I finally got around to reading the first Harry Potter book over Easter. Like Ian before me, I had been slightly put off by the never-ending parade of tacky merchandising - Harry Potter films are all very fine and lovely, and I would be hypocritical in the extreme if I were to begrudge anybody a set of small plastic action figures. But when you find the toy aisles of Woolworths creaking beneath the weight of such questionable delights as the Harry Potter trading card game, or the Harry Potter Sorting Hat, or the Harry Potter Polyjuice Potion Maker or... well anyway, although the integrity of the merchandise may not be all that, there certainly is a hell of a lot of it about. A couple of years ago, what with all the hype and publicity around the launch of the first film, I found myself getting mightily sick of the speccy little git, and this without ever having even picked up a Harry Potter book.

However, I have been determined to read the books for quite some time now - albeit 'determined' in a somewhat passive and inactive sort of way. Somehow or other I have managed to avoid the first film, most of the second, and have absolutely no idea of what happens in the books, other than the fairly sketchy 'Boy goes to Wizard School' outline. Quite how I've managed to avoid the relentless tide of available spoilers I don't know, but I'm hoping to repeat this not inconsiderable feat next year with regard to both Star Wars chapter 3, and more importantly the new series of Doctor Who. So far I know that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, and that Bill Nighy IS the Doctor, and that's about all I want to know.

Actually, I suppose there were certain things that I knew about Harry Potter before coming to the books, odd snatches that didn't particularly spoil anything but which somehow slipped beneath the Curnow radar over the years. I knew, for example, that Harry's female friend was called Hermione - I know this because a friend at work went to see the first film and was surprised to discover that it was pronounced Her-My-Oh-Knee, rather than (as she had been reading it) Her-Me-Own. Hmm, well... I knew also (by dint of the fact that Alan Rickman has been in both films so far) that the teacher Snape was in more than just the first novel. And I knew that the groundskeeper of Hogwarts was big and was called Hagrid. That's about it really. I knew, and of course I still know, that 'somebody' dies in the most recent, fifth, book, BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHO.

Thinking back, the first time I came across the name and the phenomenon that is Harry Potter (gosh, that sounded like a bit of publishing rhetoric didn't it) was in the Sunday Express. It was not long before the publication of the third book, "The Prisoner of Azkaban", and was essentially a one-page write-up of what had even at that stage been a remarkable publishing success story. It sounded interesting, and I have a certain fondness for anything that comes across as 'the children's own stories that adults adore'.

The next time I heard of Harry Potter was, rather unexpectedly, on Have I Got News For You, back in the days when Angus Deayton was still in the host's chair. On that occasion Ian Hislop and guest Stephen Fry (who lists among his many claims to fame three memorable encounters) were discussing matters Potterly, making reference to 'You-Know-Who' in the manner of the characters in the books. In some ways I would have expected this evident cliqueness to have put me off Harry Potter for life, but I'm nothing if not a snob, so in fact it made me want to be 'in the know' - on the train pissing out, as Harry Enfield once put it.

Most recently I was made aware of the amazing Mr Potter by the surely unprecedented excitement surrounding the release of the fifth book. No less a person than Jeremy Paxman interviewed J K Rowling for the BBC. I rarely watch 'normal' TV nowadays, not now that Sky has given us a further 100+ channels of drivel to choose from, but I happened to catch this and found it very interesting. On the one hand, the author's almost obsessive secrecy could be seen as rather silly, but I found it not only endearing but terribly intriguing. And if nothing else, I think the interview helped me discern a clear difference between the stories, and the dubious spin-off merchandising that has grown up around them. It is surely possibly to enjoy the books for what they are, without having to rush out and buy a Harry Potter Double Buckle Leather Briefcase (a snip at $179.95) or an Albus Dumbledore Tassle Hat .

So anyway, five books, thirteen tons of Harry Potter assorted underwear, and six paragraphs of waffle later, I have now read the first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." Although I haven't seen it I know the 'names' that form the cast of the first film, and this gave an interesting 'other level' to the book as I was reading - Maggie Smith simply is the obvious choice for Professor McGonagall, and equally there's surely nobody but Robbie Coltrane for the part of Hagrid (although bizarrely I found myself 'hearing' the character as Fat B*****d from the Austin Powers films). But conversely Richard Harris seems very surprising casting for the part of Dumbledore; though having said that I have to admit that I can't think of anybody at all who naturally fits the part. (And no, his successor Michael Gambon doesn't jump out as the obvious candidate either.)

