1) The final Harry Potter film is on general release tomorrow. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt 2 has garnered blanket coverage in Fleet Street’s cultural supplements. Reviews so far have been surprisingly promising: Kaleem Aftab, of the Independent, declares that ‘the wait was worth it’ and maintains the film ‘is not a disappointment’, while Kate Muir of the Times calls (£) it ‘a moving, well-crafted end to a British cultural franchise’.
2) Recently, J.K. Rowling launched a new venture, Pottermore. The site, as she explains in a promo vid, will be ‘the exclusive place to purchase digital audio books and, for the first time, e-books of the Harry Potter series.’ When quizzed about her own views on digital versus print and paper, Rowling told the BBC: ‘I’ve used both, enjoyed both and I think that’s the future. But I don’t think print and paper will ever die.’
3) It is a time of endings for Rowling. She has finished her partnership with the Christopher Little Literary Agency. She has followed her agent, Neil Blair, who is reported to have set up his own agency, The Blair Partnership. Meanwhile, Christopher Little’s spokesman has told a newspaper: ‘He greatly admires her and her extraordinary talent…However, he is disappointed and surprised to have heard the premature news about the proposed new arrangements.’
4) The figures associated with Rowling’s creation are truly eye-watering. 450 million books sold, a tidy £530 million fortune for the author and a film franchise that has grossed £3,978,161,517 so far. Though a Potter book no longer ranks as Amazon’s top seller, beaten into second place by the emergence of the Kindle.
5) While the sales figures are not in doubt, the legacy of the Harry Potter books continue to be hotly debated. Harold Bloom famously branded Rowling’s debut ‘terrible‘, while Robert McCrum has claimed that though Rowling ‘remains formidable for her bestselling accomplishments’, the ‘prose will always lack magic, or charm.’ But, with her millions of fans, Rowling boasts a hefty wodge of support. An editorial in the Independent last week cited Harry Potter as Britain’s ‘most potent cultural export since The Beatles.’
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