Emotional Attachment, Aging, and Books

A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend about book obsession.  Specifically, I was curious about Harry Potter and similar franchises, which developed a fanbase of obsessed kids and adults, all open about their excitement about the next book in the series.  I experienced the same obsession, as did a number of my friends, though to varying degrees.  To this day, I can’t quite explain why that series drew me in.

The topic of book obsession came up because I was concerned (or, perhaps, curious) about the relative paucity of excited feelings about books released since the Harry Potter.  By “excited” I
meant the “ravenous desire to consume a literary product to the extent that it occupies a good portion of my daily life.”  I wondered whether I could re-experience the “Harry Potter moment” again in what remains of my life (likely 20-25 years, but knowing my luck, I’ll live to be 150).  I miss the obsession and the excitement.  When the announcement came that the final installment of HP7 had an official publication date, I recall making silly sounds and bouncing up and down in my computer chair; my excitement boiled over when the book finally arrived in my mailbox, and the experience of reading the book in such a short period of time (48 hours) sticks with me today.

But I haven’t had that experience again.  There are plenty of books and series that I enjoy, and certainly books that I consume at alarming rates (for me), but since 2007, I have remained somewhat neutral about book releases, with some minor bumps on my excitement scale here or there.  I’m not saying that I haven’t had interest in anything since 2007, because I have.  Instead, I’m trying to relay my discomfort with a personal lack, and wondering where that lack develops from.

It’s been suggested to me that this problem has to do with the process of aging.  I wouldn’t say that I’m old, in terms of the number of years I’ve been on this planet, but I have certainly seen a lot of things, experienced much, and moved on from the childish teenage years (and the childish 20s that followed it) and found a more secure place in this thing we call “adulthood” (an absurd thing, by the way, because the name itself implies that one cannot exhibit anything from our “childhoods” without leaving “adulthood,” which is an unspoken rule that I refuse to follow).  But does adulthood, or the process of being adult, or the security of being in a stable “adult life” lead one to the lack implied above?  Does getting older mean we aren’t able to experience the utter joy in the moment of excitement for a literary product?  Do we displace the excitement to something else (and what would that thing be–movies, perhaps, or ties)?

I want to say that age has little to do with it for some of us, particularly myself, but maybe the world neutralizes with age, and you don’t have much choice in the matter.  Or perhaps the field of books is shifting away from what Harry Potter created all those years ago, and what exists now are echoes, in much the same way that a great quantity of fantasy novels have been echoes of Tolkien.  Echoes don’t necessarily inspire the same love as the original product–at least, not for those that once experienced that love with the original, which explains, perhaps, why we see cycles of excitement with each new generation.  Or maybe I’m simply waiting for that next special book to come along that sucks me in and spits me back out impressed and shocked.

Out of curiosity, how many of you have experienced this lack?  I know many of you, like myself, do get a little excitement for the occasional book, and we all likely enjoy much of what we read, but have you been able to find many books to become obsessed over in the last few years?  If so, what were they, and why did you latch onto them?

And also pressing:  what is it about Harry Potter, or *insert the series you became obsessed with once upon a time,* that creates that obsessive excitement, that sucks people in and spits them out impressed and shocked?  Is there an objective quality we can look for, or is that just the nature of the beast?