For Gen-Yers, last Potter book marks the end of an era

With the release of the final Harry Potter book on July 21, youth ponder the role the boy wizard will play in defining their generation.

from the July 19, 2007 edition

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Not surprisingly, the importance Gen Yers place on Harry as a lasting icon tends to follow in lock step with how many times they've reread the series. Certainly, students who have grown up in evangelical households do not look to Hogwarts for moral guidance. And despite the media frenzy in anticipation of Book 7, not every US college student spent her youth in thrall to Rowling's spell.

"It's not a cultural touchstone [for me]," says Jen Siegel, who's studying accounting at the State University of New York in Albany. Given recent world events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq, and global warming, she's not sure Harry Potter will make it into the history books as a defining event of a generation. "There's a lot going on," she says.

Even some fans think that's a lot of weight to put on a series that they say basically boils down to the archetypal showdown of good versus evil.

"I wouldn't say it has affected my worldview, but it's an amazingly catchy story," says Matt Trevithick, a senior at Boston University and an early adopter whose mom ordered the first book from England a year before it was published in the US.

"You grow with the characters," says Ainsley Brockmeyer, a sociology major from Norwood, Mass., who can recite precisely how many times she's read each book and credits the series with helping her develop a love of reading as a teen. While she loves the way the books can transport her to the world of Hogwarts, she and others say that going through the trials of adolescence at the same time that Harry did created a deeper connection with the characters.

"Having the books written before them, watching the series as it has unfolded – that's added a lot to that connection: Not only don't I know what's going to come next, but NO ONE knows what's going to come next," says Professor Alton. To her, the years of shared anticipation and speculation are what makes the phenomenon unique to this generation of readers, rather than the thematic material. "Readers coming to this in five or 10 years' time – or even next year – will not be able to have the same experience."

Seth Shamban is inclined to agree. "The books might be just as meaningful to [new generations of children], but it won't be such a cultural experience for them," says the Stanford University senior. He argues that his generation has struggled with apathy. "If we can show that we really cared about something, that we allowed ourselves to unify around one thing ... why not [Harry Potter]? For a children's book, it's really tied into contemporary, grown-up problems. It's about alienation and identity and how we cope with great tragedy. It speaks to ... terrorism and all these things going on."

Alton counters that the "The Lord of the Rings" swarmed college campuses in the 1960s in a similar way, and says that, until the final chapter has been read, the verdict is still out on what Potter's lasting legacy will be.

As for Lomas, he plans to stretch out his last hours with his childhood companion: "Instead of reading it all in one night, maybe I'll savor it."

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