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Thread: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

  1. #51
    Mammuthus primigenius eleanorigby's avatar
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    I, too, don't understand the contempt felt for HP. She owes a great debt to Nesbitt, Carroll, Tolkien, Lewis and who knows who else, but they are good reads. They may be "beach reads", but they are not tripe. I disagree with those who say they are literature, but to stimulate discussion about larger themes or about marketing phenomena or about the popularity of fantasy fic today etc, HP works just fine.

    I don't see the point of criticizing them for the very attribute that makes them popular: they are plot driven novels rich in details with characters we come to care about. The oddest bit is how adults have taken to them. If HP hadn't taken over the NYT's Best Seller List for some months, spawning a children's BS List, I wonder if we would have all this talk of how bad the books are. I've been rereading children's and YA (young adult) books my entire life. A well written book is a well written book. With that, I will say that an enjoyable book is an enjoyable one--they are neither mutually exclusive but also not to be found within each novel, either. IMO, one puts up with Rowling's weaknesses because one wants to enter that particular world. She didn't set out to write Great Literature; she set out to tell a story. IMO, the worst thing that happened to her was the massive success because it made her editors reluctant to get out the scalpel and never even touch the axe. This shows in the later books, and not to her credit. The epilogue in book 7 is a crime against all storytellers for just one example. It is so poorly written that words fail me.


    Of course there are better writers out there. I don't quite see how Rowling's success takes away any of the talent of these people or the appreciation for their work. (Hell, there are excellent writers out there who aren't even published). There are much worse writers, too--some of them published and popular (Stephanie Meyers comes to mind). It is simple snobbery to disdain that which is popular. Sometimes the contempt is deserved (as in the Twilight series), and sometimes it isn't (HP).

    I don't see why HP has to be considered Great Literature in the first place. Is only GL deserving of great accolade? As someone said upthread, HP deserves a place in discussions about fiction if only because of the success of the books. Writing is a fascinating art form, but only a very few books can be considered true art, IMO. The world is content with a good story, something I'm glad of, aren't you?

  2. #52
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    I, too, don't understand the contempt felt for HP. She owes a great debt to Nesbitt, Carroll, Tolkien, Lewis and who knows who else, but they are good reads. They may be "beach reads", but they are not tripe.
    Because some people (like me) legitimately think they're shit. Rowling has covered no new ground, she's just followed the fantasy conventions very conventionally.
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  3. #53
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    I, too, don't understand the contempt felt for HP. She owes a great debt to Nesbitt, Carroll, Tolkien, Lewis and who knows who else, but they are good reads. They may be "beach reads", but they are not tripe.
    Because some people (like me) legitimately think they're shit. Rowling has covered no new ground, she's just followed the fantasy conventions very conventionally.
    True. I think she is genuinely good at plotting though. She can put together a story. It should also be said in her defense that she is very open about her influences and use of conventions. She even [spoiler:2ylbivt1]said about Dumbledore's death that it was necessary, because in this genre the hero has to go on alone.[/spoiler:2ylbivt1]

  4. #54
    Mammuthus primigenius eleanorigby's avatar
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    Because some people (like me) legitimately think they're shit. Rowling has covered no new ground, she's just followed the fantasy conventions very conventionally.

    Where is it written that an author must cover new ground? Define new ground. HP is conventional fantasy fiction. What is so dazzling about Pern or even (dare I say it?) LOTR*? LOTR was germinal to the genre, but all genre fiction follows a formula. Why is Rowling held to a higher standard than others who write fantasy?

    I don't get the hate. I understand the books may not be to everyone's taste. I see no appeal to Anne Rice, for example, but there are those who are devoted to her. But Rowling, for all her weaknesses, is a better writer than Meyers or the RL Stine (the Goosebumps guy), 2 contemporary popular authors within the fantasy genre.

    AFAIK, Rowling has openly acknowledged the debt she owes to Nesbit et al. I don't think it's so incomprehensible (or reprehensible) that most people like conventional stories, conventionally told.


    *Yeah, I know--Tolkien created entire languages and cultures etc. But even with all that, his tales test the reader's tolerance for the descriptive voice.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    Where is it written that an author must cover new ground? Define new ground. HP is conventional fantasy fiction. What is so dazzling about Pern or even (dare I say it?) LOTR*? LOTR was germinal to the genre, but all genre fiction follows a formula. Why is Rowling held to a higher standard than others who write fantasy?
    I totally agree with your basic point, but I think you picked two pretty bad examples. For its various flaws, and I think Lord of the Rings certainly has a number, there really is a dazzling quality to the depth and internal consistency of the world Tolkien built, while all the while more or less inventing the modern fantasy genre. I don't fault Rowling for failing to invent a new genre, but when someone does, it should be recognized. And Rowling's universe was certainly not the same complex, real sort of place Middle Earth was, either. I think it's fair to judge science fiction and fantasy on how well-realized the universe of a particular work is, because I think world building is a very fundamental aspect of those genres and something that separates them from other genres.

