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The Order of the Harry-Haters

By Helen Pringle - posted Friday, 27 July 2007


The Mole replies:

“I know it’s a - shabby, dingy little place,” he sobbed forth at last, brokenly: “not like - your cosy quarters - or Toad's beautiful hall - or Badger’s great house - but it was my own little home - and I was fond of it - and I went away and forgot all about it - and then I smelt it suddenly - on the road, when I called and you wouldn’t listen, Rat - and everything came back to me with a rush - and I wanted it! - O dear, O dear! - and when you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty - and I had to leave it, though I was smelling it all the time - I thought my heart would break. - We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty - only one look - it was close by - but you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty, you wouldn’t turn back! O dear, O dear!”

Ratty then realises how mean he has been in not stopping, and turns back to find Mole’s old home.

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The tender but wrenching longing for home and the past, as well as the gentle understanding friendship of Ratty and Mole is as far removed as could be from the brutality of the style and of the relationships in the Harry Potter books. Sure, Harry and Ron help each other in their japes, but a child would know more of the quiet joys of friends and companions on the road in this one little passage from Wind in the Willows than in the seven blustery volumes of the boy wizard’s adventure.

Moreover, the passage is like an allegory of reading: slow down, listen, take your time, think, don’t rush to the end, and a world will come to life. With Harry Potter, all there is, is a rush to the end to see whodunit.

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About the Author

Helen Pringle is in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales. Her research has been widely recognised by awards from Princeton University, the Fulbright Foundation, the Australian Federation of University Women, and the Universities of Adelaide, Wollongong and NSW. Her main fields of expertise are human rights, ethics in public life, and political theory.

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