I have avidly read the Harry Potter books and am almost finished with the 6th volume of the series, The Half-Blood Prince. Getting ready for our cruise through the Baltic region has cut down on the time I have reserved for reading this tome. But I thought that I should make some comments on the place Quiddich has in these works because I am unaffected by sports in the real, muggle world.
Imaginative, yes. Imitative of real world sports, no. Quiddich puts me off because the thought of swooping around on broomsticks (even the latest souped up models) leave me slightly nauseous. It must be highly satisfying, however, to the young who delight in testing limits and seem to enjoy the ever more terrifying loop –de-loops involved in riding on cars following tracks while you are tied in going headfirst down into what seems like heart-stopping oblivion. But, I guess that is the effect that the stories of the magical world of Harry Potter have on not only the young but us older readers also.
I fear that there are many who will never read nor even hear of Harry Potter. The realm created for him is just another way of stating how crazy the world is in which we live. Just thinking about the Swiftian creations of miniature peoples who tie down a normal size human because to them he is a monster is a flight of imagination, pinning against the wall a caricature of English politics of several hundred years ago. Utopians, writers and thinkers alike, have done the same for us. They picture our world as it is in its cobbled together illogical parts and try to straighten them out so that it is not just livable but in a more perfect rendition.
I truly would like to have a wand, potions and hexes and use them to rid the world of the problems most of us agree exist. Of course there are those who have these wands, potions and hexes (read bombs) who see you and me as problems and want to liquidate, exterminate or exile us away.
There are no lands that are trouble free. There are worlds of imagination that hold forth the spell of suspending disbelief for a while children read under the covers at night or spend whole days curled up with a book transporting them to magical realms. I have done this and I hope you have too. But, Quiddich is too much of a caricature of the gladiators in padded uniforms who go out to grunt against each other to the roars of spectators who wouldn’t think of getting out there on the field themselves to bust their heads against the opposite team.
Happy Reading!