    I think Pern is a bad example just because I don't think most people would really hold it up as an amazing work of fiction. I don't mean to shit on it, either, because I enjoyed a number of those novels when I was 11 or 12, but there's a whole lot of reasons to mock them.


    But Rowling, for all her weaknesses, is a better writer than Meyers or the RL Stine (the Goosebumps guy), 2 contemporary popular authors within the fantasy genre.
    I think people shit on Rowling's writing style a lot more than is deserved. She violates a number of those silly rules you're supposed to abide by -- particularly look for adverbs attached to verbs of speaking, which for whatever reason gets a lot of people's goat. And some of her books were really overlong. But all in all, I think Rowling's writing is quite good on stylistic grounds. Obviously just my opinion, but generally I'm pretty intolerant to bad writing so I feel comfortable making judgments about it. :smile:


    AFAIK, Rowling has openly acknowledged the debt she owes to Nesbit et al. I don't think it's so incomprehensible (or reprehensible) that most people like conventional stories, conventionally told.
    In fact, that's why certain things become convention in the first place!

  6. #56
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by Harlequin
    True. I think she is genuinely good at plotting though. She can put together a story. It should also be said in her defense that she is very open about her influences and use of conventions. She even [spoiler:1kfucjci]said about Dumbledore's death that it was necessary, because in this genre the hero has to go on alone.[/spoiler:1kfucjci]
    I can find better stories with equally good plots. Most of them aren't half so long-winded.

    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    Where is it written that an author must cover new ground? Define new ground. HP is conventional fantasy fiction. What is so dazzling about Pern or even (dare I say it?) LOTR*? LOTR was germinal to the genre, but all genre fiction follows a formula. Why is Rowling held to a higher standard than others who write fantasy?
    I'm not holding Rowling to any standard. She had her chance with me and it just didn't take.

    Tolkien's not a good example. The man was a scholar of Old English and the myths and legends that come with it. LOTR was a retelling of those myths and an exploration of the Old English world. HP is just same old same old. It's fantasy for people who are afraid of fantasy, like Sword of Shannara is LOTR for people who are afraid of Tolkien.

    But Rowling, for all her weaknesses, is a better writer than Meyers or the RL Stine (the Goosebumps guy), 2 contemporary popular authors within the fantasy genre.
    1. My cat's a better writer than Meyers.
    2. Goosebumps is kid's horror.
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  7. #57
    Oliphaunt featherlou's avatar
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    I, too, don't understand the contempt felt for HP. She owes a great debt to Nesbitt, Carroll, Tolkien, Lewis and who knows who else, but they are good reads. They may be "beach reads", but they are not tripe.
    Because some people (like me) legitimately think they're shit. Rowling has covered no new ground, she's just followed the fantasy conventions very conventionally.
    I don't really know how valid a criticism this is - there have always been conventions and forms for different genres of literature.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I can find better stories with equally good plots. Most of them aren't half so long-winded.
    Have you ever even looked at the fantasy section of a bookstore? Honestly, criticizing a fantasy-author for being long-winded in comparison with her peers almost sounds like a crazy joke.


    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    Tolkien's not a good example. The man was a scholar of Old English and the myths and legends that come with it. LOTR was a retelling of those myths and an exploration of the Old English world. HP is just same old same old. It's fantasy for people who are afraid of fantasy, like Sword of Shannara is LOTR for people who are afraid of Tolkien.
    I'm not going to claim any real knowledge of Old English myths, but no. I don't think the idea that Lord of the Rings is a retelling of Old English myths is accurate.

  9. #59
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I can find better stories with equally good plots.
    Nobody has said she is the greatest writer ever, but in a thread entitled "Are the Harry Potter books total crap?" I think her strengths are relevant.

  10. #60
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I can find better stories with equally good plots. Most of them aren't half so long-winded.
    Are you speaking specifically of YA fantasy stories, or literature in general?

