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One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter
One of the most beloved stories in history, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series topped the best-seller charts, inspired the highest-grossing film series of all time, and has now become a $250 million Universal Studio theme park. What is it about this story that has ignited such fandom and struck such a chord with people around the world? As English professor, culture critic, and Potter devotee Greg Garrett explains, these novels not only entertain but teach deeply held truths about ourselves, others, and the world around us. Unlocking the textual intricacies behind the Harry Potter narrative, Garrett reveals Rowling's magical formula--one that, he contends, earns her a place right next to the literary giants of old.
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 2, 2010
About the author
Greg Garrett
43 books75 followersGreg Garrett is the Austin, Texas author of two dozen books of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and translation. Like his literary heroes James Baldwin and Marilynne Robinson, Greg moves fluidly from fiction to nonfiction exploring the big human questions, and in his books, hoping to help his readers discover some answers of their own. Among his latest books are a book of conversation with his friend Rowan Williams, the past Archbishop of Canterbury (In Conversation), a lead trade title from Oxford University Press exploring our post-9/11 obsession with the zombie apocalypse (Living with the Living Dead, Starred Review in Library Journal), the tenth-anniversary edition of his searing yet hopeful memoir of depression and faith (Crossing Myself, featured on FOX News), and a novel retelling one of our great archetypal stories in the modern world of 24/7 news and social media (The Prodigal, Starred Review in Publishers Weekly). Greg's debut novel, Free Bird, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a First Fiction feature, and the Denver Rocky Mountain News named it one of the best first novels of 2002. His other novels are Cycling and Shame. All have been critically acclaimed.
Greg is perhaps best known for his writing on faith, culture, race, politics, and narrative. BBC Radio has called Greg "one of America's leading voices on religion and culture," and he has written on topics ranging from spirituality and suffering to film and pop culture, written on U2, Harry Potter, American politics, and contemporary faith and practice. Greg's nonfiction work has been covered by The New Yorker, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, FOX News Radio, The Christian Science Monitor, BBC Radio, BBC Scotland, National Public Radio, CBS Radio, msnbc.com, DublinTalk Radio, The New Statesman, The National Review, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Vice, Playboy, Mens Health, and many other broadcast, print, and web media sources. Greg has written for Salon.com, The Washington Post, The Daily Mirror, Patheos, FOX News, The Huffington Post, The Spectator, Reform, The Tablet, and other print and web publications in the US and UK, and has spoken across the US and Europe, including appearances at the Edinburgh Festival of Books, the American Library in Paris, Cambridge University, Kings College London, Villanova University, Amerika Haus in Munich, the Greenbelt Festival in the UK, Google London, South by Southwest, Amerika Days in Stuttgart, and the Washington National Cathedral. Greg's current projects are a literary novel set in Paris against the backdrop of international terrorism, a book on race, film, and reconciliation for Oxford University Press, and a book on the wisdom of James Baldwin.
Greg is an award-winning Professor of English at Baylor University, Theologian in Residence at the American Cathedral in Paris, and an elected member of the Texas Institute of Letters. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Jeanie and their daughters Lily and Sophia.
Greg is perhaps best known for his writing on faith, culture, race, politics, and narrative. BBC Radio has called Greg "one of America's leading voices on religion and culture," and he has written on topics ranging from spirituality and suffering to film and pop culture, written on U2, Harry Potter, American politics, and contemporary faith and practice. Greg's nonfiction work has been covered by The New Yorker, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, FOX News Radio, The Christian Science Monitor, BBC Radio, BBC Scotland, National Public Radio, CBS Radio, msnbc.com, DublinTalk Radio, The New Statesman, The National Review, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Vice, Playboy, Mens Health, and many other broadcast, print, and web media sources. Greg has written for Salon.com, The Washington Post, The Daily Mirror, Patheos, FOX News, The Huffington Post, The Spectator, Reform, The Tablet, and other print and web publications in the US and UK, and has spoken across the US and Europe, including appearances at the Edinburgh Festival of Books, the American Library in Paris, Cambridge University, Kings College London, Villanova University, Amerika Haus in Munich, the Greenbelt Festival in the UK, Google London, South by Southwest, Amerika Days in Stuttgart, and the Washington National Cathedral. Greg's current projects are a literary novel set in Paris against the backdrop of international terrorism, a book on race, film, and reconciliation for Oxford University Press, and a book on the wisdom of James Baldwin.
