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ITS THE MOST eagerly anticipated childrens book of all time, and midnight, June 21 is the witching hour. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix continues the saga of the boy wizard with the lightning bolt scar and readers of all ages have been dying to know what happens next.
All the publishers will say is deeper secrets, darker powers, stronger magic. So we decided to go straight to the source the author whos cast this spell over us mere muggles: J.K. Rowling. As titillating as that one line from the new book was, I was counting on a little more 411. Clearly, I felt it was my mission to get Rowling to start spilling her Bertie Botts Beans.
Katie Couric: Can you tell me a little bit about this book, or will you have to kill me?
Rowling: [laughter] I will have to kill you. But, you know, if youre prepared to take that risk.
She does give us some clues later on, but theres good reason why Rowling so closely guards her chamber of secrets. In the last few months, fake chapters have shown up on the Internet and a British printing company employee was caught trying to sell stolen book pages. Keeping the secrets is crucial to the multi-million dollar marketing campaign. So there was concern the cauldron could be leaky. But of course, being a skilled journalist, I was able to craft my questions so carefully, she had no choice but to blab.
Couric: Can you just tell me basically what happens to Harry in this book? Thats a specific question.
Rowling: Yeah, that was very scalpel-sharp. He has a really hard time in this book, I would say.
Couric: Is he going through puberty?
Rowling: Yes he is. Hes angrier.
Couric: Does he have zits? |
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Amazon.com employee Chris Schmidt loads copies of the book "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" on to a packing machine in the Fernley fulfillment center, about 30 miles east of Reno, Nevada.
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Rowling: No he doesnt. I see Harry as someone who has great skin. Thats the one thing hes got going for him, thank God. I mean, spots on top of everything else would be too horrible for him. And yes, he does have certain adolescent rights of passage happen to him.
Couric: Any snogging with Hermione?
Rowling: Harry and Hermione! Do you think so?
Couric: No Im kidding. We should probably explain that snogging means kissing.
Rowling: Yeah.
Couric: Lest people think they were shagging!
Rowling: Lest people think youre talking about something completely inappropriate.
The story of how Jo Rowling brought Harry Potter to life has become legend itself. Shed walk her daughter Jessica in her stroller down the street until she fell asleep, then rush to Nicolsons Cafe to write while the baby napped. Back then, she was a single mum living on welfare. Five years and five books later, shes remarried, has a new baby boy, and her fortunes worth an estimated $500 million. Oh, and Nicholsons Cafe is now a Chinese Restaurant.
 Quiz: Are you a Muggle or wizard? Take our Harry Potter trivia challenge.
Rowling: It is true. I really was that broke and I know what it feels like to be that broke and to live through it and not to know its about to change. Thats the crucial thing. I couldnt see any light at the end of the tunnel, and every day Im grateful that weve got food in the fridge now and that I dont have to worry about the bills and that I know I can afford Jessies clothes and its yes, Im grateful for that every day.
Couric: Is there anything you miss now that you are so well known Jo and so wealthy and such a celebrity?
Rowling: Yeah I miss the anonymity. Completely miss it.
In Europe, shes more recognizable than she is in the United States, and there are times when Rowling wishes she could fashion one of those invisibility cloaks.
Couric: What kinds of things do they say to you, like if youre out at the market or taking a walk. |
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| Rowling: Normally, they start with, It is you isnt it? I think I dont look that distinctive, so very often if youre at the supermarket youll start off near the apples and then you see someones kind of thinking, hmmm might be her and then youre halfway along and youre by the yogurts and theyre thinking, Yeah it is her, and theyve got a kid with her and the kids going, It is mum, it is mum, it is her. And then you get to the toilet roll always and youre just reaching out for your favorite brand and then they come up to you, always.
Couric: When youre getting Tampax have you had that?
Rowling: Always. Yes that did happen the other day. I was standing there with this box in my hand yes of course Ill sign autographs. May I put this down first?
Couric: Better than Kaopectate or something like that.
Rowling: Slightly.
Still, the 37-year-old author says Scotland does afford her more anonymity than her native England. She moved here in 1994, after her first marriage to a Portuguese journalist fell apart.
Couric: Do you ever hear from your first husband? I bet hes going, What was I thinking?
Rowling: Yeah, a really big no comment on that one.
Her second marriage in 2001 to a Scottish doctor named Neil Murray (who looks like a grown up you-know-who), was followed this past March by the birth of their first child, David.
Couric: Does he have glasses and a little scar on his forehead?
