A Charmed Life: The Spirituality of Potterworld
The irony inherent in the suspicious reception of Harry Potter by conservative Christians, so different from their embrace of the equally magical worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, is not lost on Bridger, a theologian and principal of Trinity College in Bristol, England. This gently eloquent book points out the many ways in which J.K. Rowling is heir not only to Tolkien and Lewis's imaginative tradition, but to their theological tradition as well. While he scrupulously refrains from guessing what Rowling herself believes indeed, he strangely fails to cite her public affirmation that she is a member of the Church of Scotland and had her daughter christened there he is eager to unearth the distinct, if perhaps residual, Christian underpinnings of Rowling's moral universe. In her stark treatment of good and evil, her account of moral development and even her approach to magic (which he argues is more a literary device than the central interest of her writing), Bridger sees parallels between Rowling's world and that constructed by Christian faith. He reads Rowling with some sophistication, especially in his penultimate chapter, which offers some intriguing guesses about the shape of the series as a whole and the changing role of magic within it. If his writing has a certain air of professorial condescension, Bridger still offers more than enough reasons for Christians to follow Rowling's subsequent work with interest if they have not already placed their pre-order for volume five.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.