Greg is an award-winning Professor of English at Baylor University, Theologian in Residence at the American Cathedral in Paris, and an elected member of the Texas Institute of Letters. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Jeanie and their daughters Lily and Sophia.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 17, 2013
In my duplex review of two religious interpretations of Harry Potter, I wrapped up with a list of additional books covering the criticism of Harry Potter from a religious or mythical point of view. One reason I didn't include this book on that list was that, at the time, I wasn't sure it had anything to do with religion; another is that I had it on my shelf. An Advance Reading Copy, in fact, dating back to before the book's release in October 2010. I only remembered that it was stuck in some shadowy corner of my bookcase while I was looking up the other books on the list. And so, very belatedly, I decided to unstick it and give it a try. And now I wish it had been Greg Garrett that I had put over against Rik Potter in the grudge-match between Christian and Wiccan interpretations of the Harry Potter series.
Unlike the Anglican priest who wrote Harry Potter: A Christian Chronicle, Greg Garrett seems to be only a churchgoing Episcopalian layman. "Only" indeed! For he is also an award-winning novelist and a professor of English at Baylor University. He has been a nominee for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. He writes a theology blog for The Christian Century . And he wrote this book in part while doing graduate-level research in homiletics (i.e., how to preach) at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest and at Washington National Cathedral. He is also a lay preacher, a musician, a leader of writing workshops and retreats, and the father of two boys. Besides his novels Cycling and Free Bird, his novella Minuet and other short fictions, he has also written two memoirs, a book about the theology of grief, a paraphrase of the entire Bible titled The Voice, and book-length studies of the religious baggage in The Matrix, superhero comics, and Hollywood.
I lay out these impressive credentials first, rather than at the end of my review where I would usually put them, because they suggest Dr. Garrett may have a perspective on Harry Potter that is worth taking in. I, however, took it in without knowing most of this; and I was very impressed. Perhaps if I had known three years ago that this wasn't just another appreciation of the literary qualities of Harry Potter by someone with just enough education to make it painful to read, I wouldn't have waited three years to be impressed, and this review might have been of some service. With regret that I let that chance go by, all I can say now is: If every Christian friend of Harry Potter reading this review goes to Amazon and buys this book, not only will they find it worthwhile, but the bump in sales will be directly traceable to me! (*evil laughter*)
Yes, this book is at least partly a defense of Harry Potter against the flavor of Christianity that condemns the series because it contains magic and witchcraft, and thereby serves Satan. And yes, even some of its best points are covered by Sonia Falaschi-Ray in her straightforwardly organized but badly-written attempt to do the same. Seeing Harry described as a literary Christ-figure was no surprise. When Greg Garrett does this, the surprise is how compellingly he makes his case, and how completely his evidence fits. Even though this is ground that many writers have covered before—and Garrett often quotes them, as well as J. K. Rowling herself, as he goes over it—it breaks before one's eyes like a fresh news story that has never been "scooped": J. K. R. held back from revealing too much about her Christian convictions before she published Deathly Hallows, because she didn't want to give away the ending of her story. A story that, Garrett argues, is basically about sacrificial love, death and resurrection, and the hope of a better world to come.
Garrett says his book could have been much longer than it is. He condenses his material into a four-fold structure based on a medieval approach to reading the Bible. First the literal meaning concerns what the story means on its own terms. Then at the allegorical we consider the story's deeper, philosophical significance. The tropological meaning touches on what it prompts us to do and how it inspires us to live. And the anagogical level tells how the story resonates beyond our present life, into the future. So in four interconnected but complete-in-themselves essays, Garrett makes a tightly-written, carefully argued case that Harry Potter, far from being a Satanic manual of forbidden magic, is a fantasy story shaped by the Christian faith. The magic simply provides the operating framework for the story to hang on; the story itself follows the pattern of the essential Gospel narrative of a prophesied savior offering himself as a sacrificial victim for love of the world.
