ultimate Harry Potter book. I was number 16 in the queue.
The day of the release a chirpy library worker called a few minutes after their morning opening to let me know my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Later in the day, having resolved my daily list of things to do, I delved into the book. I have read these books because people as questions about them.
I was amazed at the very onset to find this even before the title page:
That cheery little quip sets the stage in this very dark book.The Libation Bearers
Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein,
the haemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.But there is a cure in the house
and not outside it, no,
not from others but from them,
their bloody strife. We sing to you,
dark gods beneath the earth.Now hear, you blissful powers underground—
answer the call, send help.
Bless the children, give them triumph now.—Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers
There is another quote from William Penn’s More Fruits of Solitude, which I take to be as much about Rowling’’s feelings about ending the series as it is about the resolution of the book itself.
The Libation Bearers
is one of the plays in the tragic trilogy the Oresteia including Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, the Eumenides. A friend tipped me off that J.K. Rowling had read Classics. The Libation Bearers picks up after the homecoming of King Agamemnon after the Trojan War. In the first play, his wife Clytemnestra, who has in the meantime taken a lover, murders Agamemnon in his bath, much in the manner of a sacrifice. The send play deals wtih the revenge exacted by Orestes and Electra, the children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra now shares bed and throne with a lover Aegisthes. In the beginning of the play she wakes from a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake, which is now sucking blood from her breast. Clytemnestra, alarmed, sends her highly abused daughter Electra to pour libations on the grave of Agamemnon as appeasment offerings to the gods whom she fears she has angered by the murder of her husband. Electra finds her brother Orestes at the grave. Together they plot their revenge.Aside from the snake business, there are not many obvious connections between The Libation Bearers and HP and the Deathly Hallows. Certainly the theme of revenge for a slain parent is present in both, but in Aeschylus the children kill their own mother. Perhaps the theme of self-perpetuating cycles of bloodshed might fit, but that is a stretch.
I think the choice of the quote was more to impose a general sense of sorrow for the trials of the children in the book.
I will not provide spoilers.
I will say, however, that this book is all about finding one’s way through loss, trying to find identity and peace when life has been so truncated at its very start. The loss of Harry’s parents while so young deals a profound wound which does not heal in him. He always looking for his father in father figures in the whole series and everyone of them is stripped away from him with violence. He finds surrogates and redemptive figures all along the way. He has close friends and even an adoptive family who shares his pains but only in part. He is always very much alone. The bildungsroman is always going to be popular, but with the fracturing of families today, the confusion and wounds and the never-healing loneliness many young people have grown up with over the last decades, I understand how these books have met with such success.
Rowlings has tapped a dark and bloody vein in our post-Christian psyche.
"But Father! But Father!", ... I can hear it even now. "Aren’t books the work of the devil? How can you recommend them?! If my little Mindy reads Harry Potter, will she go to hell!"
First, pay attention. I am not recommending the books, or movies, one way or other. I have read them mostly because I need to know what it going on in pop culture and what literature is shaping young minds. I can read a book like this last one in a few hours, anyway. They are a briefly amusing sideshow to fighting through the sludgy pages of Catherine Pickstock or the intricacies of Ambrose and Augustine.
Kids may read Harry Potter. But – as with all books – parents should read everything first, or read with their children, even aloud! There is something wonderful about reading aloud.
Also, I urge all parents or teachers to read Michael P. O’Brien’s A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle for Your Child’s Mind
. This helps you understand the proper use and misuse of archetypal images and the concepts of good and evil, how in some books they are blurred so that a child could be subtly influenced into a confused view of what good and evil are. My view is that over the course of the Harry Potter books, what was at first a bit vague regarding good and evil, became more and more sharply defined. Read with parents involvment, the books are alright. They are not great literature. Harry Potter ain’t Frodo Baggins. There are many great books on the Great Books list to read. I don’t think you will go to hell if you read Harry Potter.
Some non-spoiler observations.
First, a lot of thought went into this book. What interested me was not so much how Rowlings bound up the threads of the series resolved plots, but how the characters grew and interacted. Women seem better at writing this sort of thing. They seem to write the best mysteries.
Next, there are strong Christian, biblical allusions, even slightly adjusted quotes from Scripture at key moments (cf. Matthew 6:21 and 1 Corinthians 15: 26). As I ran across them they leapt off the page. Of course, someone like me is going to pick up on these and know them for what they are. Still, the way they are woven in, the moment, and the very concepts are so striking when they appear that even the biblically or culturally unlettered will probably take notice of them as being different in some way and worthy of attention.
There is an epilogue. Some suggest that Rowlings might be trying to curtail fan fiction. I rather think she needed to help the reader see that while some wounds do not heal, there is hope and life continues. The dark makes the light brighter, but only when you have some perspective.
If you read the book, don’t post spoilers, which I would consider very bad form.
You noted: ...which means they bought more than 16 copies at $39.99 a pop…
Yikes! We picked up a copy at the local grocery store yesterday for $20.99!
