| From
the July/August 2002 issue of The Horn Book Magazine
Editorial
Classic Reckoning
 ith
our publication this month of John Rowe Townsend’s pellucid
appraisal of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy,
some readers might feel that the Horn Book is overindulging
its notorious Anglophilia. Along with reviewing each of the three
volumes, the last covered at some length by guest critic Gregory
Maguire, we published Mr. Pullman’s thoughts prior to finishing
the trilogy and, after its completion, a summary of the beliefs
— and nonbeliefs — that inform his work. Combined with
all the ink we’ve spilled over the Potter kid, one might think
it was high time for the colonies to reassert their independence.
Fear not — but do brush up your Fritz and
Freedman for our November/December issue, which will be a special
one devoted to the theme of history. For now let’s take a
moment to acknowledge both His Dark Materials and Harry Potter as
classics in the making. I was wrong three years ago (September/October
1999 Horn Book) when I wrote that Harry Potter was
“likable but critically insignificant.” I’ll still
cite you chapter and verse of where I think the series flounders,
but one man’s opinion does not a classic make or unmake, and
at some level textual criticism is beside the point. A classic isn’t
necessarily a masterpiece. It’s instead a book that won’t
go away, one whose presence demands continued reckoning by readers
and writers alike. (I remember rolling my eyes at my mother, a great
reader, when she ventured an opinion that Gone with the Wind
was the Great American Novel, but now I’m inclined to think
she was on the right track.) Great and small, dismal and brilliant,
most books come and go. Others quietly stick around, gathering readers
and reputation over time. And while “instant classics”
tend to last just about that long, some books, Harry Potter and
His Dark Materials among them, arrive bold as paint and demand from
the start that we keep looking.
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