The first essay, on the literal level of interpretation, examines how fantasy and magic have been used particularly by Christian authors, such as George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien—a trio that Garrett mentions almost as often as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He distances the magic world of Harry Potter from gnostic ideas of a superior, spiritual realm of secret knowledge. The magic world is just as flawed and troubled as the Muggle realm. In fact it has the same exact problems. The magical conceits of the Harry Potter series enable J. K. R. to sneak her message about the problems in our world (particularly related to the use and abuse of power) past the sleeping dragons of our argument-proof pieties and untested assumptions. To put it perhaps in different language, Rowling uses imaginary wonders to create a sense of distance between her message and the real-world problems it addresses. This rhetorical cushion makes her critique less painfully jarring, more likely to change minds that would not retreat one inch from a head-on attack.
Second, in his allegorical reading of Harry Potter, Garrett delves into the way Harry's experiences in the wizarding world represent the power of community. It is only as he enters Hogwarts that Harry learns what it feels like to have a family—in spite of a previous decade of living with his only surviving relatives. The communities Harry joins—the Hogwarts student body, Gryffindor House, Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, and ultimately the Weasley family—are his focus for learning and being formed as a right-living human being. In them, Harry finds love and belonging, and strives for justice and tolerance—things essential to community.
Third, on the tropological level, Garrett examines the nature of heroism and the conflict between good and evil. Harry learns early on that fame, or celebrity, is fickle and basically meaningless. But being a hero is quite different from being famous. Harry's heroic instinct, what Hermione memorably calls his "saving-people thing," does sometimes lead him into trouble. But as it develops under the mentoring and example of Dumbledore and others, it makes possible the only thing that can destroy Voldemort: Harry's willingness to die for the world.
And finally, in the anagogical chapter, Garrett discusses the importance of happy endings in fairy tales and any literature influenced by Christian thought. The expectation that things will be better by and by, the sudden reversal from bad toward good (which Tolkien called "eucatastrophe"), is essential equipment not only for making a story satisfying, but for making life endurable. Everything in the Harry Potter series leads, and must lead, to the sentence J. K. Rowling chose to conclude it: "All is well."
Of course there is much more to what Garrett says than this. He goes into some depth on the theme of repentance (or as Harry and Hermione put it, remorse). He discusses the fact that the world is not divided between good people and Death Eaters, that there is evil within even very good people. He touches on some Christ-figures besides Harry, and on Trinitarian imagery within the Harry Potter canon. He makes explicit Rowling's implied criticism of the systemic evils of our time, such as prejudice and the use of torture "for the greater good." And while his dependence on certain contemporary theologians may lead some Christians to spot weaknesses in his theology, Garrett concludes very persuasively that, although the Harry Potter books ultimately exist to tell their own story and not to convert anyone to Christianity, they are shaped by their author's intent by the pattern of the Christian story. To J. K. Rowling this is, perhaps, only because she recognized that as a powerful story-shape. And other interpretations are certainly possible, including religious ones (such as Rik Potter's Wiccan reading). But the author's intention counts for something, and if nothing else, it should clear the Harryiad of the spurious charge of being a gateway to the occult.
Unlike the Anglican priest who wrote Harry Potter: A Christian Chronicle, Greg Garrett seems to be only a churchgoing Episcopalian layman. "Only" indeed! For he is also an award-winning novelist and a professor of English at Baylor University. He has been a nominee for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. He writes a theology blog for The Christian Century . And he wrote this book in part while doing graduate-level research in homiletics (i.e., how to preach) at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest and at Washington National Cathedral. He is also a lay preacher, a musician, a leader of writing workshops and retreats, and the father of two boys. Besides his novels Cycling and Free Bird, his novella Minuet and other short fictions, he has also written two memoirs, a book about the theology of grief, a paraphrase of the entire Bible titled The Voice, and book-length studies of the religious baggage in The Matrix, superhero comics, and Hollywood.
