2023-10-09 04:00:14
Our bewitched journalist Sophie Bourdais covered the young wizard’s debut. Between missed meetings with JK Rowling, tears, joys or skirmishes with refractory Muggles, she gives us her fan diary.
In France, the first Harry Potter books were first released in paperback. Photo Sebastien Ortola/REA
Published on October 9, 2023 at 6:00 a.m.
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On October 9, 1998, the French edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, first of seven volumes in the saga created by JK Rowling. Since then, the magic has never stopped. On the occasion of this twenty-fifth anniversary, Telerama returns to the Harry Potter phenomenon through a series of articles. This Monday, the memories of our journalist Sophie Bourdais, then a young freelancer in the Books department…
October 1998: love at first sight and prediction
Don’t tell anyone, but despite being well into my 25s, I continue to read children’s novels. I even write about them in Télérama, where I freelance for the Books and Television services. In anticipation of the 1998 edition of the Montreuil Book Fair, I was entrusted with a stack of brand new books, including a slim volume written by an unknown woman: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I begin it with caution… and only take one bite. But space is limited. Priority is given to another jewel in the same stack: The Northern Kingdoms, by Philip Pullman. Harry did not join the Books pages until April 1999, in a review where I took myself for Sybil Trelawney, the Hogwarts divination teacher: “Young Potter is well on his way to becoming a star of children’s literature. » At the end of May, Gallimard asked me to interview the author, who was passing through Paris. JK Rowling cancels her trip at the last moment, but two faxes prove it: I almost met the invisible woman.
July 1999: I realize that the French version is redacted!
On vacation in Ireland, I came across volume 3 in original version Impossible to resist. I’m painfully learning to read in English, and I’m laughing out loud to discover that Hermione’s boggart is an avatar of Professor McGonagall telling her that she has failed her exams!
I laugh less, at the start of the school year, when I can’t find this passage in the French translation. I scan the previous volumes: there are also some juicy details missing. As upset as a witch deprived of her broom, I called the editor, Christine Baker, then the translator, the excellent Jean-François Ménard, who justified his cuts in the name of the length of the text, the character “very English” of certain paragraphs, and the risk that an excess of details slows down the narration. In its defense, French publishing has the habit of treating what we consider to be “paraliterature” in this way. And no one knows yet that the Potter-fan, young or old, will not mind reading increasingly imposing books. Doubtful, I silence my annoyance in my dissection of the editorial phenomenon, published at the end of December, and concentrate on my main objective: to encourage the last Muggles to read these magical novels, whose pages turn on their own.
August 2000: in the editorial office, “Harry Potter” becomes a dirty word
The Anglo-Saxon release of the fourth volume causing a lot of noise, I wrote the word “pottermania” for the first time. I devoured the novel straight away. And, stunned by the darkness of the outcome, share with anyone who will listen my concern about the rise of fascism in the wizarding world. Obviously, my comrades in the Television department are starting to get tired: when we decide, to improve our spoken language, to tax our swear words according to their vulgarity, they inform me that I will have to pay fifty cents (maximum rate) each time that I would say “Harry Potter”.
However, I have allies. One of my bosses hides the covers of books under wrapping paper so she can read them discreetly on the subway. Laurence Le Saux unmasks herself by announcing, in the Radio pages, a nighttime reading of the first volume on France Culture. In the section “Signs of the times », a bookseller denounces “the excessive marketing aroundHP4 », sold only in large format at the price of 126 francs (the first, released in paperback, cost only 39). After having praised the new opus, I am concerned in my turn, in the Television pages, about the maneuvers of Warner, which treats Harry Potter as a registered trademark whose dynamic fandom cannot use as he pleases.
On the left, the appointment confirmation fax with JK Rowling, in the center, a message left by a colleague, on the right, the press kit announcing the release of volume 4. Private collection
November 2001: my wizard on the screens
Harry’s film debut is imminent, and my obsession has infected the Cinema department. While I empathically collect the fans’ expectations and concerns, Cécile Mury retraces the history of this long-awaited adaptation, and Aurélien Ferenczi gives, on Chris Columbus’ film, “a Muggle’s opinion”. I am rather disappointed myself. The action takes precedence over psychology, the humor disappears, the family romance is reduced to a bare minimum. But Hedwig’s theme on the celesta, composed by John Williams, delights me, as does the care taken in the settings (apart from the stairs, which lack poetry) and the choice of Maggie Smith to play McGonagall.
October 2002: waiting for “HP5”
No news from Hogwarts for over two years! It’s unbearable. I took advantage of JKR’s appearance in a BBC doc to write him a letter in the TV pages: “Please, think of your distraught fans who can no longer wait for the publication of the fifth volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix… » In solidarity, Christian Sorg echoes my distress in his weekly column: “Volume 5 was announced for Christmas. We may not have it at Easter, or even at Trinity. […] The most pessimistic pottermaniacs fear that JK Rowling has definitively given up on writing. Let’s just remind them that the British novelist recently married an anesthesiologist, and that this undoubtedly explains it. »
For the next year, Harry disappeared from the Book pages, but not from Telerama. Aurélien Ferenczi compares his adaptation with that of Lord of the Rings, and Stéphane Jarno compares their original soundtracks. In the file devoted to cultural diversity in the face of globalization, the filmmaker Pavel Lounguine is angry against “a form of aggressive infantilization that comes from the United States. Harry Potter dominates the world and imposes its pseudo-democracy”. This unfair trial rebounds in The world, which publishes a vitriolic column by the novelist Antonia S. Byatt (“Harry Potter, for immatures of all ages”). Immature yourself! In December 2003, I devoted an entire page to setting the record straight, while chronicling HP5, finally appeared. As Harry begins an adolescent crisis, my paper is titled “The Acne of Mystery”. Busy with other editorial tasks, I will not write anything about HP6, but will nonetheless shed torrents of tears over the sacrifice of Albus Dumbledore.
October 2007: time to say goodbye
Responsible for monitoring TV series since 2006, I prepare my review of the adventures of Harry Potter just before burying The Sopranos, another brilliant serialized saga. Since July, I have been biting my lips not to reveal the end of Deathly Hallows to non-English speaking fans. Gallimard is organizing a huge party, where I’m taking my godson, who grew up at the same time as Harry; we’re testing the electronic Sorting Hat, which — hooray! — sends us both to Gryffindor. I take leave of the series and my own pottermania in a three-page article, which summarizes the five extraliterary feats accomplished by JK Rowling. I won’t read any of his other novels. It’s time to change obsessions, the Music department will soon reach out to me. When I rewrite “the spells of Harry Potter” In Teleramaeleven years later, it will be to quote another wand wizard: the Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.
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