    If the former, I would like to hear some examples, if you would.
    If the latter.. well, yeah.
    "There are no ordinary people. ... It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit." C.S. Lewis

  11. #61
    Mammuthus primigenius eleanorigby's avatar
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    If I recall correctly, Tolkien did not refashion Old English myths--he deplored the fact that England did not have comparable ones to the Nordic traditions and decided to create them in writing LOTR. Instead of giving John Bull a pantheon and sagas to call his own, he spawned a genre of fiction. IMO, it's to his credit. Rowling continues in that vein.
    Excal--you say Rowling failed to create a world, but I disagree. IMO, she lacks fluidity in describing all aspects of that world to the degree that Tolkien or Lewis did (although Lewis is weak on this as well in the later books, IMO). Hogwarts et al is a cohesive universe; It's her lack of mastery re some of the tools an author uses that shake the reader out of that world. IOW, she is not sure how to integrate all of her created world. Even here, I am struggling to say what I mean. It's things like the overuse of adverbs and the relentless summations. IMO, she showed all her weaknesses as a author in that epilogue. It reads like 6th grade fanfic. It's horrid. What I would like is to read a version of HP that has been ruthlessly edited. Her success was her undoing. Again, my opinion.

    There are some passages of LOTR that are pure poetry for their lyricism. There are also passages that are as humdrum and longwinded as anything Rowling wrote. Of the two, Tolkien is the better writer, but he is not above criticism. I brought him up solely because his popularity rivals that of Rowling and they share a genre.

    I used Meyers and Stine because they are both kids' authors. Meyers is the fairer comparison if we look to age group, but there are plenty of 3rd graders reading HP and they are a prime target for Goosebumps. I didn't use Lewis because his series does not straddle kidlit and young adult fic like HP and LOTR does (if one includes the Hobbit).


    I dragged Pern in because it was the only other series I could think of. I did think of Eragon late last night--now there's a complete hack and rip off artist.

    I've never read (or heard of) the Sword of Shannara. I am particular about my fantasy fic. It has to be real-the more outlandish it gets, the worse it is, IMO. I'd rather read about "conventional" lives that have one oddity (say telepathy) and see what effect that one thing has on social dynamics and events etc than read about people with wings or tails or the like.* Of course, YMMV. That's the beauty of fiction.





    *I reserve the right to completely change my mind w/o explanation here. I just like a good read, really. :smile:

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Let me clarify: my complaints about Rowling are personal. I did imply that it's the same for all her critics, but they're my personal objections and for the confusion I apologize.

    First off:
    Quote Originally posted by Excalibur
    Have you ever even looked at the fantasy section of a bookstore? Honestly, criticizing a fantasy-author for being long-winded in comparison with her peers almost sounds like a crazy joke.
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HA! Thank you. I needed a good laugh this morning. Honey, you need to take a trip to the bookstore with me some time. Where do you think the first section I visit is? Which new release shelf at the library do I go to first? I spend hours scouring fantasy sections. It is, as you may have guessed, my preferred genre.

    Now that's out of the way.

    I present to you my bookshelf. Search out all the fantasy/sci-fi I have on it. You will note that I already have the Harry Potter story written by several authors. David Eddings for example: He wrote the Boy Finds Out He's Magic and Avenges His Parents in the Belgariad and followed it up with The Further Adventures of Magic Boy and the Kid Who Finds Out He's God in the Mallorean. For the same story in long winded prose that makes you wonder what kind of bribe the author gave the editors, I present Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. For retold fairy tales, it depends on what you want. If you want the Mabinogeon, I got Lloyd Alexander, if you want Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, or Donkeyskin, I've got Robin Mckinley. I also have the originals of these as well. If you think I'm a snob, please go over hereand note the ratings I gave to Brian Herbert's Dune novels.

    I trust that clears up a few misperceptions about my tastes?

    In short, I don't like Harry Potter because I've read that story over and over again since I was a kid. I'm tired of it by now. What has Rowling done with it except write a thrilling yarn? Nothing. I've gotten to the point where I like to see things mixed up a bit. That's why I love Robin McKinley: in Beauty she did a straight retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but she added a twist in Rose Daughter that made the story even better. Same with Sleeping Beauty in Spindle's End. I'm taking a break from Charles de Lint right now because I'm tired of him doing this to Jilly Coppercorn's story, so even authors I love can piss me off by getting into a rut.

    I don't like your fandom. That's okay. I know you have a hard time believing it, but it's perfectly all right for people not to like other people's literary tastes. Please note once again my Brian Herbert Dune ratings. I'm very familiar with people shitting on your fandom and, in my case, mine is even more despised. You know what I do? I don't get butthurt about it. I chalk it up to different tastes and move on. Like I'm doing with this thread now.
    Why won't those stupid idiots let me join their crappy club for jerks?

  13. #63
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by Elyanna
    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I can find better stories with equally good plots. Most of them aren't half so long-winded.
    Are you speaking specifically of YA fantasy stories, or literature in general?