I lay out these impressive credentials first, rather than at the end of my review where I would usually put them, because they suggest Dr. Garrett may have a perspective on Harry Potter that is worth taking in. I, however, took it in without knowing most of this; and I was very impressed. Perhaps if I had known three years ago that this wasn't just another appreciation of the literary qualities of Harry Potter by someone with just enough education to make it painful to read, I wouldn't have waited three years to be impressed, and this review might have been of some service. With regret that I let that chance go by, all I can say now is: If every Christian friend of Harry Potter reading this review goes to Amazon and buys this book, not only will they find it worthwhile, but the bump in sales will be directly traceable to me! (*evil laughter*)
Yes, this book is at least partly a defense of Harry Potter against the flavor of Christianity that condemns the series because it contains magic and witchcraft, and thereby serves Satan. And yes, even some of its best points are covered by Sonia Falaschi-Ray in her straightforwardly organized but badly-written attempt to do the same. Seeing Harry described as a literary Christ-figure was no surprise. When Greg Garrett does this, the surprise is how compellingly he makes his case, and how completely his evidence fits. Even though this is ground that many writers have covered before—and Garrett often quotes them, as well as J. K. Rowling herself, as he goes over it—it breaks before one's eyes like a fresh news story that has never been "scooped": J. K. R. held back from revealing too much about her Christian convictions before she published Deathly Hallows, because she didn't want to give away the ending of her story. A story that, Garrett argues, is basically about sacrificial love, death and resurrection, and the hope of a better world to come.
Garrett says his book could have been much longer than it is. He condenses his material into a four-fold structure based on a medieval approach to reading the Bible. First the literal meaning concerns what the story means on its own terms. Then at the allegorical we consider the story's deeper, philosophical significance. The tropological meaning touches on what it prompts us to do and how it inspires us to live. And the anagogical level tells how the story resonates beyond our present life, into the future. So in four interconnected but complete-in-themselves essays, Garrett makes a tightly-written, carefully argued case that Harry Potter, far from being a Satanic manual of forbidden magic, is a fantasy story shaped by the Christian faith. The magic simply provides the operating framework for the story to hang on; the story itself follows the pattern of the essential Gospel narrative of a prophesied savior offering himself as a sacrificial victim for love of the world.
The first essay, on the literal level of interpretation, examines how fantasy and magic have been used particularly by Christian authors, such as George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien—a trio that Garrett mentions almost as often as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He distances the magic world of Harry Potter from gnostic ideas of a superior, spiritual realm of secret knowledge. The magic world is just as flawed and troubled as the Muggle realm. In fact it has the same exact problems. The magical conceits of the Harry Potter series enable J. K. R. to sneak her message about the problems in our world (particularly related to the use and abuse of power) past the sleeping dragons of our argument-proof pieties and untested assumptions. To put it perhaps in different language, Rowling uses imaginary wonders to create a sense of distance between her message and the real-world problems it addresses. This rhetorical cushion makes her critique less painfully jarring, more likely to change minds that would not retreat one inch from a head-on attack.
Second, in his allegorical reading of Harry Potter, Garrett delves into the way Harry's experiences in the wizarding world represent the power of community. It is only as he enters Hogwarts that Harry learns what it feels like to have a family—in spite of a previous decade of living with his only surviving relatives. The communities Harry joins—the Hogwarts student body, Gryffindor House, Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, and ultimately the Weasley family—are his focus for learning and being formed as a right-living human being. In them, Harry finds love and belonging, and strives for justice and tolerance—things essential to community.
Third, on the tropological level, Garrett examines the nature of heroism and the conflict between good and evil. Harry learns early on that fame, or celebrity, is fickle and basically meaningless. But being a hero is quite different from being famous. Harry's heroic instinct, what Hermione memorably calls his "saving-people thing," does sometimes lead him into trouble. But as it develops under the mentoring and example of Dumbledore and others, it makes possible the only thing that can destroy Voldemort: Harry's willingness to die for the world.
And finally, in the anagogical chapter, Garrett discusses the importance of happy endings in fairy tales and any literature influenced by Christian thought. The expectation that things will be better by and by, the sudden reversal from bad toward good (which Tolkien called "eucatastrophe"), is essential equipment not only for making a story satisfying, but for making life endurable. Everything in the Harry Potter series leads, and must lead, to the sentence J. K. Rowling chose to conclude it: "All is well."
