J.K. Rowling continues to astound with her candor.  After making headlines for outing one of her main characters a few months back, she's now revealed she's contemplated suicide in the past.  What I especially liked about the way she went about it was this bit: "I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never."

I have praised Rowling in the past for her incredible media savvy. She's done it her way, and now she's the richest woman in the world. She can say what she wants.  She can make anybody she wants gay. And if she wants to acknowledge what any reasonably sane, sensitive person has to go through in this life, and has the chutzpa to say it without self-pity, more power to her.

And while I'm not a huge fan of the books personally, and the movies have only recently piqued my interest with their darker themes and tortured teenage sexuality, I admire her courage — and acumen — in taking on those themes in ways that are not just provocative, but deep.

The Potter books serve as an introduction to adult literature, which at its best broadens our experience and develops our capacity for intellectual empathy and emotional depth. Literature is not self-centered. As intimate and private as reading is, it imparts a sense of connectedness with the world outside the self. It prepares us for real-life encounters with the other, and enriches and enlivens them in ways a steady diet of TV and video games don't, in my opinion.  I mean, if your feelings about Chikezie getting tossed off American Idol is the measure of your emotional depth...

So it pleases me to hear someone with such power and influence in adolescent literature speaking frankly about personal issues of alienation we have all felt, but which are not spoken of in such frank terms in the dumbed down, emotionally-stunted, teeth-whitened, Botoxicated adult world we live in.

Sometimes you've got to go through the tunnel to see the light.