    If the former, I would like to hear some examples, if you would.
    Robin McKinley (I'd be very careful with who I gave Deerskin to. Lissla Lissar has to earn her happy ending.)
    Michael Moorcock's Elric books
    Greg Keyes' Kingdom of Thorn and Bone series
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I trust that clears up a few misperceptions about my tastes?
    I didn't see any misconceptions about your taste. It was a rhetorical question to illustrate that many fantasy books are long-winded.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I don't like your fandom. That's okay. I know you have a hard time believing it, but it's perfectly all right for people not to like other people's literary tastes. Please note once again my Brian Herbert Dune ratings. I'm very familiar with people shitting on your fandom and, in my case, mine is even more despised. You know what I do? I don't get butthurt about it. I chalk it up to different tastes and move on. Like I'm doing with this thread now.
    I don't see anybody getting butthurt, I see a heated discussion. If I get butthurt, I'll call you a plumper or something.

    Obviously it all comes down to personal taste, but limiting it to that would make for a dull discussion. "I like it." "I don't." The End. Also, I can't take your characterization of Harry Potter as "fantasy for people who are afraid of fantasy" completely seriously. I've read vast amounts of Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, William Morris, Lord Dunsany, Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Alan Garner, W. H. Hodgson, Arthur Machen, David Lindsay, Mervyn Peake and Jorge Luis Borges, to name just a few of my favorites, as well as some I didn't care for quite as much including Evangeline Walton, Fritz Leiber, James Branch Cabell, E. R. Eddison and Michael Moorcock. Duelling bookshelves! I'm pretty sure the Sword of Shannara fans are mostly people who loved Tolkien, although god knows what they were getting out of LOTR to think it was an acceptable substitute. In conclusion, Dune was silly and vastly overrated, I shudder to think what the sequels must have been like.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    And another thing (I guess I shouldn't have said "in conclusion"): comparing Harry Potter to LOTR isn't entirely fair. Both are very British, both involve magic and the forces of good battling a "Dark Lord" and his minions, both espouse broadly the same moral view of the world. But Harry Potter is a series of fast-moving, character-driven thrillers with extremely complicated plots. LOTR is a single slow-moving novel that happened to be published in three volumes, the characters are mostly archetypes rather than "real people," and while the plot is complicated it doesn't drive the story with unexpected twists and turns in anything like the same way. There's much more magic, in the sense of the numinous, in Tolkien although there's very little explicit magic. Quite a bit of the Harry Potter magic is machinery, they might as well be shooting each other with firearms. These are two very different things.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    I present to you my bookshelf. Search out all the fantasy/sci-fi I have on it. You will note that I already have the Harry Potter story written by several authors. David Eddings for example: He wrote the Boy Finds Out He's Magic and Avenges His Parents in the Belgariad and followed it up with The Further Adventures of Magic Boy and the Kid Who Finds Out He's God in the Mallorean. For the same story in long winded prose that makes you wonder what kind of bribe the author gave the editors, I present Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. For retold fairy tales, it depends on what you want. If you want the Mabinogeon, I got Lloyd Alexander, if you want Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, or Donkeyskin, I've got Robin Mckinley. I also have the originals of these as well. If you think I'm a snob, please go over hereand note the ratings I gave to Brian Herbert's Dune novels.

    I trust that clears up a few misperceptions about my tastes?
    Yes, but perhaps not in the way you hoped.


    I don't like your fandom. That's okay. I know you have a hard time believing it, but it's perfectly all right for people not to like other people's literary tastes. Please note once again my Brian Herbert Dune ratings. I'm very familiar with people shitting on your fandom and, in my case, mine is even more despised. You know what I do? I don't get butthurt about it. I chalk it up to different tastes and move on. Like I'm doing with this thread now.
    I'm not a part of any "fandom" and I don't really know why you're so crazily defensive about this. I have zero desire to fight over whether Harry Potter is good or not.

  18. #68
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Maybe I like the Harry Potter books for the exact reason SpazCat doesn't: I don't read a lot of YA fiction or a lot of traditional fantasy, so maybe HP was new and shiny for me. Perhaps that's the case for a lot of people.

    It also helps that I tend to enjoy long, rambling books.

    I avoided Harry Potter for years on the theory that nothing that popular could possibly be any good, but when my son got old enough to be interested I finally read them and was quite pleasantly surprised.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by Eleanor of Aquitaine
    I avoided Harry Potter for years on the theory that nothing that popular could possibly be any good, but when my son got old enough to be interested I finally read them and was quite pleasantly surprised.
    When HP first came out or became BIG, I didn't have kids and wasn't into YA books. So I didn't care at all.

    Even after kids, they were up to book 4 being out and I was busy in the world of Dr. Suess.