Of course there is much more to what Garrett says than this. He goes into some depth on the theme of repentance (or as Harry and Hermione put it, remorse). He discusses the fact that the world is not divided between good people and Death Eaters, that there is evil within even very good people. He touches on some Christ-figures besides Harry, and on Trinitarian imagery within the Harry Potter canon. He makes explicit Rowling's implied criticism of the systemic evils of our time, such as prejudice and the use of torture "for the greater good." And while his dependence on certain contemporary theologians may lead some Christians to spot weaknesses in his theology, Garrett concludes very persuasively that, although the Harry Potter books ultimately exist to tell their own story and not to convert anyone to Christianity, they are shaped by their author's intent by the pattern of the Christian story. To J. K. Rowling this is, perhaps, only because she recognized that as a powerful story-shape. And other interpretations are certainly possible, including religious ones (such as Rik Potter's Wiccan reading). But the author's intention counts for something, and if nothing else, it should clear the Harryiad of the spurious charge of being a gateway to the occult.
October 23, 2011
"ONE FINE POTION" BY GREG GARRETT
Greg Garrett expresses the literary magic of Harry Potter with a magic all his own in this book. After so many years J.K. Rowling's beloved series has had almost as many critics as it has had its die-hard fans. This book explains primarily one of the biggest controversies of all, Harry Potter and Christianity.
There have always been those that condemned the books for their darkness, and witchcraft without realizing the light and good. The point being well made that all books have some dark and light including such works by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, which were both held in some respects as representing a likeness to the struggle of Christianity and the never ending battle between God and the Devil.
This book is a fantastic read without the dull undertones that would deem it an emotionless documentary.
A truly great read, deserving of 5 Ravens.
Kitty Bullard / Great Minds Think Aloud / http://www.greatmindsliterarycommunit...
Read more: http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.probo...
Greg Garrett expresses the literary magic of Harry Potter with a magic all his own in this book. After so many years J.K. Rowling's beloved series has had almost as many critics as it has had its die-hard fans. This book explains primarily one of the biggest controversies of all, Harry Potter and Christianity.
There have always been those that condemned the books for their darkness, and witchcraft without realizing the light and good. The point being well made that all books have some dark and light including such works by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, which were both held in some respects as representing a likeness to the struggle of Christianity and the never ending battle between God and the Devil.
This book is a fantastic read without the dull undertones that would deem it an emotionless documentary.
A truly great read, deserving of 5 Ravens.
Kitty Bullard / Great Minds Think Aloud / http://www.greatmindsliterarycommunit...
Read more: http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.probo...
January 24, 2011
Almost as good as reading Harry Potter books is reading books about Harry Potter books! A great look at the deeper themes that allows Harry to take hold in our lives!
November 7, 2011
This book confirmed some of my thoughts about Harry Potter and its significance. Why aren't we using Harry Potter as a tool to teach about myths and heroes? I know my students would appreciate it.
September 4, 2018
I was so glad to find this book at my library. I had heard Greg Garrett speak at Seminary of the Southwest about connecting superheroes’ stories to faith so I was interested to read his thoughts on Harry Potter. This book was so much better than expected, I am going to have to add it to my “to buy” list so I can refer to it in the future. He does a great job of showing the religious themes in the books. I do wish there had been less about the people that thought the books were evil before the final book wrapped up the Christian themes so thoroughly. But I guess some people may need to understand the controversy in order to understand how to refute it. I really enjoyed all the different connections that were made but especially at the end about the bodily resurrection that is depicted in the story. The references to the great theologians N. T. Wright and Rowan Williams made the book even better.
December 22, 2022
This suffers from a very misleading title and back-cover blurb, as it’s not so much a literary dissection of Harry Potter as it is a religious one. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not what I was prepared for. The author goes off on long religious tangents that can come across as incredibly preachy, and the entire last half of the book reads like one long sermon.
The sections that aren’t about religion are extremely surface-level discussions of literary devices, and there’s a lot of summarising—almost as if Garrett is writing for readers who have never picked up a Harry Potter book. His writing is also very dull; the book feels like one long college essay by a first-year English student who needed to reach a word count.
It’s just very, very basic stuff. If you’re a longtime Harry Potter fan, give this one a miss, because it’s all things you’ve heard before, and heard in more interesting ways.
The sections that aren’t about religion are extremely surface-level discussions of literary devices, and there’s a lot of summarising—almost as if Garrett is writing for readers who have never picked up a Harry Potter book. His writing is also very dull; the book feels like one long college essay by a first-year English student who needed to reach a word count.
