Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Rereading Harry Potter as an adult and finding it difficult

283 replies

Dasisr · 06/08/2023 10:41

Obsessed with Harry Potter as a teenager but finding it a difficult read as an adult. How badly he is treated by the Dursleys. How deprived of love he was and in later books how he was kept away from his friends/family. All the death of loved ones he had to witness. Honestly finding it tough to get through. AIBU or anyone else the same?

OP posts:
SpidersAreShitheads · 06/08/2023 17:32

Dragonwindow · 06/08/2023 16:54

Maybe I'm forgetting some? The only other overweight characters I think of just now:

Mrs Wesley. Pleasantly plump, mumsy figure, obviously firmly a "goodie". But sometimes referred to as "dumpy".

Horace Slughorn. Pompous, weak. Grown fat from too many years stuffing down crystallised pineapple from suck-up students.

Crabbe and Goyle. Gorilla-like, stupid, oafish henchmen. See also Millicent Bullstrode who has a "large, square build" and who is a bully.

Delores Umbridge. Small and squat, like a toad.

(Hagrid? Is he overweight, or just half giant?)

It's not that being fat makes them unfortunate/unpleasant, or vice versa, it's just that the two things nearly always seem to go hand in hand.

Show quote history

I wouldn't necessarily view all of those descriptions as fat though?

A square build, for example, could be muscular and powerful. Bullies would obviously be large and intimidating because they'd need to be able to overpower their target, if needed. But large doesn't mean fat?

There are other witches/wizards who are described in less than flattering terms - like Professor Sprout who is dumpy but also described as extremely maternal and loyal.

Also, lots of the unpleasant characters in the book are thin and bony - Filch, Snape, Bellatrix, Voldemort etc.

I think too much significance is being placed on the weight of the characters. In many cases it's just a physical descriptor, nothing more. There are just as many unpleasant thin characters as there are fat characters, arguably more!

garlictwist · 06/08/2023 17:46

I thought this when I reread Goodnight Mr Tom as an adult. Some really gruelling stuff that went over my head when I read it as a child.

stuckdownahole · 06/08/2023 17:55

For me the bit that's impossible to get through now is the scene when Harry and friends visit Mr Weasley in the magical hospital. They bump into Neville who is visiting his parents, who are permanently brain damaged from being tortured.

As Neville goes to leave, his mother presses something into his hand. It's a piece of rubbish, an empty sweet wrapper, but he is absolutely desperate to see this as an expression of genuine parental love. Of course he's being chaperoned by his gruff old grandmother, who tells him to pull himself together. Absolutely heartbreaking.

These and other moments make you realise that several of the main characters (those who aren't schoolkids) fought in a war and are now traumatised. It's very skilfully rendered because for many of the characters their motivations are not revealed until later in the series.

AppleKatie · 06/08/2023 18:00

Absolutely Neville is depicted as effectively worse off than an orphan.

when he is younger he loses things and forgets things - I always put that down to him being immature and lacking in parental guidance (after all hogwarts kids do have to look after themselves to quite an extraordinary degree if you think about the pastoral care on offer at school it does leave a fair amount to be desired!).

Feckless thought means: lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible. That he absolutely isn’t - as is shown in every book from PS onwards.

stuckdownahole · 06/08/2023 18:07

I think the other aspect of Neville's cluelessness is that although he loves his grandmother and vice versa, he's frightened of her. He's anxious about getting things wrong and is in a permanent semi-panic.

Tanaria · 06/08/2023 18:15

LeonardCohensRaincoat · 06/08/2023 13:58

On a slightly different note, does anyone miss the days of childhood where you were completely absorbed in a book’s magical world ?

I would read constantly and I just loved it - I loved the stories, I loved the ‘worlds’, the characters, the events and all the unusual things that existed but I think mostly it was the agency of the main characters - how they encountered a difficulty, knew they had to do something, felt fearful but did it anyway. I always felt those books were somehow instructional for the real world.

I also think that the focus on criticism here is a bit misaligned - there is no point looking for holes in a story about wizards and magic - the whole point is that it’s a fictitious world, but are the events plausible within that world, do the characters act consistently within the plot? This is literary criticism, to me

I do remember thinking at the time they were written for film, not reading - they are, imv, badly written and as someone else said, entirely forgettable once read (although the volume is huge)

You can still get absorbed in a book's magical system as an adult :) May I recommend Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series as a good start? A different magic system, but so well-written!

cinnamonfrenchtoast · 06/08/2023 18:19

It's not that being fat makes them unfortunate/unpleasant, or vice versa, it's just that the two things nearly always seem to go hand in hand.

But this ignores the fact that almost all the leading "evil" characters are skinny @Dragonwindow.

Off the top of my head - Voldemort, Bellatrix, Lucius Malfoy, Barty Crouch Jr, Snape, Dumbledore (who's not as nice as he first appeared), Igor Karkaroff - all skinny and arguably much more sinister and unpleasant than Dudley Dursley and Millicent Bulstrode.

SpidersAreShitheads · 06/08/2023 18:27

Tanaria · 06/08/2023 18:15

You can still get absorbed in a book's magical system as an adult :) May I recommend Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series as a good start? A different magic system, but so well-written!

Show quote history

@Tanaria - oooh! I hadn't heard of this series!! I've just had a quick google and it looks fabulous - thank you so much for the recommendation!

LeonardCohensRaincoat · 06/08/2023 19:14

@Tanaria

oh great, I’ll look out for this👍

LimeCheesecake · 06/08/2023 19:24

For those saying it’s difficult to read - do any of your kids schools do the accelerated reader scheme? All book on the scheme are assessed and given a level, this is on complexity of language and length of sentences etc, not content.

