Inspired by Aaron's introductory post on the capability of literature to create "ordered possible worlds," a capability best represented by such works of "contemporary medievalism" (that term will need some discussion) as these now under discussion, I thought I'd devote my first post on books I and II to some riffing on this topic. I'm working off of that crucial scene, early in the first book, wherein the extent of Harry's peculiarity first becomes visibly apparent: his conversation with and subsequent unwitting release of the Brazilian boa constrictor in the zoo. This is a vivid, funny, imaginative, thoughtful, subtly constructed scene, exemplary in that regard of qualities that have animated the first two books and will surely continue to animate the rest, but its real secret, for me, lies in the paradox (key to the scene's subtle construction) with which the snake answers Harry's question, "Where do you come from, anyway?" (28) The snake's species is native to Brazil, but "[t]his specimen was bred in the zoo." It comes from a place to which it has never been; its real home is utterly alien to it, while the place most familiar to it is the very place in which it does not belong.
In pointing out this snake's predicament, Rowling also subtly sketches Harry's basic dilemma, a dilemma to which this encounter with the boa constrictor finally begins to awaken him. Harry himself, of course, comes from a place to which he has never been. In these first two novels, at least, Harry is a stranger in two worlds: permanently alienated from the Muggle world, ignorant of and unfamiliar with the wizarding world (except for rare instances of natural and instinctive proclivity, like his innate talent for broomstick riding), and at home nowhere. The skill and narrative economy with which Rowling establishes all this when she mirrors Harry in the boa constrictor he releases itself deserves comment.
This liminal sense of being caught between two worlds and unable to locate oneself unambiguously in either, though, also captures many of the paramount themes of these books, as I see them developing. For example, looking at the novels as quintessential Bildungsromane, the contemporary coming-of-age stories par excellence, the boa constrictor's predicament cuts to the heart of adolescence, that tortured sense of being neither child nor adult, feeling increasingly unsuited to the world one perforce inhabits but knowing little to nothing about the world one is inevitably entering into. (Ugh, now I have that dreadful Britney Spears song echoing in my head.) Or, conversely, from a perspective that might be more relevant to us as mature readers of these books, we might see ourselves inhabiting the zoos (or soul-sucking suburban Privet Drives) of adult life but still feeling that an important part of our identity lies back in that Brazil from which we've been taken and which we might like to revisit, perhaps in order to realize a potential that we once possessed but feel we have squandered. The same sense of liminality, of being caught between equally estranging worlds, also bears on another major theme of these first books, one closely connected to the idea of "apprenticeship" and maturation: death and its acceptance. (Cf. Dumbledore's postulate that "to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure" [Sorcerer's Stone 297].) Once again, the tension lies in negotiating this complex sense of belonging and not belonging here and elsewhere and in escaping or avoiding the state of somebody like Moaning Myrtle, caught inextricably betwixt and between.
I found the scene of the Brazilian boa constrictor to be most illuminating and provocative, however, for what it says about where fantasy itself comes from and what it makes possible. (I am trying to use "fantasy" here, as I will be throughout this conversation, less in its popular/debased sword-and-sorcery connotation, although that's obviously relevant, but as a word for the kind of literary product that most obviously and indirectly achieves what I take to be the underlying desire and function of all imaginative literature: the presentation of an "ordered possible world," or what Tolkien called "sub-creation." In this sense, all literature, even that on the order of Theodore Dreiser or Zola, has something fantastic about it.) It seems to me, in other words, that fantasies such as Rowling's speak to a deep, possibly even innate sense in all of us that the world we inhabit is not the world we were meant to inhabit or that we might wish to inhabit. They speak, that is, to the way in which we all exist in the same kind of liminal, divided condition as the Brazilian boa constrictor or Harry himself. Fantasy expresses our desire to imagine alternatives to our present condition: not in the wish-fulfillment sense of wanting to be able to work spells or ride flying broomsticks (although, hell, I sure would love to do both), but the deeper urge to create visual and verbal artifacts that do not simply mimic but add to the reality we know, and the ability of such artifacts to express what we feel to be truths about ourselves or our condition that are not available to us in our lived experience. Just as both Harry and the boa constrictor know that the truth of their identity lies in a world completely foreign to them, so we come to know ourselves (or feel the need to try to come to know ourselves) through entering into other "possible worlds" diverging at various angles (from the acute angle of most literary fiction to the right angle of outright fantasy) from the possible world we call "actual."
In this regard, Rowling seems to fit squarely into the tradition of twentieth-century literary fantasy as it was developed and theorized by, most prominently, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Both Tolkien and Lewis (building off of similar formulations by predecessors and influences like G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald) describe the ability of "fairy-story"(Tolkien's term) to turn our zoos into Brazils: to reanimate the world we know so as to enable us to desire and value it and relocate ourselves in it in a spirit of wonder, awe, and gratitude (what Tolkien calls the "Recovery" function of fantasy - he sets all of this out in his essay
"On Fairy-Stories"). Lewis, in his autobiography
Surprised by Joy and elsewhere, similarly describes the sensation of "joy" he felt from particularly potent works of fantastic or imaginative literature, a sensation that he felt directing him out of the world of his experience into a different world in which he thought his real identity lay. In mapping out these ideas, both Tolkien and Lewis drew upon medieval philosophical and theological conceptions according to which, as Saint Augustine put it, human beings on earth inhabit the "land of unlikeness," a fallen world that claims us but to which we do not belong. The world we know alienates us from our real selves, distracting the desire that constitutes our essential subjectivity from its natural goal and end, God, and replacing that supreme Good with mortal, temporary, and inadequate goods.
By the time it gets to Rowling, this idea has largely lost its explicitly Christian articulation and interpretation (I seem to recall hearing or coming across some very disparaging words by Rowling about Lewis in particular - anyone know more about that?), but I think Rowling, in her scene with the Brazilian boa constrictor and Harry, trades on a similar conception of what being in the world entails. And she advances a similar strategy to that of Tolkien and Lewis for familiarizing the land of unlikeness: the ability of the magic of narrative and of the creation of ordered possible worlds to express the truths of our identity and condition that seem to elude us in the phenomenal world.
Anyway, enough rambling for now. I'll look forward to discussing this and other matters tonight.
