Final Word on the Issue — J.K. Rowling is Good for Books

Posted on December 15th, 2007 by Carlos

I was just on the site where Amazon has posted pictures of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which the company purchased for circa $4 million Amurrikan dollars. For those who have been comatose for the last year, Rowling made seven hand-written, personally-illustrated versions of this book. Six have been scattered throughout the Earth, but the seventh was sold via auction a few days ago. Ostensibly, the purpose was to raise money for The Children’s Voice campaign, certainly a worthwhile cause in and of itself. But I suspect there is another purpose here. I suspect Rowling chose this specific way to raise money for charity to foster in this generation a belief in the magic of books.

Look at the cover. There is no mention of her name, nor any marketing blurbs, nor any words at all. Instead, there is a silver (pewter?) skull with jeweled eyes looking back at you. The book clasps shut; it cannot be accidentally opened; cracking it open is an act of volition. The pen sketches that surround the pages we can see on the site are vaguely reminiscent of medieval illustration, with curving vines and flowers around the borders. Notice the care with which the begloved Southeby’s employee pages through the book, which, when it is not being handled thusly, it is encased in class.

Get it? J.K. Rowling created a magic book. This is the kind of book that would be worthy of a fantasy novel: extremely valuable, extremely rare, and couched in a great mythology (in this case, a mythology of her own creation!). Granted, I doubt the book will give its owner preternatural powers, but what it has done is, in our very own unmagical, over mugglified world is create a sense of wonder, mystery, and fantasy about a book as an object. Books are valuable. Books are marvelous (”full of marvels”). Books are worthy of great care, of veneration.

Books can fetch fucking $4 million at Southeby’s.

So we’re done. Okay? Issue resolved. J.K. Rowling is very good for books. No other writer alive, an very few of the dead ones, has done as much for books. Perhaps reading for pleasure will truly die out in the fast-approaching future: but that won’t happen so long as there are people alive who can look back with nostalgia at the Harry Potter series.

And now she’s found a way to make magic books in a muggle’s world. Anyone who isn’t interested to see what Rowling is going to do next doesn’t love books. Case closed.

(Private note to J.K.: Please stop suing people who create competing encyclopedias of your world. That’s just silly and makes you look bad. Your sales will not be affected — FSM, you think you would have learned that by now!)