    Then the first movie was coming out and I do like a movie. I also knew that if I ended up liking the movie, I would probably never read the book. I'm anal and lazy like that. But, I had no extra money on me to buy the hard cover first book ( no paper back yet.) and I have a hard time buying hardcovers because of the price ( two kids in diapers!). Any chance to get the first book out of the library were waitlisted behind 900000 teens. (GD teenagers!)

    So I whined my BIG DILEMMA to my online family of SDMB.

    Athena generously offered up her first four ( or maybe three) books, as she was moving from Colorado to the Yooper Paradise that is the UP of Michigan and didn't want to haul them with her. When I received them, I squealed and started reading. I really hadn't read any YA fiction at all since my own school days and after the second chapter of book one, fell into this world like no other in a long while. I read all four books to date in two weeks. What my two toddlers were doing at this stage of the game is anyones guess and I have a clear perphial vision memory of my husband coming home from working coming in and asking me something but stopping after " Where's " and seeing my nose firmly in one of the books. I've never deflected him so easily before.

    To say I was surprised at how much I liked it would be an understatement.

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    Mammuthus primigenius eleanorigby's avatar
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    To say that one is tired of the same old story because of long familiarity with it is not the same as saying the author of that same old story is not a good writer or that that same old story is not retold well. For most of the world, it is not the same old story. I have my own issues with Rowling's writing. But Harry et al as characters within their universe are able to stand alone and are worthy of compliment. Rowling is not the next Tolkien (and I agree that to compare the two is not fair to either series), but I did not say that. Fantasy is a huge genre (perhaps too huge); there is plenty of room for all manner of legends, sagas, myths and tales within it.


    For me, Rowling is neither anathema or worthy of idolatry. She's a medium talented writer who happened upon a set of characters who struck a nerve with the world. Ask yourselves this: if the internet did not exist or if global cultural blending was back where it was in the 70s, would Harry Potter be the phenomenon he is today? I don't think so. I think her books hit at a time when global communication became accessible and easy. They were also marketed well. But people remain fond of Harry et al--and that is to Rowling's credit. If there wasn't something there, the world would have moved on quickly. Time will tell whether HP gets put on the classic shelf. I bet he does, if not for quite the same reasons that others have been placed there.

    I like the books. I reread them when a movie is about to come out. I do not defend them as Literature or even literature. I don't defend Tolkien or any other pop fiction writer as Literature, either. I am not a literary snob. (I'm not saying anyone here is). I like a good read. If a plot or character catches my interest, I go with it. I like some bad films, too, because of one character or an interesting POV regarding a tired old plot. YMMV.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    To say that one is tired of the same old story because of long familiarity with it is not the same as saying the author of that same old story is not a good writer or that that same old story is not retold well. For most of the world, it is not the same old story.
    Yeah, the fact that it is aimed at young readers means that the target audience will not have years and years of experience reading fantasy.

    SpazCat, I think that, when judged strictly as fantasy, the HP books are mediocre. They may well have no new ideas (at least no major ones, at the story level), and they certainly are an example of the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink style of worldbuilding that made Tolkien so dismissive of Narnia. But I'm not sure it's fair to judge them strictly as fantasy. They're not so much pure fantasy as a mixture of genres, including mystery, the English school story, and maybe others; and I'm not sure this particular mixture has been done before.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by prr
    1) Are these books any good as literature? I'm applying the rather elitist standard that deems challenging books to be of some value to college students, in that they are books that the students probably would not be able to navigate easily without some professorial assistance.
    I find this an oddly exclusive definition of good literature. In my opinion, the best literature is accessible at multiple levels. Anyone with a couple of brain cells can go see a Shakespeare play on the stage (or in a film) and get the basic plot line, feel the emotions, and enjoy the melody of the language. Someone a little more perceptive can understand the jokes and word play. A literature student can investigate the deeper themes or analyze the poetry. Someone else (like I did a few years ago) can immerse themselves in a single play for several years, read dozens upon dozens of secondary sources, have it ooze out of their pores, and continually discover more and more depth to the work. But I started the journey years ago as a young girl who just enjoyed the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the pretty costumes, and the sound of the language.

    This is great literature. Not just the sorts that need professorial assistance from the start.

    As for Harry Potter, I wouldn't count its accessibility against it. The question is, does it stand up to deeper scrutiny? Can someone with a literary, psychological, or sociological bent spend months and even years analyzing it and continually discover deeper levels and richer connections? I don't know enough about the series to judge that, however.

