There is the primary nostalgia of just being a series of books but one has read 20 years ago
That is, of a word that is different from the regular world, and which one has inhabited in detail through the books.
There is the secondary nostalgia off having the “normal” word in the book be one, that has itself been lost — in the sense of not being “a time before” the world we live in today, and aspects of it unrecognizable amidst today’s world.
There is also a tertiary nostalgia of this world not only being “a long time ago”, but also being separated from the present one by a fundamental transformation. We are in effect cyborg individuals already — which has changed utterly not only how we act, and how we behave, but also what we believe in or aspire to.
It is further nostalgic in that there is no point in imagining a separate parallel world of magic anymore, or at least not in the way of a co-existing group of people as the book described.
The forms of illusion and manipulation within the books seem trivial (even laughable), when compared to common consumer technology in the present day.
There is, to be clear, no lack of yearning for a different world, just the inability to imagine it, which lends the current dystopia a desperate “ there is no alternative “ tinge to it.
However, the “magical” people in Rawlings world are able to display a sense of camaraderie and ethics and basic goodness — which the muggles don’t — and this might be a quality to aspire to when thinking of a counter-world to the present day.
Originally published at http://abacusnoir.com on May 25, 2024.
