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America’s preeminent Harry Potter journalist, our very own Jennifer Vineyard, also happens to be the world’s preeminent R. Kelly trial reporter. So we’ve been a bit lax on covering the latest in Potterland…
It turns out there could be a decision any day now in Potter author J.K. Rowling’s suit against the publisher of the unauthorized Harry Potter Lexicon.
The New Yorker ran a sad, little profile of the courtroom trials and tribulations of the Lexicon’s author, 50-year-old librarian Steve Vander Ark (he’s a Ravenclaw). He transformed from the host of The Harry Potter Lexicon online, praised by Rowling, into the author of a book she’s trying to put the kibosh on. Let’s see if the suit flies. (Wait, was that a terrible pun…?)
(And just for the record, Rowling filed suit against the book’s publisher, not the nerdy librarian.)
How do you feel about the Lexicon? Is Rowling within her rights — or has she totally overreacted?
Filed Under: trials
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I think it's pretty hard to say until someone actually sees the book. If it's like Rowling and Warner Brothers claim and it's basically a reproduction, then she's totally within her rights to sue and try and get the book stopped. If there is valid criticism then it should be allowed to be published. I love Harry Potter and support Jo, but at the same time, I have a feeling that if she just let the book come and go, it could hardly make a dent in the cultural conscience anyhow. I think her encyclopedia, which I intend to buy, will sell well either way.