Book Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)

A long time ago -- before Lord Voldemort returned, before anyone had ever heard of Bellatrix LeStrange, before Fred Weasley died, before 30-somethings were writing fan fiction about Snape and Hermione -- Harry Potter books were for children. When the original phenomenon exploded back in the late 1990s, what grabbed everyone's attention was that children were reading these books over and over and over. Girls read them. Even boys -- who were not known to read any fiction other than superheroes and Tolkien -- read them. They didn't just read them. They dressed up like the characters. They bought everything Potter-related they could find. They mobbed stores where J.K. Rowling arrived. No one could remember anything like it. I'm not sure there's ever been anything like it.

And even now, more than 10 years later, the early books in the series still have an uncanny charm. What is hard to remember, in retrospect, is just how original her ideas seemed at the time. Even now, after we've all had over a decade to get used to them, it is extraordinary to see how many ideas she crammed into those early books.

In this book -- the second in the series -- iconic figures and images are introduced on almost every other page. Dobby the House-Elf. The Flying Car. Knockturn Alley. Ginny Weasley. Voldemort's office. Lucious Malfoy. Colin Creevey. Tom Riddle. For those of us who like Harry Potter, we know all of these figures so well, and it is amazing to think that they only appeared so recently.

What we also tend to forget is just how good J.K. Rowling was at capturing the woes of children. Her later books were dominated by concerns we tend to associate with adults -- death and love and war. And those concerns were always latent in the series -- even if they only showed up in the last chapter. But while this book delivers a final showdown that includes a sword, a basilisk, a very creepy diary, and a whole lot of dark magic, most of the story is driven by the sort of things that kids worry about. Harry is grounded. People spread rumors about him. He worries about being expelled. He struggles with his homework. He's afraid of losing the Big Game.

That was the original magic that caused the series to explode. Since Harry Potter, the world's bookshelves have groaned under the weight of countless stories about witches, warlocks, vampires, and goblins. But the Harry Potter books transcended the usual Narnia/Mordor crowd because they appealed to something much older and deeper in all of us -- the experience of childhood, and the joys and wonders of a new school year.

I think the Harry Potter books are the greatest artistic work done by anyone in our generation, and I think it's significant that they center on school. There wasn't a lot of interesting stuff for kids to do in the 1970s. You could read comic books. You could watch sports. You could watch Saturday morning cartoons and old sitcoms in the afternoons. You could play board games or go bowling or play putt-putt. And that was about it. School gave you something to do -- you got out of the house, you got to meet people, you got to show your talents. So it's not surprising that so many of us enjoyed getting on that train, and going back to school.

This book is essential reading for everyone who is not pathologically allergic to kids books, or to stories that involve magic.