So, I just got back from watching the final Harry Potter movie in the series. The experience has me uncommonly nostalgic.
It's been a long journey, from the first book's publication in 1997... I was an awkward middleschool student back then, having just moved to a new life, with new friends, in a new town, with a new father at home. I tried to read the books, finding that I resonated (as many children no doubt did) with the protagonist's struggles at home, before he was swept into the world of Hogwarts. Despite this, and being a sucker for fantasy-adventure stories, another part of me wanted to hate the books.
I'd taken
Robert Frost's words a bit too closely to heart, and found myself pushing away anything that was popular. I was a bit resentful too; with my long brown hair and the round glasses I wore for lectures, I was often teased by kids about my
unfortunate resemblance to Harry. This got a bit worse when young Daniel Radcliffe put a real face to him. Little 12-year-old me damned the day my glasses were smashed up along my forehead, cutting a zig-zagging scrape above my eyebrow, I tell you what.
Many times I would try to read one of the books, at the suggestion of family and friends, or out of curiosity to see what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, my resentment always won out in the end, and I'd set it down for years at a time. I was pressured into seeing the movies as they hit theaters, and admitted to enjoying them; first, as a child with an appreciation for fantasy and adventure, then as an adolescent for those awkward and silly romantic subplots, and most recently as a young man with an interest in good characters and storytelling.
It's 2011. I'm an adult now, and the stories and their films are over. It's a bit sad that, only in the last few years have I come to appreciate the stories for what they were; the fantasy epic of my generation, with a story that has grown and matured alongside me. I wish I could have changed the mind of the quiet, awkward, staunchly independent child I'd been, and convinced him to stick it out and give it a chance, just to be able to share that experience with others while it unfolded. Still, I'm glad to have been around for it, and I thank J.K. Rowling for having written it.
tl;dr It was really good. I'm going to start what I should have started 14 years ago, and read the books.
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