Harry Potter: a classic?

I’ve literally just read the first chapter of The Catcher in the Rye, a book I’ve never read before and decided to pick it up in my local bookstore after a couple of videos from the vlogbrothers on YouTube made my mind for me. In fact, I find it almost embarrassing to mention that I haven’t read it before. Yes, I admit I am a Rye-virgin! But it kinda feels like one of those books I should have read. I know a lot of people study it in school and such but not me, and I was never much of a big reader in the past anyway. So now I’m getting round to it, I feel that slight intimidation when I’m taking it up to the store counter, like they’ll judge me for not having read such a “must”. A classic, even.

But I also just looked up when it was published. 1951. Or somewhere around that time. I got THAT date from Wikipedia so I don’t really want to try and pass it on as fact. But that’s suprisingly recent to me. For a book that has earned its status as a piece of literature history, 57 years seems a strikingly small amount of time! Especially considering that its had that status for as long as I can remember.

And now, as with all my blogs, we turn to Harry Potter. When you start to realise that the first Potter book was published over 10 years ago, Jo is already well on the way to that 57 year mark. Often I’ve heard the word “classic” thrown around in reference to the series, but I’ve always almost shrugged it off. Like it’s too soon, or bad luck to mention it right now. But comparing the books to The Catcher in the Rye, I see why the term is used.

Looking to the future, honestly, I don’t see Harry Potter been remembered as a classic. I just feel it may have become a little too commercial, which is completely down to the media’s representation of the books rather than the text itself. It almost feels like it needs to be less popular, or not appreciated yet, to earn the title. But then I think that I wasn’t around when The Catcher in the Rye was published, and I have no idea how it was received and how much hype it generated. So maybe Harry will get that status, and maybe we can all tell our grandchildren how we were around when the next step in literature was taken.

So now I ask of everyone reading this to post your answers in the comments, (because I am SERIOUSLY curious about what everything thinks): is the Harry Potter series a classic? Will it become one? Or will it just be remembered as the book that got people reading again?

Whatever the response time graciously gives to us, I can be sure of one fact. That Jo has written a great book series, and the title “classic” is just that. Just a title.