Wizard’s hour

The first print run in the US alone is said to be more than eight million; in Britain it is reckoned that one in three adults will read the book. In India, where a work of fiction in English has to sell only 5,000 copies to be labelled a bestseller, shops will be ready with more than 40,000 copies of the book. In terms of sheer numbers, Phoenix has no parallel in publishing history. But in terms of frenzied anticipation, it recalls Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop. More than a century ago, as a ship carrying copies of a magazine carrying the final instalment of that narrative docked in New York, thousands gathered, inquiring, “Does Little Nell die?”

There, in essence, is what the buzz is all about: That eternal fascination with what happens next. Periodically, commentators announce the death of the novel, they forecast a crisis in narrative, they groan that all the stories have already been told, that fiction can no longer inspire suspense. Hmm. Marketing may account for some of the hype, but it cannot sustain a series through five instalments. Rowling — and other children’s writers who’ve bridged the kiddie-adult divide like Philip Pulman and Lemony Snicket — cast a charm by harnessing their imaginations, by spinning a jolly good tale. Which also means that Rowling had better meet the high standards she set in her first four books. Else, shock, horror, she may be toppled from her perch as Britain’s richest woman.