    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    IMO, I think Harold Bloom is full of it, as is Jenny Sawyer (in the link). But I've never had a lot of patience for Mr Bloom; Ms Sawyer sounds to me like she hasn't read the series.
    I completely agree about Harold Bloom. My only experience with him (thank goodness) is his writings about Shakespeare. Vacuous musings pulled out of his ass. I know he often writes for a popular audience, so I don't expect footnotes or other citations. But would it hurt him to provide a little evidence for his conclusions? I swear that an eighth-grader could write a better essay on Antony and Cleopatra than Bloom's efforts.

  23. #73
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    Quote Originally posted by Thudlow Boink
    SpazCat, I think that, when judged strictly as fantasy, the HP books are mediocre. They may well have no new ideas (at least no major ones, at the story level), and they certainly are an example of the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink style of worldbuilding that made Tolkien so dismissive of Narnia. But I'm not sure it's fair to judge them strictly as fantasy. They're not so much pure fantasy as a mixture of genres, including mystery, the English school story, and maybe others; and I'm not sure this particular mixture has been done before.
    What do you mean by "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink style of worldbuilding"? I have no idea what you're talking about.

    And yes, I do think that one thing that made the books so popular is the unique blend of story elements that you mention. There's something that everyone can connect to there, so it grabs you in, in a way that The Lord of the Rings does not. I thought those books were very interesting, but they weren't very exciting, either; I had to slog through them at times because I just didn't care about the endless mountains Sam and Frodo were going through. The Harry Potter books are almost like a serial show, though; there may be a big quest, but there are always little stories to keep the reader interested in the current "episode".
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    Quote Originally posted by Vox Imperatoris
    What do you mean by "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink style of worldbuilding"? I have no idea what you're talking about.
    Both Lewis and Rowling seem to have borrowed from all sorts of different sources (classical mythology, fairy tales, earlier kid-lit) without being too scrupulous about how it all fit together, as compared to Tolkien, whose Middle Earth was more organic and carefully thought out. Supposedly, Tolkien disdained the latter approach. Here are a couple of quotes I found online:
    what [Tolkien] didn't like is the carelessness of the creation. Tolkien took artistic creation (sub-creation, as he called it) very seriously, thinking that the author should craft a consistent, coherent world with its own inner logic. Lewis piled a whole lot of things together, from talking beavers with sewing machines to Fauns to Father Christmas.

    (from here)
    Tolkien was bothered by the tales' inconsistent use of mythological figures. Characters from classical myth are scattered through the stories, alongside figures from modern folklore and kiddie lit. He couldn't see how a story could feature both fauns and Father Christmas, dryads and dragons, Baachus and Beatrix Potter-type talking animals. It was all too derivative, too contrived, too much of a poorly conceived, partially thought-out mishmash.
    ...
    In short, Tolkien took myth more seriously. He built his alternative world from the ground up. Beginning with the language of the elves, Tolkien created the race that spoke the language, then conceived and carefully created not only the other races and their languages, but the whole world in which they lived, complete with its geography, history, and comprehensive myth. Tolkien may have been scornful of the rapidity and ease with which Lewis created his stories, but he was so not simply because the works were produced quickly, but because it showed.

    (from here)
    You may take this with a grain of salt if you'd like; I was unable to find anything in his letters or online where Tolkien says, in his own words, what his objection to Narnia is.

  25. #75
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    Quote Originally posted by Thudlow Boink
    I was unable to find anything in his letters or online where Tolkien says, in his own words, what his objection to Narnia is.
    I don't have a source either, but what I've heard is that his objection was that the world wasn't internally consistent. It had Christmas without Christ.

  26. #76
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    There was a lot of hype around the whole Harry Phenomenon when it was still young, and a lot of it came with the overpraising of children that is so common nowadays. Harry Potter was the Second Coming of childhood reading. Find no fault with Harry, for he puts books in the hands of children. Many thought they were helping kids fall in love with reading, but I think they were helping the kids learn to expect praise for entertaining themselves with books.

    As juvenile fantasy goes, it's better than average, but certainly not the best. There are a couple of themes to be explored. There are a couple of stylistic points to highlight. I thought the Latin names of the magic spells were probably the most educational part of the whole book. And the questions - why just Latin? Is Latin the language of witchcraft? Why do we never see any major character lose anything truly important (highly arguable, btw), and how does that affect our understanding of them? Basics, sure, but look what you're getting in college nowadays.

    I don't know that I'd take action against the teacher. Again, many mind-blowingly bullshit classes are taught in some colleges nowadays. One could forgive a young professor for not knowing where to draw the line if nobody has ever told her, particularly if she grew up in the Harry Potter era where any book was good if it helped a child read. The person I'd want to go after is whoever permitted (or failed to veto) such an insubstantial curriculum.

