The Making of the Potterverse (4 page)

A foreshadowing of things to come occurred when CNN reported on an Atlanta, Georgia, bookstore that opened up early to accommodate Harry Potter fans who had gathered beforehand to acquire copies of
The Prisoner of Azkaban
. By the release of book four,
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
, this would be nothing by comparison.

In an interview with
Time
magazine, J.K. Rowling admitted that a regular character would probably perish in the next novel. “I am writing about someone, Voldemort, who is evil,” she said. “The only way to show how evil he is is to take a life, to kill someone the reader really cares about.”

Word leaked out that Warner Brothers had apparently snapped up the rights to the Harry Potter novels in a seven-figure deal, which one newspaper referred to as “a shocking amount for a ‘kids’ movie.” The report also noted: “Rowling says that she intends to make the tone of the books darker and scarier as the boy wizard and his friends age. All the prospective directors have made movies dealing with the fantastic and the dark.”

Appearing on CBS’s
60 Minutes
, J.K. Rowling was asked by reporter Lesley Stahl how long she had been developing Harry. According to the author it had been for quite some time. “What amused me — I went through this last night to show you — this is my employment history [she holds up a series of papers]. [Harry material] is on the back of stuff that I really should have been doing at work, and on the front you have bits of my writing. This is really old.
This is a photocopy from a textbook when I was teaching in Portugal. And obviously this was what I was supposed to be doing with the children, and on the back you’ve got all the ghosts for Gryffindor.”

A South Carolina mom made headlines when she called for the Harry novels to be banned due to the fact that they carry a tone of “sheer evil.” Rowling said, “I don’t pretend that an evil presence is a cardboard cutout and nobody gets hurt.”

Back in 1964, the Beatles had five spots in America’s Top 10 singles. It seems that Harry Potter was giving them a bit of a run for their money when, shortly after the publication of
Prisoner of Azkaban
, J.K. Rowling’s novels held the top three slots in the country’s bestseller lists.

While on her North America tour to promote book three, Rowling visited students at a Montclair, New Jersey, school. There she read excerpts and took questions from the students.

A bookstore signing in Worcester, Massachusetts, drew thousands of fans. Larry J. Abramoff, owner of Tatnuck Bookseller, observed, “We’re absolutely overwhelmed by the turnout. We couldn’t believe that people were arriving so early.” They began arriving at 11 a.m., some with lawn chairs and picnic baskets. Rowling wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 7 p.m. The pattern of unprecedented crowds continued at every bookstore she went to.

Rowling won her third consecutive Smarties Prize, this time for
Azkaban
. Grateful for the award that was voted on by 200 separate groups of children, she nonetheless announced, as reported by the
BBC
, that she didn’t think future Harry novels should be nominated. Said Rowling at the British-based ceremony, “Believe it or not, third time round means the most to me, it really does. Two years ago when Harry wasn’t famous at all he won the Smarties Award and it was the first thing Harry ever won. In fact, it was the first thing I won in my life, ever, apart from a book about how to grow potted plants. But I feel now in writing this series, and after this award, that Harry should not be submitted from now on for the Smarties Award.”

The respect for Rowling’s work continued as she was credited by the Boarding Education Alliance for helping to recreate the image for boarding schools. Ann Williamson of the
BEA
said, “The books have probably done more for boarding than anything else we could have imagined.”

People
magazine proclaimed J.K. Rowling to be one of the 24 Most Intriguing People of 1999.

Three young wizards read the Canadian edition of
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
(Fred Lum/CP Photo)

Salon.com offered a critical examination of the Harry novels, focusing on the fact that in Rowling’s universe the boys definitely finish first. “Harry’s fictional realm of magic and wizardry perfectly mirrors the conventional assumption that men do and should run the world,” opined writer Christine Schoefer. “From the beginning of the first Potter book, it is boys and men, wizards and sorcerers who catch our attention by dominating the scenes and determining the action. . . . It is easy to see why boys love Harry’s adventures. And I know that girls’ uncanny ability to imagine themselves in male roles enables them to dissociate from the limitations of female characters. But I wonder about the parents, many of whom join their kids in reading the Harry Potter stories. Is our longing for a magical world so deep, our hunger to be surprised and amazed so intense, our gratitude for a well-told story so great that we are
willing to abdicate our critical judgment? Or are the stereotypes in the story integral to our fascination — do we feel comforted by a world in which conventional roles are firmly in place?”

It was announced that two new Harry Potter–related books were on the way:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
and
Quidditch through the Ages
. “I have always had a hankering to write these two books,” J.K. Rowling related, describing them as short stories that would each contain illustrations done by the author.

Around the middle of the month, word had really begun heating up regarding a potential Harry Potter feature film (for which Warner Brothers had snapped up the rights). Several directorial names were bandied around, though it seemed likely that Steven Spielberg would be the one to take on the project. Considering his track record — including
Close Encounters, E.T.
and the Indiana Jones films — the news was hardly surprising.

J.K. Rowling took home the Author of the Year Award at the 11th annual British Book Awards, beating out such competitors as Stephen King, Colin Dexter and Terry Pratchett. It wasn’t all good news, however, as Nancy Stouffer, an author from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit claiming that Rowling had stolen elements of her 1984 novel,
The Legend of Rah and the Muggles
, in creating Harry Potter. A Scholastic spokeswoman explained, “Unfortunately, success often leads to frivolous claims, and we’re confident the court will find in our favor.”

Apparently Steven Spielberg’s involvement with the first Harry Potter film was much more than just a series of rumors. Toward the end of the month, he issued a statement that basically said he would
not
be directing. “I have every certainty that the series of Harry Potter movies will be phenomenally successful,” he said. “J.K. Rowling’s vision of Harry Potter is modern genius. Warner Brothers and [studio president] Alan Horn have been more than generous in the time they’ve allowed me to make a decision. However, at this time, my directorial interests are taking me in another direction. Most importantly, I look forward to reading the fourth Harry Potter book this summer and taking my family to see the first movie.”

Volunteers looking to raise money for England’s Oxfam charity bookshops went through the inventory of said stores looking for seemingly worthless donated books, hoping to find some gems among them. The search paid off with about 300 novels that turned to be quite valuable indeed, among them a rare edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings
, and an immaculate first edition of
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
.
Chamber
was expected to raise over $1,000 in a charity auction.

Toward the end of the month, some controversy began to brew in England over the fact that a primary school teacher had forbidden students from reading the Harry Potter novels, claiming they went against the teachings of the Bible. Explained Carol Rookwood, “As a head teacher I have a responsibility to ensure that we give the children the best that we possibly can. We are a Church of
England–aided primary school, which means the church ethos is very important to what we do. The Bible is very clear and consistent in its teachings that wizards, devils and demons exist and are very real, powerful and dangerous, and God’s people are told to have nothing to do with them.” One place that Rookwood did
not
find support was with the National Secular Society, which responded, “Children’s imaginations have been nourished for centuries with stories of wizards, witches and fairies. In this age of declining literacy, banning popular children’s books is doing pupils a great disservice.” Similar complaints arose in the United States, but J.K. Rowling insisted that she would not change her approach in dealing with the subjects of good and evil.