Today I got in an argument with an 18-year-old over the merits of Harry Potter.  Two days ago I saw The Hobbit.

What do these two facts have to do with each other, besides the fact that I am a nerd?

Today at recess I was talking with two of the other lower school teachers and a substitute teacher about young adult literature.  The substitute is a young woman (18) who graduated from our school last year.  She’s a writer and was talking about how she reads a lot of young adult fiction because that is what she wants to write.  The conversation turned to the arguable merits of various popular franchises (Twilight, Hunger Games) and eventually this young lady brought up Harry Potter, of which she is NOT a fan.

Both of the other teachers laughed, both knowing my deep deep love for Harry and his many stories.  After saying that I could no longer be a part of the conversation I proceeded to argue with this young woman that the messages in HP are not mixed (“it’s all about sacrificing for what is greater than yourself!”) and that Harry’s rash decisions always have consequences (“when Harry doesn’t listen and acts out on his own people die!”) and then pretty much laughed at her when she said that Harry is whiney (“um, have you met teenagers?”).  Not my finest moments.

This conversation really upset me.  More than just my general if-you-disagree-with-me-you-must-be-an-idiot type of upset-ness.  Why?  Why did it matter to me that someone I barely know doesn’t have the same taste as me?  She was making fair points, like that portraying continual flouting of authority isn’t good behavior modeling for young people. I can grant that, even if I think that it misses a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate authority.  But I was vexed that it didn’t occur to her that she might be wrong.

And that was what I realized later really upset me.  In a small way I was envious of her confidence.  Don’t get me wrong, I am free with my opinions.  It wasn’t that I wished I could speak my mind like she did.  It was more that I got the impression of a simplicity in her outlook that seemed a reflection of her youth.  It wasn’t that she lacked insight, or intelligence, or perception.  It was more that I sensed that intractable attitude of correctness untempered by experience.  I remember 10 years ago when it had never occurred to me just how wrong I could be, and I stated my case with no room for revision.  Before prolonged unemployment, before a morning in tenants court, before friends’ weddings, before friends’ babies, before tax forms, before a funeral for a friend younger than me, before alcoholism, before recovery, before 10 years of a life both painful and joyous I scoffed at the idea that adulthood was harder than I thought it would be.  I dismissed easily the fact that the world is complicated, fallen and demanding of both judgment and compassion.  I too would have demanded that the hero of a novel be virtuous, that art should be a representation of the world as it SHOULD be rather than a truthful reflection of the entanglements of a fallen world.  Art should be true and beautiful and lead the soul to God, but how can it be truthful if it is without flaw?

At 18 I could not have watched  a production of Richard II and hated Richard the whole time for being a total ass-hat but still weep at his death.  I can now.

Which leads me to The Hobbit.

Thorin Oakenshield was my first love.

He was brave and loyal and determined.  And he died.  He had my whole heart.

I was five.  Maybe six.

My father read The Hobbit to me when I was a child.  It is the first book I remember hearing.  I would lie in my parents bed and he would read to me before I went to sleep.  My whole way of looking at the world was shaped by that book.  I knew from The Hobbit that no matter how ordinary I thought I was that there was an adventure for me.  I knew that I couldn’t predict from the way they entered it, or the way they seemed at first, how someone would change me life.  I knew that being smart was more important than being strong.  I knew that you should stay on the path.  I knew that spiders were the most evil things ever.

And I learned that the hero does not (necessarily) live.

I cried so much when Thorin died that I think it’s is why my mother insisted that no one read me the end of books.

And when my father died these were the memories that I held onto.  Not just memories of plot points, character development, and thematic juxtaposition between the longing for home and the call of adventure.  So much more than that.  The memory of being safe and loved.  The memory of being special.  I’m the fifth of six children and my father worked full time as well as took night classes, so time just for me was rare and precious.  The memory of being given a gift that death could not tarnish.

So on Monday when Emily and I went to see The Hobbit I cried through most of it with all the love that never leaves my heart, even though it’s not a very good movie and doesn’t do any kind of justice to the book.  I cried because in a small way it was like being able to hug my father, even if just in my imagination.

Reading is a relationship.  It cannot be that as a reader you are strictly receiving.  You have to give as well.  Real literature will form you, it will change your thinking, deepen your empathy, enrich your imagination.  But your experience of reading should change the literature as well.

It can’t just be your head, it has to be your heart too.

At least, I think so.

(1 Year, 2 Months, and 29 Days Sober)