On The Eve of Harry Potter Six 

 by Kenny Brechner

    Transfiguration is a central theme of any fictional work in which the passage of time is given meaningful play. This is certainly true of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Each book marks the passage of a year, and the narrative has steadily grown along with its characters in sophistication and depth. Yet, apart from the necessary transfiguring agent of time, the Potter books have a more overt relationship with transfiguration, in that it is a mandatory class taught at Hogwarts.

    Transfiguration is in fact one of the most important Hogwarts classes, as we may note from the stature of Minerva McGonagall, its professor, easily the most experienced and formidable member of the Hogwarts faculty. We may also note that McGonagall’s predecessor was none other than Albus Dumbledore himself. Furthermore, the Animagus spell, the most difficult branch of transfiguration, is a central component of the Potter books.

    With the pending release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on July 16^th, the sixth book in the series, one is drawn to reflect that few books have undergone as much transfiguration as the Potter books themselves. The first Potter book was rejected by more than twenty publishers. The cash flow demand for the sixth book has brought a regional wholesaler to the brink of bankruptcy. Order figures from wholesale and retail vendors are more than ten times higher than the 10.8 million first printing, which is the largest in history, forcing Scholastic into the role of Solomon, in terms of distribution. Indeed getting a golden ticket into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory is a piece of cake next to securing a shipment of Harry Potter six.

    Bookstores have gone from telling customers what a great book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is, to sweating bullets Friday July 15^th, knowing that if their shipment fails to materialize a gruesome death at the hands of an angry, if literary, mob, is all too real a possibility.

    Apart from their unprecedented transfiguration of the economic aspects of book distribution and production, the Potter books have also transfigured young adult literature from a moribund state into the most dynamic genre on the shelves. Finally, the series has itself gone from simply being a series of good books, to being a merchandising, mass media industry.

    Ultimately, the effect of transfiguration is to make one reflect on the intrinsic value of the object in question, to seek evidence of an enduring constant which makes its transfiguration meaningful. In the case of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, such a constant is not hard to seek. The timeless pleasures of a shared reading experience, made large and multi generational, hearkening back to the shared listening experiences of an oral tradition, are what make, from a bookseller’s point of view, all the preparations and bullet sweating associated with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, so very worth it.