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    Wasn't it Lewis who supposedly said, after listening to Tolkien read an excerpt from his books: "Not another fucking elf!"

    I love the Narnia books, maybe because I read them when I was a kid, and I love Tolkien, even if he did tend to describe every blade of grass and give three names to every mountain that could be seen in the distance. Tolkien's dialog is great.

  28. #78
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    Quote Originally posted by Eleanor of Aquitaine
    I love Tolkien, even if he did tend to describe every blade of grass and give three names to every mountain that could be seen in the distance. Tolkien's dialog is great.
    I love Tolkien too, but I always have trouble enunciating why. It certainly isn't his dialog, which to me is completely unreal and wooden, like something out of the Bible. It's not his descriptions either, which are as you say, or his plotting, which is good but not spectacular. In the end, I think I'm just impressed by the immense impact he's had, which speaks volumes of the sheer depth of his worlds and cultures.

  29. #79
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    I think with Tolkien, the sum is greater than the parts, much like the Beatles. I tire of the endless passages describing prep for battle and the multiple names for every twig in ME, but his world is rich in cohesive details.

    IMO, he suffered from a lack of imagination re Lewis' world. Christmas is also a pagan holiday (they just call it Christmas nowadays-heck, for all I know, pagans still call it Saturnalia) with plenty of pagan traditions for one example. I see no conflict with Narnia having Xmas or Harry Potter's world having it, too. Like all other human cultures, there is bleed through, overlap and mixing of cultural practices, many of whose origins are lost in the past. Pullman had a tough time writing books w/o christian themes for another example. He tried mightily, but didn't fully succeed. He may have by the last book, but by then I was so heartily sick of his screeds I had given up any interest in reading the end.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Several have noted how they feel the last chapter of the last HP book felt rushed and was rather poor. I believe JKR wrote that chapter around the time she started the series (and squirreled in away awaiting the story's completion). Since she (arguably) progressed as a writer, it's only natural that a chapter written 10 years before would stick out like a sore thumb. Her editor ought to have insisted she revise that epilogue.

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    But to counter that, word was that the last word in the last book would be "scar". Rowling said she changed that, which means she did revise at least some of the epilogue, which means she did reread it, which means there is no excuse for the horridness of it.

  32. #82
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    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    Her editor ought to have insisted she revise that epilogue.
    He would have loved to, but he's been chained up in her basement since about halfway through Book 4.
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp
    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    Her editor ought to have insisted she revise that epilogue.
    He would have loved to, but he's been chained up in her basement since about halfway through Book 4.
    That made me laugh.

    She should let him out anytime now.

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    But to counter that, word was that the last word in the last book would be "scar". Rowling said she changed that, which means she did revise at least some of the epilogue, which means she did reread it, which means there is no excuse for the horridness of it.
    You're right - she did tweakit. No excuse then!

  35. #85
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    Quote Originally posted by eleanorigby
    But to counter that, word was that the last word in the last book would be "scar". Rowling said she changed that, which means she did revise at least some of the epilogue, which means she did reread it, which means there is no excuse for the horridness of it.
    You're right - she did tweakit. No excuse then!

    Burn her! (or do like me and just never, ever read the epilogue again--it's like getting a rotten nut at the bottom of your hot fudge sundae. Blech!

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    I feel like the lone freak in a crowd of yuppies. I didn't mind the epilogue at all. It did feel a little bit tacked-on and yes, she might have wanted to edit it a bit more, but in the end it worked as a full circle moment. I particularly liked Draco's nod to Harry.

  37. #87
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    I didn't like the epilogue until I read this editorial, which explains it a little, I think. Still not a huge fan of it, but it's alright.
    "There are no ordinary people. ... It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit." C.S. Lewis

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    I never really cared one way or the other. You have to tie the story up somehow, what did you guys want?

    Quote Originally posted by Epilogue -- First Draft
    Ginny ended up having three miscarriages, and she and Harry eventually stopped talking to one another, despite living in the same house. Harry began drinking firewhiskey first thing in the morning and eventually was fired from his job because of it. Meanwhile Hermione realized she was a lesbian and left Ron to care for their four children on his own. Eventually he ended up committing suicide.

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    Overuse of "eventually". New draft.

  40. #90
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    Quote Originally posted by Excalibur
    I never really cared one way or the other. You have to tie the story up somehow, what did you guys want?
    I don't think you do. You could have excised the "nineteen years later" epilogue completely and the story would have had a fine ending.
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    Quote Originally posted by Harlequin
    Overuse of "eventually". New draft.
    Holy shit yes. I really need to reread my posts before clicking sumbit.