The Harry Potter series comes out higher than most other books aimed at KS2 or KS3. You do need quite a high reading age/level to be able to properly read them. Most popular books aimed at a young adult audience need a lower reading age/level.

it surprised me as I always think of it as a book series for end of primary kids, but many won’t have the reading ability at that stage.

Notbeinfunnehbut · 06/08/2023 19:50

I’m not just targeting JKR with the descriptions of fat people in her books

the likes of Roald Dahl etc are terrible offenders of this

husbandcallsmepickle · 06/08/2023 19:56

NetZeroZealot · 06/08/2023 13:33

I struggle to read it because it's so badly written.

You do realise it's written for children

NetZeroZealot · 06/08/2023 20:01

husbandcallsmepickle · 06/08/2023 19:56

You do realise it's written for children

Show quote history

Er, yes.

All the more reason to expect it to be well written.

She's the Enid Blyton of her time.

Good stories, crap writing.

SpidersAreShitheads · 06/08/2023 20:10

NetZeroZealot · 06/08/2023 20:01

Er, yes.

All the more reason to expect it to be well written.

She's the Enid Blyton of her time.

Good stories, crap writing.

Show quote history

Can you expand on what you mean please?

Badly written could refer to any number of things, so it would be interesting to see what specifically you thought was so poor.

Also, just for complete transparency, this isn't a disingenuous question where I'm trying to catch you out. I loved the HP books, and nothing jumped out as poorly written. I'm interested to see what I might have overlooked.

maratara · 06/08/2023 23:59

SpidersAreShitheads · 06/08/2023 20:10

Can you expand on what you mean please?

Badly written could refer to any number of things, so it would be interesting to see what specifically you thought was so poor.

Also, just for complete transparency, this isn't a disingenuous question where I'm trying to catch you out. I loved the HP books, and nothing jumped out as poorly written. I'm interested to see what I might have overlooked.

Show quote history

Me too.
I'd like some examples of the "poor prose".

TeenDivided · 07/08/2023 06:56

I don't think it matters whether or not it is 'poor prose'. It doesn't need to be beautifully crafted with wonderful descriptive phrases or superb dialogue or whatever.
It has a cracking good plot in a wonderful world that has inspired reading in nearly 30 years of children. That's what matters.

(Though I have to say I don't really understand why parents read HP aloud to their children, I don't see the rush. Let them come to it aged 10-12 when they can read it for themselves)

bruffin · 07/08/2023 08:03

TeenDivided · 07/08/2023 06:56

I don't think it matters whether or not it is 'poor prose'. It doesn't need to be beautifully crafted with wonderful descriptive phrases or superb dialogue or whatever.
It has a cracking good plot in a wonderful world that has inspired reading in nearly 30 years of children. That's what matters.

(Though I have to say I don't really understand why parents read HP aloud to their children, I don't see the rush. Let them come to it aged 10-12 when they can read it for themselves)

Totally agree with @TeenDivided . I came to HP as an adult as did my DM and DSIS , its no different to any other "fairy story" I like books that create a world for me to disappear into. My DC read them from 9 , 10 years old although they saw the films from younger.
My DS was a very bright dyslexic and he read them with a ruler under each line to keep track. HP are the books that got him reading!

mosiacmaker · 07/08/2023 08:06

10HailMarys · 06/08/2023 11:11

What other books have you read as an adult? Have you never read books where bad things happen to people?

I wouldn’t recommend you try A Little Life.

Omg imagine 🤣 that book is now a play, which I have no interest in seeing. Still haunted by a particular scene.

TeenDivided · 07/08/2023 08:12

In the same way that David Walliams moved my DD off Horrid Henry, HP moved her off David Walliams.

(Interestingly with respect to the OP, my DDs are both adopted, eldest was pushing 8. Neither seemed at all impacted by the neglect/abuse of HP by the Dursleys.)

JaukiVexnoydi · 07/08/2023 08:19

Yanbu. I was already an adult when they first came out and I thought it was awful how such child-abuse was just related as matter-of-fact without being challenged. It made it really difficult to enjoy the books. However a friend of mine who actually writes YA fiction explained it to me that the teen mind needs these kinds of scenarios in a "safe" fantasy environment which is far enough removed from reality to know it wouldn't really happen, in order to "rehearse" thinking about dealing with challenges when you can't default to the grownups sorting it out. I still find sone passages upsetting though.

bryceQ · 07/08/2023 08:25

I love it still even as an adult. First read when I was 11. I don't find it poor prose I think it's a great story and it's so nostalgic for me. I re-read them all during long nights with my newborn. It was lovely

teaandtoastwithmarmite · 07/08/2023 08:28

The saddest thing I found was 'spoiler alert'

When Hedwig dies. Honestly that floored me

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 07/08/2023 09:23

Good lord, what a pompously twatty article.

Highdaysandholidays1 · 07/08/2023 09:40

I read a lot of books and write for a living (academic boring work, not JKR brilliance). What I mean by the poorer prose is that when I'm reading it I'm conscious it's not very well written, lots of boring bits, descriptors quite banal. JKR doesn't have a turn of phrase that impresses me as a reader. I found reading it aloud to one of my children almost impossible, it's just not a book meant to be read aloud (IMO) and is better left to the age they want to read it themselves.

I am impressed by so much else about JKR's world-building, great characters, plots, the whole imagination on display and that's why I don't dislike HP.

I get for lots of people this is their childhood. It's not me or my children's childhood (me too old, them too young) and so perhaps we don't see it in the same magical way, although we are loving rewatching the films as a family.

you don't have to agree, it's just my opinion!