But as for the story itself, is it really deserving of all the praise that it's received? Well, it's hard to say, to be quite honest, or at least to do so with any degree of objectivity. Like anything that's taken off in such a way, it's very hard to pinpoint just why it has been a phenomenal success - Star Wars, Doctor Who, the Muppets... I could fill up the rest of this column with things that have been unbelievably successful. But although I might be able to point to reasons why they are very good, or very worthy, or clever, or impressive, or whatever their objective merits might be, it would still be difficult to account for them catching, and keeping, such a huge wave of public affection. Star Wars could easily have been just a standalone film, beloved of children, tolerated by adults, enjoyed for an hour or two and then forgotten. Somehow it managed to transcend its ambitions, and it seems likely that it and its legacy will be with us for a very long time. It's probably the same with Harry Potter - it is undoubtedly a very good, and a very enjoyable book, but if I could tell you precisely why it has caught on as it has, I would be worth my weight in gold. (I can't by the way, and of course I'm not.) But caught on, it certainly has - even my boss was waxing lyrical about the fifth one when it came out, and he's read them all!!

From what I gather, the subsequent books become a little darker, a little more 'adult' in tone. Arguably that's what happened with Star Wars (at least with "The Empire Strikes Back") and with Doctor Who as well up until about 1977. Whether this is a criticism, as some people seem to think it should be, is debatable. If the first book was aimed at, say, a literate 8-10 year old, then by the time they reach book five they will be 15 or older. On that basis, wouldn't they expect and deserve a book that is pitched at their current age? Indeed, if the books really have managed to achieve this trick of 'aging' with their readership then not only is that not something to criticise, but it's in fact a feat worthy of praise. It's not easy to catch the public mood, even once - but to do so and then keep it... Well it's not to be sniffed at is it.

What finally has driven me to read the book is in fact the impending release of film number three. When we went to see Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed recently, one of the trailers (along with another Pixar offering, The Invincibles, and a rather unexpected trailer for The Passion of the Christ) was one for the film version of book three. My daughter, who not only has never read the books but rather disappointingly doesn't want to, has nevertheless seen both the first and second films, on video/DVD. Consequently she quite fancies the idea of seeing film number three 'on the big screen'. I, however, am determined that I want to read the books before I see the films, and hence I am doing what Henry Kelly spent half the 1980s referring to as "playing catch-up."

So having established that, at long last, I did actually borrow my Mum's copy (and no, she hasn't read it either) of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and read it a couple of weeks ago, was it any good? Well I can only say that I enjoyed it. Yes, some of it is clearly kid's fare, but there's nothing wrong with that. And equally there are some parts of it (Hagrid's answer to Harry's comment about not being able to tell the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, for example, or the poignancy of the Mirror of Esired) that are almost too good for children. It's definitely enjoyable, in a refreshing and exciting way, and never once is it patronising or disappointing. I won't populate this column with a cartload of spoilers, as I'm hoping that by this stage you've decided to give up on my waffling and have elected to switch off your PC instead and just read the damn book for yourselves, but to take just one example, the resolution to chapter 16's cliff-hanger was a surprise which I hadn't seen coming. The clues were there, but I didn't pick up on them anymore than I did with the Nicholas Flamel mystery. In some ways it's a test of reading - or at least a marker of how much goes in one eye and out, erm, the other... Well, you know what I mean even if I do lack a suitable metaphor to represent it.

To dismiss it as a children's book would be a mistake. Just as people still acclaim the Narnia books (interestingly, I only read these a couple of years ago, having never read them as a child, and I didn't enjoy them all that much) so I think Harry Potter also falls into that category of timeless and ageless literature. It may appear to be a book about children written for children, but its aim and its ambition are beyond that. At the start and the end of the book, Harry and Her-My-Oh-Knee (well, actually Harry and Ron, but I just wanted to say that name again - in many ways I'm a very very petty man...) enter and exit the world of Hogwarts via Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. It may sound a piece of nonsense, but is just a new twist on the idea of a threshold between the real world and the world of magic, not unlike the famous wardrobe to Narnia, or Alice's Looking-Glass, or even an incongruous old Police Telephone Box, and it serves the same dramatic function. I never read Narnia as a child so have never spent any time hammering away at the backs of wardrobes, but I have passed many an idle moment gazing into the mirror and wandering whether I could just push myself through... And I'm sure that nowadays people milling around King's Cross, or indeed any railway station, find themselves wondering whether they can just walk through thin air into the world of Hogwarts, and Hagrid, and... and You-Know-Who.