Why Does Everyone Hate J.K. Rowling?

There was much adverse comment last week at the news that J.K. Rowling is the world's highest earning writer, generating $300m last year: to quote The Guardian, by no means alone, "sickening reading for the majority of authors who are struggling to earn a living".

Rowling's crimes are various: she is rich; she writes derivative books with no literary merit; she gives money to the Labour Party; she sued a hapless and penniless fan who sought to publish a Hogwarts Encyclopaedia. Let's look at all this a little closer.

Rowling is undoubtedly rich. That money has arisen almost entirely from the Harry Potter books. The long and short of it is that those books have sold a hell of a lot of copies, and been made into films. Yes, they have been hyped by a publishing industry keen to profit from the books' popularity--but the sustained success of a seven-book series suggests that she has touched a lot of lives with her work. I've read all the books, seen all the films, so she's probably made about thirty quid out of me. Is that really so excessive?

Literary merit is harder to measure. Many of her detractors seem to me not to have read the books, or to given up after the first three; the later books in the series have an ambition and unflinching quality which to my mind makes them likely to endure well beyond the negative opinions of her opponents. And derivative? Well, Rowling is working in a particular tradition - but none of us works in isolation. I hope I don't disillusion anyone by observing that the plots of Hamlet and Othello are not entirely Shakespeare's own work...

Recently Rowling made a donation of £1m to the Labour Party, a measure of support for a beleaguered Government which should be respected even by those who don't vote the same way. Rowling has consistently championed social causes and supported this with significant amounts of money. That she can afford to misses the point: having money doesn't in general make us any keener to part with it.

Then there is the case of Steven Van Der Ark, who sought only to make an honest buck by producing a faithful Harry Potter encyclopaedia. So faithful, in fact, that it used almost exclusively Rowling's own words. There is a widespread view that a writer as wealthy as Rowling could have turned a blind eye to this minor piece of copyright infringement. I wonder whether those who have denounced Rowling's rapacity would be quite so blase if it was their own work that was being plagiarised in that way.

So why does everyone seem to have turned on one of our best-selling writers? Sadly it seems to come down to envy. Rowling's books are good, but they aren't so good that the revenues should dwarf what other writers are making: she had the fortune to be in the right place at the right time. I am sure that she would acknowledge as much. But wouldn't be a more charitable perspective to congratulate her on her success, and acknowledge that a writer who has hooked so many children on reading deserves all the rewards she gets?

So, with all due respect to those at The Guardian, despite the £27 royalties I have banked to date from The Dog of the North, I am not "sickened" by Rowling's success: I am heartened by it. And so should everyone who thinks that books are important.