Egad! someone who does not like Harry Potter?

Ok, so let's say you hate Harry Potter. Bryony Gordon, the author of this story (originally appearing in the Telegraph UK) bravely if foolhardily admits he'd enjoyed a blissful period thinking that Harry Potter did not exist at all, because no book or movie had been released in ages (ages for Harry Potter fans, anyway). "For two blissful years my life has been a Harry Potter-free zone. No talk of muggles, or quidditch, or Hogwarts or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." And for this London resident, "nobody has made any really unfunny jokes about the train leaving from platform 9¾, which is good, because it means I have had less cause to hit people over the head with a rolled up newspaper." Yuk yuk.

Which just goes to show you, you can't force geekdom on anyone. You can't make a person like a book, a movie, a pop cultural phenom.  But this author goes out on a limb a little further, to say, "it won't surprise you to learn that I don't understand grown adults who like Harry Potter... It's a bit sinister, actually. In my mind, you may as well sit on the train reading a Thomas the Tank Engine picture book making choo-choo noises." Then the "escape" claim: "I know that mature fans of Harry Potter claim it allows them to escape to another world, that it helps them to feel young again."

For me, there's nothing wrong with that. But for Mr. Gordon, I sense the kid's play that Harry Potter evokes is shameful.

Gordon cleverly exits on a joke "But when the first one came out I was 17 and by the time that the final movie instalment is released I will be 31. That doesn't make me feel young. It makes me feel really, really old. And there's nothing magic about that." And leaves me wondering if there's something else here, unexamined, that explains his aversion to all things Hogwarts.

 --- Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks