Don't Cry Over Spoiled Hallows

Certain Huffington Post bloggers Who Will Not Be Named have been shrieking and wailing like angry Howlers over the fact that some newspapers, including the The New York Times, dared to review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before Her Majesty J.K. Rowling gave permission.

While it is clearly obnoxious and unethical to post copies of the entire book online, or to reveal key plot points simply for the sake of doing so, and without any warning to readers who might not want to hear them, the defenders of the Wizarding faith go further. They argue that any pre-publication discussion discussion of the book, even a thoughtful review by a professional critic, is grounds for a Cruciatus Curse. The argument is that "embargoes are in place for a reason, and entreaties from the author ... are there specifically for the benefit of the public."

And for the benefit of the hype, of course.

There are a couple of issues here. One is about media ethics, and that's pretty straightforward: There is no embargo on the book. An embargo, in this context, is an agreement between two parties. We give you an advance copy of the book, and in exchange, you don't review it until the publication date. But that's not what happened here. The newspapers purchased their own copies of the book and had the right to do whatever they wanted with them. The stores that sold the books probably did violate their agreements with the publisher, but that's not the newspapers' problem.

Which brings us to the issue that is really making people mad: lots of readers don't want to know anything about the book in advance, and reviews, even if they don't give away the end, invariably reveal some things. Fortunately, there's a simple solution to this problem: don't read the reviews. But don't presume that the entire "public" shares your overwhelming desire for blanket ignorance. Rowling chastised the Times for disregarding "the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children," but it's been widely observed that the Potter books are also popular with adults, and it is foolish, and troubling, to say that the New York Times should tailor its news coverage to the wishes and sensibilities of children (chronological or emotional). There are, believe it or not, full-grown readers (and younger ones as well, I'd hazard) who are interested in elements of fiction such prose style, emotional weight, narrative coherence, and character development. These folks may actually want to read a review of the book before they go buy it -- just as they do with any other book. Readers who care about nothing except What Happens At The End can close the newspaper and not have anything "spoiled" for them. Everybody's happy.

If a critic's only mandate is not to "ruin" the book for readers, at what point can a paper print its review? Surely not the day the book comes out, or even the next day. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is 9 billion pages long (or so I understand), and some of us will stretch out our reading of it, savoring and enjoying it, for at least a week. Should the Times wait until we're done and then tell us whether the book is any good or not. What if -- gasp -- somebody decides not to pick up the book on the first day? What if people are still buying it a month from now? Maybe no newspaper should ever review anything.

Rowling's "embargo," and the fanatic endorsement of it, seems to suppose that the only value in literature is in the big reveal at the end. In that case, are the Harry Potter books worthless to future generations? If a kid twenty years from now picks up the series knowing, through general cultural awareness, that it ends with Harry and Voldemort running off to Massachusetts to get married (sorry, SPOILER ALERT), will that make the books any less worth reading? As a fan of the series, I think not. Literature, even moderately entertaining children's literature, ought to have meaning beyond such petty concerns. If a review of Anna Karenina happened to mention the big Train Scene, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a terrible problem, because what's really important about a book can't be so easily spoiled for serious readers.

Though Rowling's pleas secrecy serve a purpose as far as generating excitement, they actually do a disservice to her audience. The report that one-fifth of young readers intend to immediately skip to the end of the book -- essentially spoiling it for themselves -- indicates that this obsession with the big reveal is antithetical to the entire purpose of reading books. Is it all about learning What Happens At The End, or is it about the pleasure of the journey that gets you there?