Rowling: Well you see thats why we called him David, because we had to find a name that didnt rhyme with Harry, I hadnt used in the books, had absolutely no mythological or magical connection, didnt mean he who must not be named in Hebrew, you know. |
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Meanwhile, Rowlings money keeps rolling in. The first four Harry Potter novels continue to fly off the shelves in 200 countries, in 55 different languages. And the phenomenons leapt off the pages and onto the silver screen. The first two Harry Potter feature films have grossed a combined $1.8 billion worldwide. But after writing four mega-selling books in a lightning-fast five years, some wondered if the long wait for book number five meant Rowling was losing her magic touch.
Couric: Endless rumors and speculation about this book.
Rowling: About why?
Couric: It took three years to write. People said you had writers block, that you werent interested in Harry anymore, that you were distracted by your family and your wealth.
Rowling: Yeah, yeah.
Couric: So settle it once and for all, what did take so long?
Rowling: Well just the writing of it, its a long book, and thats just how long it took to write. And I said to my publishers, I didnt want a deadline this time because I knew I just needed to take some time. So its not true that I had writers block and as far as, you know, being distracted by other stuff, I mean I think I really would have been distracted before now. You know, Ive been writing Harry through something like three changes of country, a marriage, a divorce, you know, birth of a daughter, unemployment, employment. I mean, I dont think getting some money is going to knock me off track now.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix rises from the ashes at a whopping 896 pages. But even before its release, book five has been worth its weight in Gringotts gold, setting records for the largest pre-ordered book in history.
Rowling: There is a lot in this book. I can only say that Ive had to lay certain clues in book five. Some clues are resolved, some things are resolved in book five and theres information in there that you really do need to know otherwise people will feel cheated when certain outcomes happen. |
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Ron and Harry are probably safe, but only J.K. Rowling knows for sure.
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Couric: You said when the last book came out that the death of one character was the beginning of the deaths. Yikes!
Rowling: Yeah, thats nice, isnt it. Theres going to be a blood bath [laughter].
Couric: Warm and fuzzy.What does that mean?
Rowling: Its a war. Essentially a war has broken out again and when I say the beginning of the deaths, I mean the deaths that are meaningful, I suppose, to the reader. In this book, what I consider to be a major character dies. It was awful to write. It was absolutely awful. And I was literally, well I did, I cried after doing it, and walked into the kitchen afterwards in tears. And Neil said to me, Whats the matter? And I said, Well Ive just killed the person that Im going to kill. He doesnt know who it is. And Neil said, Well, dont do it then. Which showed he completely didnt understand that you need to be very unpleasant and vicious to your characters to write heart-warming childrens books. Hes a doctor, he just doesnt get it. Hes more into saving people than killing them. |
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But Rowlings ruthlessness has come under fire. Some parents have criticized her for over-emphasizing dark themes such as death. And some religious groups have gone as far as saying the novels are potentially harmful and promote occultism.
Rowling: I think thats utter garbage. I absolutely do not believe in the occult, practice the occult. Ive never Ive met literally thousands of children now. Not one of them has said to me youve really turned me on to the occult, not one of them. Now Im convinced that if thats what my books were doing, I would by now have met one child who would have come up to me, covered in pentagrams and said, Can we go and sacrifice a goat later together, will you do that with me? Its never happened, funnily enough.
Couric: You find it very annoying, I can tell.
Rowling: Well occasionally I do, just occasionally I do. Because I am being accused of something quite horrible. So of course Ive got to defend myself.
Couric: What do you believe in? Im just curious about your belief system God, heaven?
Rowling: Oh, I do believe in God.
Couric: You do?
Rowling: Yeah, which Ive said before, but that just seems to annoy them even more For some reason. I dont think they want me on their side at all.
Rowling also dispelled the rumor there would be more than the seven Harry Potter books shes promised. And true to form, she says she wont accept a deadline for writing the last two. But one things for sure now that the word muggle has been added to the Oxford Dictionary, Rowlings assured of literary immortality.
Couric: That gives you a feeling about a) what kind of impact youve had, and b) how enduring people think these books will be, because as far as I know, they dont take a lot of words out of the dictionary.
Rowling: That would be so embarrassing, wouldnt it? Its like being melted down at Madam Tussauds. I always thing thats the ultimate humiliation. Thats why I wouldnt really want to be in Madame Tussauds, because the day comes when they melt you down to make you into someone else.
Couric: It does? Oh God, Im in there.
Rowling: Well, some people they keep.
The third Harry Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban, just finished filming in Scotland, for release in 2004
*(Disclaimer: I did not write this, I took this from NBC's website, full credit goes to them)* |
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