Say Anything Blog

...even as it sets sales records.

The book that will probably set a single day and one week sales record, the book hundreds of thousands will line up for at midnight won’t be the Number One book on The New York Times Bestseller list? That’s right because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a children’s book and those books don’t count.

It happened in 2000. The Harry Potter books—a once in a lifetime publishing phenomenon—were dominating the bestseller lists, with three titles ensconced in the Top 15 at the same time. It just wasn’t fair, moaned publishers of more “serious” fiction. It kept more deserving titles off the list, titles that people would never hear about, said bookstore owners. And so in a rash, indefensible decision, the New York Times decided to banish children’s books solely to their own separate list.

Imagine if the people behind the Nielsen Top 10 TV show listings decided that reality shows were “taking away” valuable attention from dramas and sitcoms. Let reality shows get their own list and the official Top 10 only include “genuine” TV shows, like CSI and House and Grey’s Anatomy.

This reminds me of a run-in I had with a friend a while back.  This friend is extremely well-read and could probably quote from a list of books he’s read so far-ranging, and often obscure, that it’d embarrass some literature professors.  We were talking about our favorite authors, and I threw out that when I just wanted sit down and enjoy a good story I usually couldn’t go wrong with Stephen King.  This friend of mine was incredulous, wondering how in the world anyone could truly enjoy a work by someone with as much mass-market appeal as King.  He seemed to feel that King was an author for the low-brow masses.

But I stood up for King.  I am not was widely-read as my friend, but I’ve read my share of the greats - Salinger, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, etc. - and found many of their works to be entertaining and profound, but I’ve also found that deeper meanings and sophisticated literary nuance aren’t always the most important elements of a story.  Sometimes a person just likes to let an author spin a good yarn, and that a given author’s “yarns” appeal to the masses is no black mark against him/her.

Mass appeal doesn’t mean a lack of artistic merit.  The Beatles, for instance, are among the most successful bands of all time.  I doubt many would say that they weren’t true artists.

Now, personally, I’m not a fan of the Harry Potter series.  I’m a fan of the fantasy genre in general, but most of Rowling’s plots seem a bit too…simplistic and (not to sound like my somewhat pretentious friend) unsophisticated.  But that’s just a personal opinion which runs contrary to the fact that Rowling’s books have captivated the masses.  People go nuts for them, and there’s no reason to deny them their rightful place on a list meant to rank the best selling books.