If the reader approaches both texts with an open mind and Harry Potter engages more, and he gets more from it, then yes, it is a better book.

If no work of art evokes some kind of response inside of you, then it isn't good. It's impossible to rate something as a masterpiece and at the same time taking some objective stance and claim you have no passion for it. If you recognise it as a masterpiece, you must hold some passion for it. Lav, you hold The Pieta as a masterpiece because of your personal attachment to it; there's nothing wrong with that. So do I. You don't rate Harry Potter a masterpiece because of your personal detachment, or rejection of it.

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Are you telling me if some spotty teenagers tell me MichaelAngel's Pity is nothing but a crappy piece of marble, should I respect him simply because he doesn't have passion for it?

If anybody claims anything to be "crappy" without giving some kind of personal elaboration, then no, their opinion merits no respect. If the same teenager responds to Harry Potter by saying it's a "boring piece of shit", I'd feel the same way. What if I say The Pieta fails to evoke in me any sympathy for the figures it depicts? Does that mean I'm wrong, because the work of Art's objective greatness automatically overrides my own opinion? And, for the record, I admire the sculpture's accurate representation of the human figure, and because of that, I rate it a masterpiece of form.
If I said Michelangelo's figures were too accurate, and argued that if Art represents the world we see in a way so as to look real, then you may as well just take a photograph of it, then I'd be wrong? What if I said it was an overly manipulative piece, intended to evoke certain emotions in us, and failed in its goal, because I rejected those values? What if I think his sculpting abilities are far inferior to other artist's? Am I wrong?

Everything, I think, is a masterpiece in its own right. It's just a case of whether or not you connect with that. You don't connect with the masterpiece inside of Harry Potter; I don't connect with the masterpiece inside of Georgia O'Keefe's work.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. I'm comparing them with a personal attitude, judging their relative, intrinsic value upon me. You can't compare them in an objective way, I don't think. Or you could, but it defeats the purpose of Art appreciation, I think; these are literary texts, written by an artist and read by his/her audience. To value any work of art over another because it has stood the test of time more is unfair, I think (though I'm not saying you do). In fact, Harry Potter is part of my school's English syllabus now, and the year below me are studying it in comparison to Tom Brown's Schooldays as an academic subject.

Yeah, it always merits intellectual engagement, but as long as it's studied.

I don't mean studied in the sense of sitting down in class and answering questions on it. It can be done alone. Studying automatically implies some academic approach, and, actually, this approach is the one that is, for me, too fussy in trying to decode the meaning and messages of works of Art. There are more abstract, more pesonal, more rewarding ways to approach texts. Take this, for example: ever read when you're tired as hell, or with something distracting your mind, and you find yourself reading the same sentence over and over again, without it registering? This is, I think, reading without studying it. Thinking back to it after reading, you won't be able to respond in any way. But if you give everything to the text, then you're engaging in it, and that means you're studying it. In fact, I don't think things have to be studied post-reading, and that the actual reading of a text is good enough. The problem in some spotty teenager's rejection of Michelangelo lies not in his response, but in that he didn't give everything into his appreciation of it. This is why I always watch a film all the way through, or why I always insist on silence when watching a film with others, or why I wear headphones when watching them alone. So that, if I reject the piece, at least I've given everything into it.

So this automatically places a prejudice against newer authors and works. It basically says that, the novels we're reading today, whichi were also written today, we have no say in the matter whether they're good or not, and it'll be long after we die when they're judged as to their greatness. Do you agree with this? I don't. Who decides what is trendy and what is "deep"? History? Perhaps, but what if you're alive in 1606, and have just seen King Lear for the first time. Everybody's raving about it; its author wrote it for a quick buck. Is it, then, only trendy Literature, and not good? Or what of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Written by Stevenson, again, for a quick buck,and yet there are endless social, psychological and historical comments to be found in the piece.

I don't read a novel to understand it. I read it to understand myself. All texts (works of Art) are mirrors for humanity to gaze into it. Some argue that it's the most confrontational, challenging works that make that mirror the most rewarding, and therefore award Tragedies and Drama as the best kind of Literature. But what if some philospher reaches a stage in his life of total self-contentment, and decides one day, to sit down and read a Mills and Boon novel, and thinks it's the best book he's ever read?

Thanks for reading.