I have a problem with magic. Even as a small child with a big imagination, I found magic very hard to swallow. If a character in a story teleported using a technological aid, that was fine. If a character vanished in a magical puff of smoke after an incantation, I was having none of it.
I became aware of the Harry Potter book series quite early for a childless adult. A friend worked in a central London bookshop and was tiring of parents descending in their lunch hours enquiring ‘do you have any of these books by Harry Potter?’ Intrigued, I read the first two – the only two at the time – to see what all the growing fuss was about.
I liked them well enough, despite all the potions and spells, but particularly as the millennium turned and that fuss snowballed into a global mega fuss, I couldn’t help thinking it was somewhat out of proportion.
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