萨姆·利思

Even Homer nods1. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire， Harry is fighting a duel with Voldemort when he accidentally does something （Priori Incantatem） that causes the Dark Lords wand to spit out， in reverse order， spectral2 images of the people he has killed. Harrys father， James， comes out before his mother， Lily—when， according to the established story， he died in the process of trying to help his wife and child escape. Fans feverishly speculated as to whether JK Rowling was setting up some crafty plot twist. She eventually admitted it was a mistake， due to “late-night writers fatigue”; the text was corrected in later editions.

荷马也有打盹时。《哈利·波特与火焰杯》中，哈利在跟伏地魔决斗的过程中意外（通过闪回咒）致使这位黑魔王的魔杖以逆时间顺序吐出他所杀之人的幽灵影像。哈利的父亲詹姆斯出现在母亲莉莉之前，而在既定的故事中，他是在帮助妻儿逃跑的过程中丧生的。粉丝们曾拼命猜测J. K. 罗琳是否在制造某种巧妙的情节反转。最终她承认这是由于“作家在深夜疲惫不堪”而犯的一个错误;该错误在之后的版本中得到了更正。

Childrens books can be political. Rowlings brilliant decision was to have her characters grow up at the same rate as her readers. Each book was set in one school year， and grew longer， darker and more adult in theme. By the time we reached book four， Goblet of Fire， we were seeing do-gooding Hermiones Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare formed in response to the bond slavery of these sock-loving poppets3. In the person of the hack4 journalist Rita Skeeter， Rowling sent up5 the tabloid press. The ministry of magic sent up Whitehall bureaucracy. And， as any fool could plainly see， the storys master narrative—with purebloods fighting a war of annihilation against “mudbloods6”—is about the struggle against the basic blood-and-soil7 fascism.

儿童读物也可以涉及政治。罗琳非常明智地让她笔下的人物跟读者同步成长。每本书都以一学年为背景，篇幅越来越长，主题越发黑暗和成人化。读到第四卷《火焰杯》时，我们看到了好心的赫敏为使热爱袜子的小精灵免遭世代奴役，创办了家养小精灵权利促进协会。借雇佣记者丽塔·斯基特这一人物，罗琳讽刺了八卦小报，而借魔法部嘲讽了英国政府的官僚作风。再者，傻瓜也能清楚地看出，故事的主线叙事，即纯血巫师对“泥巴种”发起的毁灭之战，是关于跟本质上强调“血与土”的法西斯主义斗争。

Some people can be as dumb as stumps. In several places in the US， copies of Rowlings books were burned by fundamentalist8 Christians who believed they were encouraging children to take up witchcraft. “Behind that innocent face is the power of satanic darkness，” said pastor Jack Brock of the Christ Community church in Alamogordo， New Mexico， in 2001. “Harry Potter is the devil and he is destroying people.”

有些人蠢若木樁。在美国多地，罗琳的书被原教旨主义基督徒焚烧，他们认为这些书是在鼓励孩子们学习巫术。“那张天真面孔之下隐藏的是撒旦的黑暗力量。”来自新墨西哥州阿拉莫戈多基督教社区教堂的牧师杰克·布罗克在2001年说道，“哈利·波特就是撒旦，他在毁灭人们。”

You could sell childrens books to grownups. The craze for Harry Potter got so febrile9 that， in order to cater to a market of grownups wishing to enjoy his adventures but embarrassed to be seen reading childrens books in public， in 1998 Bloomsbury released the first so-called “adult” edition. Not with added smut10， just with more sombrely designed covers.

童书在成年人中也有市场。《哈利·波特》热潮变得如此白热化，为了迎合那些渴望体验哈利的冒险之旅，却又不好意思被人看到在公共场合阅读儿童读物的成年读者，1998年布鲁姆斯伯里出版公司推出了首个所谓的“成人”版本。……