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Early in its history, Harry Potter received overwhelmingly positive reviews, which helped the series to quickly grow a

large readership. Upon its publication, the first volume, Harry Potter and the Philosopher''s Stone, was greatly praised

by most of Britain''s major newspapers: the Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl";

a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a

richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".[65]By the time of the release of the fifth volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books began to receive

strong criticism from a number of literary scholars. Yale professor and literary scholar and critic Harold Bloom raised

pungent criticisms of the books'' literary merits, saying "Rowling''s mind is so governed by clichs and dead

metaphors that she has no other style of writing."[66] A. S. Byatt authored a New York Times op-ed article calling

Rowling''s universe a "secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of

children''s literature ... written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated

(more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip".[67] The critic Anthony Holden

wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread

Awards. His overall view of the series was very negative"the Potter saga was essentially patronising, very

conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain," and he speaks of "pedestrian,

ungrammatical prose style[68]." By contrast, author Fay Weldon, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets

hoped for," nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose".[69]

The literary critic A.N. Wilson praised the Harry Potter series in ''The Times'', stating: "There are not many writers who

have JK''s Dickensian ability to make us turn the pages, to weep openly, with tears splashing and a few pages

later to laugh, at invariably good jokes...We have lived through a decade in which we have followed the publication of

the liveliest, funniest, scariest and most moving children''s stories ever written." [70] Charles Taylor of Salon.com,

who is primarily a movie critic,[71] took issue with Byatt''s criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may

have "a valid cultural pointa teeny oneabout the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the

troubling complexities of art", he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes

its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers. Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books,

shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the psychological wounds and social isolation each causes.

Taylor also pointed out that Philosopher''s Stone, said to be the most lighthearted of the seven published books,

disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spur the series'' success: the book opens with news of a

double murder, for example.[72] Stephen King called the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is

capable," and declared "Rowling''s punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humor" to be "remarkable." However, he

wrote that despite the story being "a good one," he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt

and uncle," the formulaic beginning of all seven books.[33] King has also joked that "[Rowling]''s never met an adverb

she didn''t like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time''s test and wind up on a shelf

where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy andhe decade, but

for the ages."[73] Orson Scott Card wrote a review of Deathly Hallows in which he said, "J.K. Rowling has created

something that . . . deserves to last, to become a permanent classic of English literature, and not just as ''children''s

fiction.''"[74] Tina Jordan of Entertainment Weekly called Deathly Hallows "stunningly beautiful" and predicted that

"these books are going to be on my grandchildren''s shelves, and my great -grandchildren''s, and maybe even further

down the line than that."[75] A Telegraph review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and of the series as a

whole, observed that Rowling''s success was entirely self-made and not due to hype of her books by the publishing

world, which has instead followed in her wake.[76] The books have also spawned studies investigating the saga''s

literary merit. One collaboration by a number of critics is The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter. In this volume, Amanda

Cockrell concludes, "Harry Potter is not the lightweight imitation of such serious high fantasy as A Wizard of Earthsea

or The Lord of the Rings, but a legitimate descendant of the darker and more complicated school story," and

suggests that "we need to take a deeper look into Harry Potter, who is deeper than we think.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/22/comment.bookscomment

Harry Potter and the secret of successThe stories are wonderful, but it's the power of globalisation that made them suchmassive hits

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Comments (26)

o Will Huttono The Observer, Sunday 22 July 2007

o Article history

It is the biggest publishing event in history - proof positive that Britain is the most dominant force inworld culture. The seventh and final edition of Harry Potter is a landmark moment; 12 millionadvance copies printed in the US alone. Even as I write this column my son has just bursttriumphantly into the house at one in morning with two copies bought at King's Cross station (homeof platform 9 ).Is Harry Potter so good and author JK Rowling so brilliant that these books deserve their status as,cumulatively, the best-selling ever? The strict answer is, obviously no. They are great stories,synthesising with enormous narrative skill the best of CS Lewis, Tolkien and Jill Murphy's WorstWitch books - not to mention some Greek myths - along with some old-fashioned black magic. Butthere is something else afoot when 325m copies have been sold worldwide - now certain toapproach 400m with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Rowling is repeating the Da Vinci Code effect - but much more shrewdly. In the creative industriessuccess always begets more success, but in an era of globalisation the success can be very bigindeed, as both Rowling and Dan Brown can testify. But before the success arrives, ignorance anduncertainty rule. Thus the history of creativity is littered with examples of publishers and agents whodid not spot the winner. American author and screen writer William Goldman nailed it when he saidof the film industry that: 'Nobody knows anything.'