Comment by MikeL — 23 July 2007 @ 10:31 amI can’t go with you on this one, Father. So big money is flowing to own a
Comment by Ave Maria — 23 July 2007 @ 10:38 amcopy of the newest and ‘darkest’ of the potter series. And I see the spell
kits and other ‘toys’ for the chilrden so they can dress as witches and
wizards and all have great fun. But this is not an innocuous innocent thing.
Spells and wizardry are not to be fooled with which goes for all things of
the occult and making them seem like an innocent pastime…well, who would want that?
Very well said, Father! I don’t see the Harry Potter stories being ‘evil’ any more than Sleeping Beauty or Hansel and Gretel would be. We weren’t warped by the fairy tales of our childhoods. I’m a quarter of the way into book 7, and rather than long marathon reading sessions I’ve decided to take my time and enjoy it leisurely.
I wouldn’t expect a child under 10 to attempt reading these very long books of Rowlings, and also I wouldn’t encourage a child under 10 to read beyond book #2 at all. Give them to a kid at a rate of one book per year, and let him grow with them as the characters grew.
Comment by Janet — 23 July 2007 @ 10:50 amLooks like life is tough in the US! I got my copy in London, UK in Asda (part of the Walmart group) for £5 = $10.
Comment by John Scholes — 23 July 2007 @ 11:12 amMikeL: These have reinforced library bindings. Library editions are usually more expensive.
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 11:13 amAve: I can’t go with you on this one, Father.
Ok. I can live with that.
So big money is flowing to own a copy of the newest and ‘darkest’ of the potter series. And I see the spell kits and other ‘toys’ for the chilrden …
I am sorry I am not a better writer. I think I must not have made clear what I was trying to get across. Either that or you might not have read closely what I wrote.
I have taken note of your “no” vote, however.
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 11:17 amThanks for explaining The Libation Bearers. I was going to look it up, but now I don’t have to. (Though I suppose I ought to read Aeschylus…)
As for the Harry Potter series in general, I enjoy this essay by John O’Callaghan called, “Harry Potter, Catholic Boy”.
http://www.up.edu/portlandmag/2004_summer/potter.htm
Comment by bgt — 23 July 2007 @ 11:22 amJanet: We weren’t warped by the fairy tales of our childhoods.
Of course we weren’t. As a matter of fact we were shaped by them in good ways. That is part of what Michael O’Brien writes about. Those fairy tales have symbols we could recognize and which helped us recognize good and evil. O’Brien warns about books which distort the symbols. For example, books which make serpents or dragons good, or ambivalent, need special care and caution.
The new H.P. book, by the way, has a subtle fairy take within the fairy tale dimension which I found rather clever.
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 11:25 ambgt: Though I suppose I ought to read Aeschylus
Ehem… yes.
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 11:26 amFather Z,
We have several friends of ours who take a very grim view (a deliberate choice of words) to the Harry Potter series. Their priest from the pulpit advised that to let a child read the Harry Potter series was in fact undoubtedly a mortal sin.
In the process of our own discernment and prudential application of the Church’s moral teaching, my wife and I decided that, with all due respect to the well intentioned priest, was, well…wrong.
I first started reading the series while traveling in Assisi on pilgrimage with my wife a few years back. (Found it in a side bookstore and could barely put it down!) I find it engaging reading, and just the sort of mind candy (almost as delicious as Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Cockroach Clusters, Jelly Slugs, Blood Pops, Acid Pops, etc etc) I need from time to time for the very same reasons you mentioned (Germanus of Constantinople and John of Damascus for me of late…) I love the intricacy of the story, the development of the characters and the many references to Christian virtues and principles, although I would hardly call it a “Book of Christian Virtues”.
My 16 year old has grown up with the character of Harry Potter and he seems noone the worse for having done so. He is a devout Catholic, an acolyte and a pretty well rounded adolescent.
I’m half-way through the text right now, while working in Ireland this week. My 16 year old called me at 1:15am GMT to announce to me he had finished it.
I sent him a “screamer”! ;-)
God bless,
Gordo
Comment by Gordo the Byzantine — 23 July 2007 @ 12:10 pmFather, even Time Magazine knows our children shouldn’t be reading this Godless nonsense!
headline: Who Dies in Harry Potter? God
Joanne Rowling has three fancy houses and more money than the Queen, but she still doesn’t have a middle name: the “K” is just an empty invention, which she added for effect when she published her first book. Whatever she’s doing, it’s working. Since 1997—the year Princess Diana died and the word “weblog” was born—Rowling has sold more than 325 million books. The fifth Harry Potter movie is eking out respectful reviews, and the final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released at midnight on July 20th. A theme park is in the works in Orlando, Fla. By now quite enough has been said about Harry Potter. But what does Harry Potter say about us?
Rowling’s work is so familiar that we’ve forgotten how radical it really is. Look at her literary forebears. In The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien fused his ardent Catholicism with a deep nostalgic love for the unspoiled English landscape. C.S. Lewis was a devout Anglican whose Chronicles of Narnia form an extended argument for Christian faith (or at any rate for faith in Aslan. Close enough.) Now look at Rowling’s books. What’s missing? If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God.
