Harry — yer a wizard

The decision to reread Harry Potter has not been an easy one. To pick up a book that was put down a decade ago, and still expect the same magic is, to say the least, unrealistic. On one hand I simply want to leave the magic alone. But I simply can’t. It’s too fascinating, too tempting.

I am scared that my 19-year old brain is not going to appreciate it the same way my 9-year old brain once did. I’m afraid that the magic disappeared years ago when I was busy growing up. I’m afraid I’ll ruin the magic by re-reading it. I’m scared my sick, fanfiction-ridden brain is going to skew this children’s series.  

I picked up the book with utmost hesitation. Several sleepless hours later, Harry left Diagon Alley, and the thing I thought about most was how woefully inadequate the Chinese translation of the book was. Honestly. The subtlety and the flow of writing…well it’s not completely lost in translation, but many things suddenly made sense. Her puns, stalagmite and stalactite, and all these little things had to be footnoted, because they simply don’t work in other languages.

Throughout the first 4 chapters, I had the weirdest sensation that I am cross-referencing two books. All the nitty gritty things I’ve never understood. I can pinpoint all the details that were poorly translated. Well, once you read a book 14 times, you tend to remember things.

It felt like meeting a friend you have not seen in 10 years. You’re unsure if you grew up differently, if the friend is still the same. Or maybe your own misconceptions are altering your perceptions of said friend. Whatever the case, you really wonder if you guys can remain as friendly and close as before. You pray that the friend matured the same way you did. And that is the magic of literature. It’s not simply a preaching of whatever is on the page. There is a deeper interaction that is a combination of the readers’ minds and the characters’ actions. Interpretation is half of a book’s content, and you can definitely read much, much deeper into Rowling’s characters the second time around.

It’s only been 5 chapters into the book, and it’s still as good as before, if not better. So I simply smile and hope that when I revisit this book in 20, 40, 50 years, I’ll still love it as if I was 9 again.