No. 13: What Happened to JK Rowling?

The Curious Bond Between Artist and Audience

The adverbs were the first clue.

Remember how many there were in the Harry Potter books? Commanding us how to read the lines. For instance:

“Keep muttering and I will be a murderer!” said Sirius irritably, and he slammed the door shut on the elf.

To add the word ‘irritably’ is a strange choice, because there is no other way to read Sirius’ line. In fact, ‘irritably’ undersells the character’s emotion in the moment, and his true feelings would be heightened by cutting the word.

Why do it, then? Over and over and over:

“It is enough that we know,” said Snape repressively.

“You just need some breakfast,” Harry said bracingly.

Malfoy laughed loudly and sycophantically.

And hundreds, thousands more of these pesky modifiers that for many years, I just could not make sense of. It’s plain bad writing, shoehorned into majestic books filled with good writing, and the stubbornness of these adverbs continued through 7 books, despite a chorus of readers and critics pointing it out.

Images of Harry Potter book covers from here.

Looking back, there is only one explanation.

I suspect Rowling wanted to leave no doubt as to how a line was supposed to be taken. It’s an insistence on clarity above all, even if it damages the writing.

And now that insistence on clarity at all costs has moved off the confines of the controllable page… into the arena of life.

By now, Rowling’s views on biological sex and gender are well-known: that they cannot be conflated and biological sex should take precedence in establishing male and female spaces. Many people agree with her. Many people don’t. But rather than engaging with these views, I’m trying to understand the urge to make them known in the first place.

If this was an 8th-grade geometry proof, I’d start it like this.

Given: The relationship between biological sex and gender will never be fixed.

On this, there would be little argument. You can theorize all you want about sex and gender, but when it comes down to it, concepts and theories fall away to the reality of lived experience. We all have our own relationship to our sex, to our gender. There is no clarity and there will never be.

But Rowling wants clarity here, just like she did in her sentences. As if she solved ambiguity on the page with a rampage of adverbs, so now she can solve ambiguity in life with a rampage of tweets.

It’s a curiously dictatorial posture — almost Voldemort-like — but perhaps one we shouldn’t be too surprised by. The Potter books have a mercilessly stark view on Good and Evil and there are rarely moments of in-between. Truth be told, it’s why I was arrogant enough to write my own magical-school books almost two decades after that first Potter was published. I’d devoured and loved every page of the Rowling universe… and yet, I never quite could find myself in it. In my experience, Good can often look like Evil and Evil can look like Good. The Dracos of the world are secretly Harrys and the Harrys are often Dementors in disguise. What I was looking for was a universe of the in-between, the moral and experiential grays. (In other words: A World Without Adverbs, where you could read a sentence as you liked.)

Each book, then, in the School for Good and Evil tackled a set of binaries that the Disneys, Rowlings, and other cultural authorities treated as fixed: Good vs Evil in Book 1, Boys vs Girls in Book 2, Old vs Young in Book 3, Truth vs Lies in Book 4, Past vs Present in Book 5, Fate vs Free Will in Book 6.

Book 2’s exploration of gender was oddly prophetic. I wrote A World Without Princes more than ten years ago, long before Rowling would begin her crusade, but I could sense the growing tension around the subject and when I sense tension, I tend to press on the knot. In Book 2, the School for Good and Evil turns into the School for Boys and Girls. What follows is a high-camp satire, where both schools devolve into chaos when they’re forced to operate by stereotypes of their own gender. The secret to resolving this is found in the world of gnomes — who are able to switch sex at will, until 13 years old, when they have to choose one permanently.  Gnome’s ability to switch sex is bottled by the wizard Merlin into a potion… which is drunk by our main human characters… and a fountain of drama uncorks.

Sophie and her male-form, Filip. Art by Una Anguila.

At the heart of Book 2 is a primal notion of empathy. How differently we would all treat each other if boys could feel what it feels like for a girl and girls could feel what it feels like for a boy. Totemic notions of sex and gender might fall always entirely, replaced by a deeper appreciation for the spectrum of masculinity and femininity within each of us.

Book 2 was controversial on its release — a few read the book as an endorsement of gender stereotypes, rather than a satire, which is baffling — but A World Without Princes has only gained in popularity, year after year. (It would have made a killer movie, and still might one day, if things ever get back on track, post-strike.) But my point here is that I went into the book, knowing how charged and nuanced the issues were. Writing it not only let me sort out my own views, but also work those views into a narrative that made every kind of reader feel welcome and seen.

I imagine this is what Rowling wanted the Potter universe to be: a place for anyone to find themselves. At least it felt that way, while I walked through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, in Universal Studios Hollywood, utterly transported. At Hogwarts, every kind of soul belonged, even the Slytherins, as woebegone and well-beaten as they were. Despite the merciless domination of Good over Evil in Rowling’s fictional world, still there was room for both.

But in Rowling’s real world, there seems to be no such room. That she would move away from the use of art as a communication of her ideas… and instead use… Twitter… is telling. There is no nuance to be explored on these thorny issues. There is no wrestling with character and lived experiences. Instead, there are answers. Issued in 200 characters from up on high, like Dolores Umbrage’s Educational Decrees.

I got to thinking about all this, because my new novel deals with every hot-button topic imaginable. It is a book very much of the present, and in it, I’m wrestling to make sense of our world as it is and what it will be, the same way I always do: by writing. Where there are moral questions, characters can work that out for themselves. Think of Aric, in School for Good and Evil, who would be ostracized in real life for his fascist views on sex and gender, but in the context of a novel, is a useful foil for Tedros, who is nothing if not open-minded and driven by empathy and experience. (Also, Aric is shockingly popular amongst readers – i.e. full-on fansites and love poems dedicated to him, the poster boy for misogyny. One girl got a tattoo of him on her wrist. The way we each react to characters is uniquely, deeply ours.)

Art by Michael Blank.

In my new novel, my central trio relate to their own sex and gender in wildly different ways. These differences push and pull at their relationships, at once bringing them closer as friends while also driving them apart. A straight, comic-book obsessed nerd is deeply insecure about his masculinity… and thus is best friends with a confidently gay jock… who only seems confidently gay, because he can’t shake his exclusive attractions to straight men. These are the grays and foibles of human behavior that can’t be reduced to pithy aphorisms or axioms or rules. It’s why we love good fiction. It replicates the glorious mess of everyday life.

How did I even get here? Funny story — this diary was supposed to be about J.Lo! Somehow, after a 40-year career, the internet decided to cancel her this week, and I had a lot to say. But then I started writing this diary… and adverbs and Slytherins came out instead.

It’s why I really do love writing these posts every week. Because I’m just following the vibes wherever they take me. Trying to make the inside voice match the outside voice. Because if I can do that, without fear, without hesitation, then writing becomes more than art or confession. It becomes the whollest version of me.

Did I get it right on JKR? Tell me what I’m missing. (And while we’re at it, please tell me why we cancelled J.Lo!)

Until next week…