Sermons in Stones

In 2000, it seemed as if the whole world was reading the Harry Potter books. That did nothing to make me want to check them out. Truth be told, even though I was in my 30s and ought to have been well past any sense of adolescent nonconformity-for-the-sake-of-conformity, it made me less interested in checking them out. My sister told me, “Really, they’re really good!,” but someone in the grip of unacknowledged adolescent rebelliousness is likely to do the exact opposite of what her older sister recommends. I stayed steadily unintrigued. All those people lined up for the midnight release of the fourth book? Yawn. Even the discovery of a Harry-Potter-themed sermon online by a much-admired colleague and teacher, Ken Sawyer, didn’t draw me in, though I enjoyed the sermon.

Then a church member pressed the audiobooks of the first three books on me–I had a long commute and listened to books on tape all the time–and within the first few minutes, all my resistance crumbled. I loved them. I gulped them down, got a hold of the fourth, gulped it down too. They lived up to all the hype.

Oh, they’re conventional in many ways, and even the best of them has a plot hole you could fly a hippogriff through. And I’m angry with their author, who has torpedoed a deserved reputation as one of this planet’s kindest, most generous people by stubbornly insisting on a bigoted, mean mischaracterization of transgender. But the delights of these books are too many to list, and they keep on delighting me.

When I first discovered them, I sought out people who wanted to talk about them all the time, the way I did, and found them in the Yahoogroup Harry Potter for Grownups. I made good friends there, people I’m still friends with 20 years later, and among the funniest, smartest people in the group, I met the woman I would eventually fall in love with and marry. So Harry Potter changed my life in the most literal way possible. If I had continued to avoid it because it was so annoyingly ubiquitous and adored, Joy and I wouldn’t be married, we wouldn’t have our child . . . it’s scary even to think about it.

It’s rare for anything to live up to its reputation when it’s as widely hailed and appreciated as Harry Potter. But once in a while it does. Listen to my cautionary tale, dear reader. Do not deprive yourself of a greatly hyped cultural phenomenon just because it’s a greatly hyped cultural phenomenon.

The other work that has inspired me to say, “It lives up to all the hype, and more,” is Hamilton. Yes, it won 11 Tonys after being nominated for a record-setting 16 (inspiring this pre-Trump parody by Randy Rainbow). Its composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has won Tonys, Emmys, Grammys, the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship, well before the age of 40. Its songs have been quoted by countless articles and as the title of a self-serving book by a wingnut who managed to become National Security Advisor and still undermine U.S. national security. It caused millions of middle-class white people to enjoy hip hop; millions of people who would never cross the threshold of an opera house to enjoy an opera; and countless people who don’t love musical theater to be unable to stop singing its tunes. Doctor Who predicts that it will be performed by 900 different casts over time, all of which the Doctor will see. Despite its near-universal popularity . . .

. . . it really is that good.

So, dear reader, don’t believe that the hype is wrong. Once in a while, something comes along that lives up to its stratospheric reputation. Heed my tale of narrowly-averted woe, and if there’s something you’ve been avoiding (despite the recommendations of people you respect) because it’s just too popular, give it a try. I won’t guarantee that you will meet the love of your life, but it might change your life, which is what art is all about.