The worst of it is that often audiences do not know whether something is good or bad until they learnfrom others, who themselves are scarcely more knowledgeable. It is not quality that dictatessuccess, as one controlled experiment into pop music dramatised. People were given songs theyhad never heard before and, without the influence of any outside guidance, only identified 50 percent of the hits as 'good'. For what counts is the social grapevine, triggered by good reviews, and

especially word of mouth. Thus hit films and hit music are forms of social bubbles, as are hit books.With more than 200,000 titles every year, the social effect in publishing is particularly vital.

There should be no surprise that Rowling was turned down eight times before an inquisitive reader'seye was caught. That made Christopher Little, her literary agent , a very rich man. The readers werelike those in that pop music test. But once Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was publishedto critical acclaim, Rowling had begun to break through the 'nobody knows' barrier. And bytelegraphing there were more books to come, she cleverly laid the bait for each successive book tobecome an even greater event. With the Harry Potter website on top, she has become the uber-

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mistress of the social nature of creative success, showing her profound understanding of how thecreative market works.

Yet of the 325m books snapped up worldwide, only 21m have been sold in Britain. The key to itsglobal success has been the US, where more than one in four Americans over 12 claim to haveseen a Potter movie. This is a second iron rule in the creative industries. No global cultural hit is

possible without prior success in the US - which means it has to be first created in English. HadRowling been French or German she would never have been worth her estimated 545m.

America remains the soft power capital of the world; Potter books are now translated into 65languages, with every national publisher trusting that if the formula works in the US, it must worklocally. And with such universal themes - the struggle of the apparently bumbling Potter against thedark forces of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, cross-cut with magic rituals and the inadequacies ofthe Ministry of Magic - every culture can relate to the plot. From Thailand to Russia kids are copyingthe spells. Fundamental Christians and Muslims alike protest that Harry Potter is a de factointroduction into quasi-satanic rituals. It all adds to the hype.

But talk of China and other less developed countries being able to take on British and Americanleadership in industries such as publishing, as they are allegedly doing in manufacturing, completely

misunderstands the dynamics. It is not just that most cultures are disqualified because they do notspeak English. Generating great creative content requires more than originality; it requires breakingthat nobody-knows-anything dilemma, and that involves massive investment, a capacity to offset themajority of failures, and a whole infrastructure of support including tough copyright and competitionrules. A Chinese single mother trying to do a Rowling and break into the world book market does nothave a chance.

Yet the British cannot be complacent about our creative industry success, as The Work Foundationreport I led on the creative industries, 'Staying Ahead', flagged up. British competition rules permitsupermarkets to wreck the book distribution network so important to publishing, as their disregard forselling the Deathly Hallows at the 17.99 recommended retail price, or even at the price they buy itfor, highlights. Important copyright rules are being allowed to fray, hurting the publishing and musicindustry alike. The distressed EMI is being taken over to be asset-stripped by private equity

company Terra Firma, who will eviscerate the costly networks through which it trawls for new bands,in order to service the massive debt it has incurred. It is much harder now for a small publisher tostay alive than it was for Bloomsbury 10 years ago when it discovered Rowling.

Part of the problem is a reluctance to tackle malfunctioning 'business structures' because that mightbe interpreted as being anti-business. But the greater problem is intellectual. The Potter industry, likeother parts of our creative economy, may be worth billions and have created tens of thousands of

jobs, but it is not down a mine or in a factory, so it feels fluffy. It is not. Britain allowed itsmanufacturing base to wither needlessly quickly. It should not do the same with its creativeindustries.