> I've been rereading the books on my commute

That's what they are for. Short 10-15minute chapters that demand little to nothing of the reader. Each scene is encapsulated, with magical objects or principals appearing and disappearing to both create and answer problems. Re-read Tolkien and see the difference.

I got bored of the entire elitist theme. The wizarding world is a metaphore for the english class system, something that imho shouldn't be promoted in a kids book. Hogwarts is a grammar school. Magic is latin. Wizards are the ruling class and mugals the illiterate peasants. Even the four houses map onto established classes and royal struggles (see the war of the roses). It's all been done to death.

The wizarding world is portrayed as backward, stagnant and racist, in contrast to the muggles, who make continuous progress.

Except that that progress is impotent. There are several instances in the books were mugal tech is belittled as irrelevant to a world where such problems can be waved away (dentistry, flying cars etc). And wizard conflicts go on without input from mugals even where they do much of the dieing. The message is that there is a world of elites fighting battles that we illiterate peasants cannot understand. We should just trust that those who attended Eton have is all in hand.

And there is a parallel justice system akin to the ecclesiastical courts of the past whereby initiates avoid the laws governing the lay peasantry.

I would disagree with the world being racist. There is a faction that promoted blood lines, but not necessarily blood lines tied to race. It's elitism rather than racism.

I read the first one for the first time, recently. It was okay. Just okay.