On the other side of the ocean, in the study of a brownstone apartment on the Charles River in Boston, a letter lies quietly on the desk of former Nobel Prize laureate Saul Bellow.
The sunlight streamed in through the tall windows, casting warm yellow streaks across the dark wooden floor.
The surface of the Charles River shimmered with tiny, fragmented lights in the distance, and a few sailboats drifted slowly on its surface.
Saul leaned back in his chair, his reading glasses hanging around his neck, holding the letter he had just opened in his hands.
The letter was sent by his good friend Ian, and it began in his usual style: first complaining about how late autumn came to London, and then chatting for a bit about the new essay he was writing.
He then shifted his focus, mentioning some "interesting noises" in the literary world recently.
"... There's been a lot of commotion here in Great Britain lately. Martin Amis is as sharp as ever, but I think he's misdirecting his sharpness."
"I read a bit of that Harry Potter book—don't be surprised, I'm not the kind of stubborn person who avoids bestsellers."
"In fact, I finished reading it, and I must say, the author really did write something. His talent for language is rarer than many who have been writing for decades."
Have you read it? If not, I suggest you take some time to flip through it.
"It will remind you of that initial thrill of reading, that feeling of knowing the story is going to go but still being unable to stop turning the pages."
Saul's lips twitched slightly when he saw this. He subconsciously glanced up at the green-covered book on the coffee table in the living room, then looked down at the letter.
In the latter half of the letter, Ian returned to a somber tone:
"Sometimes I feel that our generation has elevated the word 'literature' too high, so high that it's out of reach for ordinary people."
"But if literature truly becomes a tower that only a few can climb, then what use is it?"
"Of course, I'm not saying that what the masses like is necessarily good—that's just laziness."
"I just think that maybe we can be more tolerant. Let serious things be serious, and let fun things be fun. A healthy literary ecosystem shouldn't have only one mountain."
At the end of the letter, Ian concluded with a half-joking remark. "When the second half of ' The Chamber of Secrets ' comes out, you absolutely must buy a copy."
"But when you're queuing to buy children's literature in Chicago, be careful not to get recognized and photographed."
Saul laughed, folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and casually placed it on his desk.
He returned to the living room, sat down, picked up the green book, weighed it in his hand, and muttered to himself, "We really are on the same wavelength."
He reached for the book, picked it up, and flipped to the small author biography on the back cover. " Allen Wayne, a new author, currently living in London."
"Who exactly are you?" Saul asked the line of text, as if talking to himself, or perhaps to the author he had never met.
Saul leaned back in his chair, his fingers unconsciously tapping twice on the cover.
His gaze passed over the desk and landed on the gray skyline outside the window as he fell into deep thought.
The literary scene in the Lighthouse Country has been unusually quiet in recent years.
Critics are still writing reviews, novelists are still publishing books, and the nominations for the Booker Prize and Pulitzer Prize are announced as usual, but the kind of excitement that once thrilled the entire cultural world has been absent for a long time.
Saul recalled twenty years ago, when the literary scene in the Lighthouse Country was like a sea where storms could break at any moment.
Philip Roth and Norman Mailer engaged in a war of words in the newspapers, and critics could argue for a whole year.
Young writers, with their sharp edges, charge headlong into the fray, each new book like a stone thrown into a pond, creating ripples upon ripples.
And now? The pond is still the same pond, but fewer and fewer people are throwing stones at it. Everyone stands on the bank watching, waiting for someone else to make the first move.
Saul isn't the kind of person who's hopelessly nostalgic; he knows that every era has its own voice, but he has to admit that literature in the Lighthouse Country has indeed been declining over the past decade.
Good writers are still writing, but the outward spread of their work is weakening.
Novels from the Lighthouse Country are increasingly turning inward, writing about family, trauma, and the struggles of individuals in the cracks of the times. There is nothing wrong with these themes in themselves, but the problem is that they are all too similar.
If you pick up a book and read a dozen pages, you can basically guess the direction of the remaining two hundred pages.
And what about Great Britain? There have been quite a few new voices emerging in recent years, but very few have actually crossed the ocean.
Most books that enter the Lighthouse Country market are drowned in the vast sea of books, without even making a ripple.
However, Harry Potter arrived, swimming into these calm waters like a shark, taking a bite and tearing open a huge gash.
Saul couldn't help but chuckle again at this thought.
He himself felt that the metaphor was a bit exaggerated, but he couldn't find a more suitable way to put it.
The problem is, it succeeded.
In the Lighthouse Country, an era where even local bestsellers are finding it increasingly difficult to gain wider recognition, a children's book from Great Britain Cleansweep all the bestseller lists and become the talk of the town in every bookstore.
Saul recalled attending a literary event dinner in New York last month, where several young editors were chatting together. He overheard one of them say:
"At our monthly editorial meetings, someone mentions Harry Potter; everyone wants to know what it did right?"
What did we do right?
Saul couldn't help but think of the literary world today, from Europe to Americas, and even including the Far East, a region undergoing violent upheaval, where the same scene seemed to be everywhere:
Serious literature is becoming increasingly competitive, increasingly niche, and increasingly like a delicate dessert prepared for a select few.
The number of readers is decreasing, the space for discussion is shrinking, and those works that still attract widespread attention are often criticized for not being serious enough, profound enough, or literary enough.
The situation in the Far East is equally complex.
Since that superpower split up last year, the cultural landscape of the entire region is undergoing a long restructuring.
The old order has collapsed, and a new order has yet to take shape; various literary schools are struggling to grow from the ruins.
The writers over there are going through a very difficult period; they have lost their original market and their original readership.
Some turned to more niche areas, some chose to emigrate overseas, and some simply gave up writing altogether.
Saul occasionally receives magazines and books from there; he knows the quality of those works is still very high, but few people read them anymore.
The world's literary landscape seems to be becoming increasingly fragmented and dispersed, with each region operating within its own small circle. Works that can truly transcend national borders, languages, and cultures are becoming increasingly rare.
But Saul is not pessimistic.
He had seen too many pronouncements that "literature is dead," which would emerge every ten years, each time with absolute certainty, but each time literature proved to be alive.
It's just constantly changing its form, taking on new shapes, making those who are used to the old ones feel uncomfortable.
However, as times progress, some things will eventually be eliminated.
He turned his gaze back to the green book on the table.
A breeze from the Charles River made the window frame vibrate slightly, and a few withered leaves slid across the glass like a silent greeting.
Saul sat back in his chair, picked up the book " Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Part 1)" and continued reading.
He believes this book will soon cause another uproar.
That's true, but Saul obviously didn't expect that the book's release would first cause a huge uproar not in the literary world.
It is the Wizarding World.