It’s just very, very basic stuff. If you’re a longtime Harry Potter fan, give this one a miss, because it’s all things you’ve heard before, and heard in more interesting ways.
October 15, 2023
It dwells too much on the Christian influence of the HP story (made me scan rather than read quite a few pages because of this). I disliked the tone and message it adopted in the final pages; very preachy-like. Overall, I was expecting an analysis on more themes and issues of the books, instead of a too-deep analysis of a couple ones (mainly religion). I don't recommend this book if you're looking for an essay on how Rowling constructed the world and storynof HP.
August 14, 2011
The mark of a great book discussing the Harry Potter books, especially if, like me, you have kept abreast of the current Potter scholarship, is that you learn something knew or see the Potter books in a new light. Greg Garrett's book is exactly this sort of book, and I might even say it is best introduction, for the reader new to the theology of Harry Potter, yet written. Garrett gave me new eyes to see in many places, or approached the Potter books from a fresh angle.
This is not, of course, to say there is no crossover with other good books of Christian scholarship. That's pretty much inevitable, but out of all the books I've read before, this one reads like a rounded whole, and stands easily on its own, a self-contained work. This is very much the place to start.
Garrett approaches the Potter books using the four levels of interpretation popularized in the Middle Ages, a tradition that is rushing back into Christian scholarship (Peter Leithart has written extensively on the Medieval four levels in his book Deep Exegesis), and tackles the magic in the books, the morality, the way they build community and friendship, and then finally, the anagogiccal level of reading the book as a means of theological meaning for our own lives. This approach was highly effective and not bothersome at all.
In fact, there is almost nothing to complain about in the book. Garrett is sufficiently a fan of the books that even into the deep details he shows a familiarity and grasp of the material and its deeper implications. The only trouble I had was in the final chapter, when he argued that Harry was a Christ-figure and Dumbledore the representation of the Holy Spirit. I don't think he meant to imply that Harry was the same sort of Christ-figure as, say, Aslan, but Christians are so used to seeing a Christ-figure as Jesus-in-story-form that it is dangerous to even make mention of it. The reality is that Harry is not Aslan, Harry is Frodo, a Christian-figure. He does not stand for God or Christ, but for the journey of the Christian Everyman walking the way of the cross. Harry is us, not Jesus.
Even more strained a reading, however, is that of Dumbledore as the Holy Spirit. While Garrett does reveal some interesting parallels, I found his defense for the most part to be a stretch of the material. Dumbledore is too much a flawed character to truly represent God in any form; the text suggests to us that Dumbledore represents the Wise Mentor, Harry's Confessor, and therefore stands as a symbol of the Church. Like the Church, Dumbledore has a flawed past. Rowling has also said that Harry has a lot of her in him, including her struggle to believe - what this gives us, then, is that Rowling, in story form, is wrestling over the past misdeeds of the Church on her struggle to believe in God, and at King's Cross (hear: the cross of the King) finally forgives the Church and accepts it, flawed history and all. We all follow Harry on this journey, and so Rowling is asking us all to forgive the Church its errors because its sins are also covered by the King's Cross.
Nevertheless, if you have any interest in the deeper meaning of the Potter books, this small book is the culmination of much of the research and study that has gone into the epic of our times. It is one of the best places to start.
This is not, of course, to say there is no crossover with other good books of Christian scholarship. That's pretty much inevitable, but out of all the books I've read before, this one reads like a rounded whole, and stands easily on its own, a self-contained work. This is very much the place to start.
Garrett approaches the Potter books using the four levels of interpretation popularized in the Middle Ages, a tradition that is rushing back into Christian scholarship (Peter Leithart has written extensively on the Medieval four levels in his book Deep Exegesis), and tackles the magic in the books, the morality, the way they build community and friendship, and then finally, the anagogiccal level of reading the book as a means of theological meaning for our own lives. This approach was highly effective and not bothersome at all.