  42. #92
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    Quote Originally posted by SpazCat
    Quote Originally posted by Shirley Ujest
    The character's names are easy to deal with and pronounce.
    My Fantasy Lit professor said the best thing about Harry Potter is it taught everyone how to pronounce Hermione correctly.
    But it didn't. A friend of my ex-wife's was named Hermione and she was constantly correcting people on how to pronounce her name: it's pronounced "Her-meen."

  43. #93
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    Quote Originally posted by Duke
    A friend of my ex-wife's was named Hermione and she was constantly correcting people on how to pronounce her name: it's pronounced "Her-meen."
    That's a very strange pronunciation. The original Greek is Ahr-mee-own-ah. Where did she (or rather her parents) get that pronunciation from?

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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    She was from the Netherlands--don't know if it was a pronunciation native to that country.

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    That might explain it. Dutch sounds like nothing else on this Earth.

  46. #96
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by Elyanna
    I didn't like the epilogue until I read this editorial, which explains it a little, I think. Still not a huge fan of it, but it's alright.

    Sorry, but reading one person's response and acceptance of the epilogue does not make the writing any better. But I'm glad you like it better now.




    I would have been fine with Harry and Ginny (figuratively) going off into the sunset. I do think that Rowling would have been hounded to death regarding Harry's future, though. So, we have what we have. I just don't read it.

  47. #97
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    I have not read any of the books.
    Quote Originally posted by prr
    1) Are these books any good as literature?...
    Do the students profit from reading them in a classroom setting, or could they simply understand them well enough by reading them outside of class?

    2) Are these books closer to, oh, I don't know, Super-hero comics than to real literature?...
    I sensed the Potter series... would not be suitable for a college-level course whose syllabus included literature.
    The Harry Potter books are for entertainment, not that other great literature isn’t entertaining. From the movies, I know that there are issues and events that could be discussed in a literature class, but it gets lost in The World™ that was created. That’s the problem with much of fantasy and science fiction, the world created becomes the focus, not the human struggle.
    There could be a benefit to a classroom environment, but there really isn’t much there. While college students can easily read and enjoy the series, the only way I could see it as a curriculum is if some experienced and “serious” Lit professor started a novelty elective class and tried to focus the discussion on the emotional issues. Even as a study of the hero’s journey, there’s a lot of WTF. Sometimes I wonder how much of a facepalm Joseph Campbell is giving himself in the grave over Harry Potter.

    Quote Originally posted by prr
    3) Do you suppose students learn something by discussing the plot elements of these books?...
    Do these books have character development, or serious themes, or philosophical underpinnings, or anything deserving of an hour's serious discussion, much less an entire term's? If so, I didn't hear it in the hour I spent in that classroom.
    I can’t speak to this too much, but I get the general impression from discussions elsewhere that the plot elements and characters don’t really have much underlying them. It all get wrapped into The World™, and it’s not allegorical. It might be entertaining to create an allegory ex post facto, but that’s not lit, more like storytelling.

    Quote Originally posted by prr
    4) Not to be ageist, but do you think that any book that's popular with your average ten- or twelve-year-old is worth studying on a college level? I guess I don't, and I guess I do think that these books seem to be pitched at the average 10-12 year old reader. Mind you, this is the ONLY course in literature that some of these students will get in college, and it seems a waste to spend it reading children's literature.
    There are some awesome and deep literature written for that age group (Where the Red Fern Grows, Johnny Tremain) that could be discussed in a college environment. However, that would be an elective-type course, not the one single lit class requirement.

    Quote Originally posted by prr
    5) I'll probably limit my observation report to the fact that I think there should have been more focus on teaching these students how to write, rather than the vapid quality of the stuff they were supposedly learning to write about, but I am seriously considering not re-hiring this young woman for the next semester, or at least assigning her to a course where writing is taught WITHOUT a literary text, to see if she's capable of anything other than fanwankery. If she is incapable of actually teaching students to write well, then she needs to find work elsewhere, I think. What do you think about this conclusion of mine?
    Just remember that Harry Potter and all fiction where The World™ come to dominate invite this fanwankery at the expense of more serious discussion. That being said, it would be her job to change that attitude in her students, and it seems she has been sucked in.
    I do not bite my thumb at you, but I bite my thumb.

  48. #98
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    Default Re: Are the Harry Potter books total crap?

    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    Her editor ought to have insisted she revise that epilogue.
    Her editor did, in fact, insist upon such.

    Then Lucius Malfoy struck him with an avada kedavra.

    This, I think, explains all the horrible punctuation use (what, did Rowling attend the C.S. Lew-is Sch,ool of.punctuat;ion?) in the later books.

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