Oh, Rowling has had her share of outrage from the religious right, but they’ve missed the point completely. Rowling isn’t a Satanist—if anything the Satanists should be as offended as the Christians. Harry Potter lives in a world that has been scrubbed clean of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He is surrounded by ghosts, and has even eavesdropped on the afterlife in the basement of the Ministry of Magic, but Harry has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn’t. Not even the lovably prissy Hermione darkens a church door. In real life Rowling is said to be a member of the Church of Scotland, but on paper she has more in common with celebrity atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens than she does with Tolkien and Lewis.
What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling’s answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry’s power comes from love. (“Big deal!” thinks Harry when Dumbledore offers him this revelation in Half-Blood Prince.) This charming notion represents a massive cultural sea change. In the new millennium magic comes not from God, or nature, or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. It’s the most anthropo-centric vision possible: even in our fantasies, where we give ourselves permission to believe in dementors and blast-ended skrewts, love is all you need, and love is all you get. By choosing Rowling as the reigning dreamer of our era, we have chosen the most hard-nosed, realistic of fantasists, a writer who dreams of a secular, bureaucratized, all too human sorcery, where psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.
And we congratulate ourselves on having tossed aside all that high-flown mystical stuff. But when the end comes—and it’s almost here—where will that leave Harry? He’ll face tougher choices than his fantasy ancestors. Frodo was last seen skipping town with the Elves, en route to the Grey Havens. Lewis sent the Pevensie kids to the paradise of Aslan’s Land. Something tells me no such comfortable retirement awaits Harry in the Deathly Hallows.
Comment by athanasius — 23 July 2007 @ 12:38 pmGordo: I sent him a “screamer”!
ROLF!
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 12:41 pmathanasius:
Another “no” vote.
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 12:44 pmI thought it was called “a howler”.
Comment by RBrown — 23 July 2007 @ 12:54 pmRBrown: It sure was!
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 23 July 2007 @ 1:16 pmWell, since Michael O’Brien’s book re: intro of paganism was mentioned by Fr. Z, for balance then, there is too his assessment of Harry Potter:
Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children’s Culture
by Michael D. O’Brien
Author Michael O’Brien compares and contrasts JK Rowling’s Harry Potter with the writings of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.
http://www.lifesite.net/features/harrypotter/obrienpotter.html
Now, before everyone hisses and boos I’d like to add something to the “no wonder these books are selling” due to the sad kids coming from our culturally sad condition for kids today. Since I’ve worked with foster kids and also have seen the fruits of comparative ways of relating to kids in different adoptive families, I will forever hate the Oprahfication of groups of wounded children and teens where one witnesses just what “love is the answer” can mean to them!! Using them as reasons that beg for more passes based on false compassion makes things worse rather than better for the futures of a lot of these kids. I seriously ask about this phenomenon – Why Harry Potter; Why Today??? The very fact that these kids (esp. kids switched around in foster homes – or those just out on the street) will very often have a certain naturally built in fated disappointment, suggests that the answer is NOT any dark or gloomy referencing as an answer for them, or finding ways around realities that reinforce the already lack of trust in good people and rightful authority. They have a tendency to hold on to the negative like a security blanket against further disappointment. Or they just learn to be advantageous and clever. And they are soooo vulnerable to ideas because they have not had the stable parents who indeed did “read everything before” to guide them.
Now it used to be that such sadness or feeling lost and alone was not as mainstreamed as it is today with the split families, working mothers, and now schools without accountability as to what is heard or seen or done. So, I would just like to add that any conclusion that so many kids today will see themselves in such characters is the very reason that false ideas for relief need their balance which just isn’t out there for them, at least to the same degree. And what appears harmless while still children, when believed in and carried over (as so many troubled kids do) into adulthood, often results in even bigger disillusionment and more occult/cultish/addictive behavior…. the easy way out. If, in the end, reality steps in, then such attachment to the former escape ideas will result in disappointment, disillusionment and sadness.
A maxim that is usually good is that those blessed with moral guidance, good families, good education have the moral obligation to those who simply don’t… and not to confuse the already so confused! When the Good Shepherd left His sheep to find the lost I’m sure He expected the stabilized to remain that way while He was gone!
For in the end he [Huxley] was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, Viking Penguin, New York, 1985, p.163)
Comment by Kris — 23 July 2007 @ 1:54 pmNever mind this Potter stuff, Father. What did you make of the The Anathemata?
Comment by John Hudson — 23 July 2007 @ 2:09 pmMichael O’Brien’s article on the Harry Potter series was atrocious—he didn’t seem to read the books very carefully. As for his book, LANDSCAPE OF DRAGONS, what I find so amusing is that he doesn’t seem to understand the symbols himself—thinking for instance that dragons are always maleficent.
At the risk of tooting one’s own horn, a piece my wife and I did on the