In fact, there is almost nothing to complain about in the book. Garrett is sufficiently a fan of the books that even into the deep details he shows a familiarity and grasp of the material and its deeper implications. The only trouble I had was in the final chapter, when he argued that Harry was a Christ-figure and Dumbledore the representation of the Holy Spirit. I don't think he meant to imply that Harry was the same sort of Christ-figure as, say, Aslan, but Christians are so used to seeing a Christ-figure as Jesus-in-story-form that it is dangerous to even make mention of it. The reality is that Harry is not Aslan, Harry is Frodo, a Christian-figure. He does not stand for God or Christ, but for the journey of the Christian Everyman walking the way of the cross. Harry is us, not Jesus.
Even more strained a reading, however, is that of Dumbledore as the Holy Spirit. While Garrett does reveal some interesting parallels, I found his defense for the most part to be a stretch of the material. Dumbledore is too much a flawed character to truly represent God in any form; the text suggests to us that Dumbledore represents the Wise Mentor, Harry's Confessor, and therefore stands as a symbol of the Church. Like the Church, Dumbledore has a flawed past. Rowling has also said that Harry has a lot of her in him, including her struggle to believe - what this gives us, then, is that Rowling, in story form, is wrestling over the past misdeeds of the Church on her struggle to believe in God, and at King's Cross (hear: the cross of the King) finally forgives the Church and accepts it, flawed history and all. We all follow Harry on this journey, and so Rowling is asking us all to forgive the Church its errors because its sins are also covered by the King's Cross.
Nevertheless, if you have any interest in the deeper meaning of the Potter books, this small book is the culmination of much of the research and study that has gone into the epic of our times. It is one of the best places to start.
September 9, 2014
Fantastic exploration of Harry Potter and its intersections with religion, community, and several other significant themes overlapping the series. Garrett does an excellent job of mixing literary scholarship with theological thinking/research with a bit of pop culture commentary thrown in, making it an accessible introduction into scholarship on the Harry Potter world. I delighted in learning several new things about the series and particularly welcomed the challenges he makes to why Christians should accept and read the series. (And, a key aspect to my enjoyable experience, he doesn't shove the Christian connections down your throat--he simply shows, as good scholars should, how they relate and how different characters and themes from religious teaching play out in the Potter series, plus how Rowling throws in a few significant verses, phrases, and character names to help make the connections in a way most average readers may not recognize.)
September 4, 2011
One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter is a great summary of all seven Harry Potter books. It gives an in-depth analysis of good vs. evil, Harry Potter's worlds: Muggle and Magic, and the similarities between the Bible and the Harry Potter books. It even analyze the Harry Potter craze of why the books are so popular and why there are so much controversies that Church is against these books. It also shows the similarities between C.S. Lewis and the Tolkien novels.
For those who haven't seen the last of the Harry Potter's movies, there is a spoiler. I have not seen the last movie and wish I have seen the movie first before reading the book. It does not give away the ending of the movie but there is a spoiler alert scene if you have not figure out what happen next when Harry Potter confronts Lord Voldemort of who dies and who lives.
For those who haven't seen the last of the Harry Potter's movies, there is a spoiler. I have not seen the last movie and wish I have seen the movie first before reading the book. It does not give away the ending of the movie but there is a spoiler alert scene if you have not figure out what happen next when Harry Potter confronts Lord Voldemort of who dies and who lives.
November 6, 2011
This book is about the Harry Potter books. The author has critically examined the books, and posits various important themes that run throughout the books. He also focuses on the fact that though some people have criticized the books as being Satanic, they actually have been influenced by Rowling's Christian faith and have a lot of similar Christian elements in the stories. If you like the Harry Potter books, this is an interesting read. It is interesting to view the books from a more literary angle, and I enjoyed revisiting certain parts of the stories in this book.
I won this copy of the book in one of the Goodreads giveaways.
I won this copy of the book in one of the Goodreads giveaways.
January 7, 2012
Really fantastic, especially as a Harry Potter fan and member of the HP Generation. I've never been adequately capable of answering someone who asks me why I love Harry Potter and the books so much. One Fine Potion gave me a definite answer, not to mention it made me appreciate the books and what they have done for me more than I could imagine.
January 13, 2021
I've read several HP analysis books, and this one is a well-summarized take. It doesn't get into too much depth like other ones I've read, but it is succinct. I would definitely recommend this to HP enthusiasts.
August 29, 2011
This was a really interesting read. I loved being able to look at the HP books from a different angle.
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