Harry Potter: Is Miriam Margolyes right that adult fans should 'grow up'?

[Nearly Sane]

Not sure that many interests/passions are grown up.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68552815

[SteveH]

I think she's wrong. A good children's book (or film) can be enjoyed by adults too. I didn't read the Chronicles of Narnia until I was in my 30s, but I loved them. As CS Lewis himself once wrote, "a children's book that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's book".
I'm not sure about extreme fandom, though: I think nerdy people like that are harmless, and generally likeable in their nerdy way (though I wouldn't want to spend too long with them, for fear of being bored to death), but that kind of single-minded obsession is not altogether healthy.

[Nearly Sane]

I think she's wrong. A good children's book (or film) can be enjoyed by adults too. I didn't read the Chronicles of Narnia until I was in my 30s, but I loved them. As CS Lewis himself once wrote, "a children's book that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's book".
I'm not sure about extreme fandom, though: I think nerdy people like that are harmless, and generally likeable in their nerdy way (though I wouldn't want to spend too long with them, for fear of being bored to death), but that kind of single-minded obsession is not altogether healthy.

I'd be interested in your reaction to The Last Battle, reading it for the first time at that age. It always seems to me to lose the charm, and start beating you over the head with the message.

I know a number of what might be considered extreme fans of a variety of things, and I don't think that if you met them you would be bored, or even know that they were 'extreme fans'. People compartmentalise very well.

ETA - To be fair, as I got older the.message.in the other Narnia books, particularly The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe became obvious but still maintained the charm.

The portrayal of Calormen always rankled a bit.

[SteveH]

'The Last Battle' had me blubbing like a big girl's blouse. I could have done without the reactionary propaganda in some of the other books, though, such as his sarcasm about experimental schools, and found it hard to forgive him for excluding Susan from 'The Last Battle', just for the sake of making a trivial moral point.
Great books, though: I must re-read them some day (perhaps skipping 'The Horse and his Boy', the most boring of them).