I'm sorry, I just don't get it

I see that, with all the appropriate fanfare, that the last ever Harry Potter book has been released.

About time.

I’m sorry for taking such a seemingly negative stance, since I’ve never actually read any of the volumes in a series that seems to have been going on for entirely too long. I mean, I just don't get it.

I haven’t read any of them because they are kids’ books, and I actually gave up reading kids’ books back when I – oh -- was a ‘kid,’ for want of a better word. When I stopped being a kid I began to read grown-up books that revolved around the lives of grown-up people doing grown-up things.

But, it’s not fair for me to judge this Harry Potter realm because, as I said. I never read any of them, nor do I intend to read any of them. I mean, I know who Harry Potter is – sort of. He’s a dorky-looking English schoolboy in John Lennon How I Won the War specs, and has a couple of little playmates and there is magic afoot, I understand. I liked that sort of stuff when I was about nine. Sort of before I discovered Mickey Spillane and my fantasy world moved into a different realm.

Oh, and I’ve also heard that Harry Potter dies in this one. Maybe that’s not true, but I heard that. Hope so. Kind of a Gotterdammerung is apt for a series that seems to have gripped a society and has become a multi-gazillion dollar industry. Weird thing when I think of all the amazingly talented writers who struggle daily to keep off the welfare rolls.

Anyway, I have no quarrel with kids becoming Harry Potter obsessed. I hope they’re actually reading the books, and not just watching the movies. Reading is a good thing. I read many fine books when I was a kid. Such things as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Tom Sawyer, The Secret Garden, the Jungle Books, King Arthur and others enchanted me. If I were a kid, I would probably read Harry Potter, too.

But, as I said, I am not a kid. I can be childish, but that’s somewhat different. So, what I don’t get is adults being obsessed with this stuff. It may be well-crafted, though I’m in no position to say, but it’s still just a series of damn books that have captured some sort of popular imagination, and are also hyped in an almost nauseating fashion, so that the arrival of a new volume becomes not a literary event, but a media circus. Somehow I find that profane. But, that’s just me, I guess.

And, why does the author, this J.K. Rowling person, always look so taciturn? She should be grinning from ear-to-ear and having to change her wet undies three times a day just from the excitement of being such a staggering success in an otherwise ruthless business. Yet she looks like either she has stepped in something, or worse, like that scrawny Spice Girl Beckham woman whose face would crack if ever she dared to even smirk. I mean, Ms Rowling has more money than France, all thanks to Harry Potter. The odd “nyah” and cartwheel would be in order, and I would understand.

By the way, there has been outrage in the UK because supermarkets are selling the new Harry Potter for half the price of conventional bookstores. That is apropos of nothing other than to nod in the direction of what an industry this thing has become.

Good on you, Harry. Now shut-up and go away.