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Walking through my train yesterday, staggering from my seat to the buffet and back, I counted five people reading Harry Potter novels. Not children—these were real grown-ups reading children's books. It was as if I had wandered into a John Wyndham scenario where the adults' brains have been addled by a plague and they have returned to childishness, avidly hunting out their toys and colouring-in books. HI6;=~[
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Maybe that would have been understandable. If these people had jumped whole-heartedly into a second childhood it would have made more sense. But they were card-carrying grown-ups with laptops and spreadsheets returning from sales meetings and seminars. Yet they chose to read a children's book. uV?[eiezD0
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I don't imagine you'll find this headcount exceptional. You can no longer get on the London Tube and not see a Harry Potter book, and I presume the same is true on the Glasgow Metro or the Manchester trams, or the beaches of Ibiza or clubs of Ayia Napa. Who told these adults they should read a kids' book? Do we see them ploughing through Tom's Midnight Garden? Of course not; if you suggested it they would rightly stare, bemused, and say: "Isn't that a kids' book? Why would I want to read that? I'm 37/42/63." f.,ozL3*
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Nor is it just the film; these throwback readers were out there in droves long before the movie campaign opened. Warner Brothers knows it can't hope to recoup its reputed $100m costs through ticket sales to children alone. But the adult desire to tangle with Harry, Hermione and Voldemort existed long before the director Chris Columbus got his hands on the story.So who are these adult readers who have made JK Rowling the second-biggest female earner in Britain (after Madonna)? As I have tramped along streets knee-deep in Harry Potter paperbacks, I've mentally slotted them into three groups. s8iJl+Jm
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First come the Never-Readers, whom Harry has enticed into opening a book. Is this a bad thing? Probably not. Ever since the invention of moving pictures, the written word has struggled to be as instantaneously exciting. Writing has many advantages over film, but it can never compete with its magnetic punch. If these books can re-establish the novel as a thrilling experience for some people, then this can only be for the better. If it takes obsession-level hype to lure them into a bookshop, that's fine by me. But will they go on to read anything else? Again, we can only hope. It has certainly worked at schools, especially for boys, whose reading has clearly taken an upward swing — for this alone, Rowling deserves her rewards. d54(6N%
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The second group are the Occasional Readers. These people claim that tiredness, work and children allow them to read only a few books a year. Yet now — to be part of the crowd, to say they've read it — they put Harry Potter on their oh-so-select reading list. It's infuriating, it's maddening, it sends me ballistic. Yes, I'm a writer myself, writing difficult, unreadable, hopefully unsettling novels, but there are so many other good books out there, so much rewarding, enlightening, enlarging works of fiction for adults; and yet these sad cases are swept along by the hype, the faddism, into reading a children's book. Put like that, it's worse than maddening, it's pathetic. When I rule the world, all editions will carry a heavy-print warning: "This Is A Children's Book, Designed For Under Elevens. It May Seriously Damage Your Credibility." I can dream, can't I? VKRj
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The third group are the Regular Readers, for whom Harry is sandwiched between McEwan and Balzac, Roth and Dickens. This is the real baffler—what on earth do they get out of reading it? Why bother? But if they can rattle through it in a week just to say they've been there — like going to Longleat or the Eiffel Tower—the worst they're doing is encouraging others. O.4ty)*
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译文:昨天在地铁上，我摇晃着在座位和餐室之间走了个来回，看到有5个人在读《哈里·波特》。不是孩子——这些读着儿童书籍的人是如假包换的成年人。我仿佛是走在约翰·温德汉姆（英国著名科幻作家——译者注，以下同）的小说中，那里的成人被瘟疫搞坏了大脑，他们回到了童年，热切地搜寻着玩具和彩色书本。 FRpTYLA2
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这也许是可以理解的。如果他们是全身心地投入了第二次童年就更说得过去了。但是他们是成年人，是揣着信用卡、拎着手提电脑、带着各种电子表格、刚刚出席完销售会议和研究会的成年人。而他们选择了阅读儿童书籍。 ilL] pU-
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我不认为我看到的情形有什么异乎寻常。在伦敦地铁上看到《哈里·波特》已经是一种必然。而且我想，不管是在格拉斯哥的地铁中还是曼彻斯特的电车上，伊比沙（地中海西部岛屿）的海滩上还是阿伊亚纳帕（塞浦路斯度假胜地）的夜总会里，情形都会是一样。是谁让这些成年人去读一本儿童书籍的？他们会埋头苦读《汤姆的午夜花园》（英国作家菲利帕·皮尔斯的儿童小说）吗？当然不会：如果你建议他们去读，他们会理直气壮地瞪着你，困惑不解地说：“那不是小孩子看的吗？我干吗要读它？我已经37/42/63了。” lAuI?/E
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这也不仅是因为电影。在《哈里·波特》电影开始宣传之前很久就已经有了成群结队的返老还童的读者。华纳兄弟公司知道，他们不可能光从卖给儿童的电影票中捞回传闻的1亿美元拍摄成本。在导演克里斯·哥伦布着手把小说拍成电影之前很久，这些渴望能和哈里、赫敏以及伏地魔（均为《哈里·波特》中人物）混在一起的大人就已经存在了。 g@]G
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这些使J·K·罗琳成为英国收入第二高的女人（仅次于麦当娜——作者自注）的成人读者究竟是些什么人？踏在被平装本《哈里·波特》深深掩埋的街道上，我暗自把他们划分为3种类型。 8d.5D &
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首先是那些从不读书的人，他们被哈里引向了书本。这有什么不好吗？可能没有。从有了电影的那一天起，书面文字就在努力想像它一样令人一见倾心。文字与电影相较有许多的优势，但它永远也不能拥有和电影一样的磁力。如果这些书能使一些人把阅读小说重新看成令人感动的体验，那只能说是件好事。如果它们能让这些人对逛书店着迷，对我来说也不错。但这些人还会去读别的书吗？我们只能期待。在学校里情况显然如此，尤其是对男孩来说，他们的阅读量明显上升——仅此一点，罗琳就无愧于她所获的奖项（《哈里·波特》曾获英国国家图书奖儿童小说奖等奖项）。 H/m -$;cF3
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第二种是偶然读点书的人。这些人声称疲劳、工作和孩子使他们一年只能看几本书。可是现在——作为许多宣称读过《哈里·波特》的人当中的一员——他们把《哈里·波特》放进了自己“精挑细选”的书单。这让人着恼、让人疯狂，气得我浑身发抖。是的，我自己就是个作家，写作晦涩的、难懂的、最好还能让人不安的小说。但还有那么多别的好书，那么多给大人看的、有益、启人心智、长人见识的小说类作品，而这些可悲的病人却被裹在广告宣传和时尚的洪流之中，去读一本儿童书籍。这样说来，这比疯狂还要糟糕，这简直是悲惨。如果我有一天统治了世界，我会让所有版本的《哈里·波特》都打上醒目的警告：“本书为儿童书籍，适合11岁以下儿童。本书可能严重损害您的可信度。”我这样梦想，不行吗？ ek6PMZF:'
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最后一种是经常读书的人。在他们那里，哈里夹杂在迈克万（Ian McEwan, 英国当代作家）、巴尔扎克、罗斯（Eugen Roth，德国现代诗人）和狄更斯们当中。这些人我真搞不懂——他们究竟能从这本书里得到什么？干吗在它上面下工夫？但如果他们只是带着到此一游的目的在一周内把它草草读完的话——就像去朗利特山庄（英国名胜）或埃菲尔铁塔一样——他们造成的最坏影响就是怂恿了其他人（去读《哈里·波特》）
