The borders of fantasyland are among the most paradoxical places in that paradoxical place. Sometimes it hides its portals from all but the clever, lucky, or magically gifted. Yet for every child who has bumped her nose on a mirror or the back of a wardrobe trying to get into Wonderland or Narnia, millions arrive there safely, daily, bruise-free. For all its secrecy, the door to fantasyland is an open book. And there, of course, is the key to the puzzle.
Fantasies are universal, yet private.
Just as no child escaping to a magical world wants to find the other children he's escaping from there when he arrives, no author wants to believe a stranger can reach her heart of hearts without fulfilling a quest, at least, to qualify. Not that they're addressing Harry Potter explicitly. It's hard to complain about success as well deserved as Rowling's without looking as ungenerous as an orc. I wondered whether he was wearing underwear, but I'm sure the damsels didn't. And the mills of capitalism provide them.