This is an interesting and, I think, balanced article with a predictably defensive response from the fans. I may have got a little carried away in responding to them.
Hee. You really don't like bad spelling do you? I have to say, I did find it hilarious that Harold Bloom got caught out in a big, fat lie. Don't mess with the scary-obsessive HP fen!
To be fair, there were some considered, balanced and extremely well-written comments as well as the annoying ones. I tend to agree that if one is going to write an opinion piece, it is generally better to be well-informed about the topic. She really didn't appear to have read the later books. She did take JKR's words about the end of the series out of context. And throwing words around like 'infantilised' is never going to end well.
Well, I only commented on the bad spelling of those who accused Melanie Reid of poor spelling. Fair's fair.
And yes, there were some more balanced comments. But honestly, fans like that just seem to me to prove Reid's point about HP not doing a whole lot for literacy.
Maybe she could have done more research - but those are big books to get through when you're churning out articles. And her main point wasn't about the books but about their effect on culture. Which I thought was an interesting and worthwhile observation.
Good heavens, Ros, why spend so much energy on those fan responses when you could be writing the next chapter of The Squib or reading 150 books? It was predictable that fans would react harshly to the article, and that a good number of them -- being young, not especially well-educated, or just very angry -- would do so inelegantly. Like shooting fish in a barrel, really.
As to the main article, I don't really see the author's point. Many works of art, literature or "popular culture" become symbols for more than they contemplated when they were made. HP is famous, so it's being used by a lot of people to refer to a lot of things; what's interesting about that is the very large number of things to which it can comfortably refer. As to the adult reactions she quoted, they didn't sound especially "infantalized" to me. I'm 46 47 and I got upset about Harry breaking up with Ginny; but then, I got upset about Raskalnikov's self-destruction in Crime and Punishment too. Is the only "adult" reaction to literature an unemotional one?
Harold Bloom's commentary was a perfectly sound criticism -- of the first book. I almost didn't read CoS. But the writing got steadily better with each novel (especially after PoA), the cliches were reduced, and the moral universe the characters inhabited became much more complex. The three possibilities that occurred to me were (1) JKR was learning as she wrote; (2) you write better when you don't have to do it on welfare, in a cafe, trying to avoid waking the baby in the pram; and (most interesting of all) (3) that the writing became more sophisticated because Harry is becoming more sophisticated as a character as he gets older.
As for "highbrow" vs. "middlebrow", pfui. No one knows what's classic until it's been around for a hundred years or so, and even then we're often surprised. I do think that Tolkien, for example, has a better chance of long-term resonance than HP, but that's because of his astonishing powers of description and exposition (only author who could make me cry by just describing a landscape). But I could be dead wrong about that.
Ooh you don't want to get me started on the Lord of the Rings...
And I don't quite know why I got so carried away. Partly I just always get annoyed with people who don't think about how stupid they sound. And maybe it was just a way of expressing some of my frustrations with the obsessives of the HP world. And partly I just wanted someone to be fair to the journalist.
Anyway, I've spent the last hour much more productively writing some Valentine's fluff!
And I also want to stand up for the non-obsessed HP fans who think the books are fun and enjoyable but hardly great literature or worth spending one's whole life arguing about. And I wanted to show that there are some HP fans who can string a sentence or two together.
That would be me. I went and read the article, and agreed with the overall tone and argument: that the books ARE overrated and overhyped, and that's on balance, not a good thing. I'd even go further and say it's fine for kids to like this stuff - but the sight of grown adults getting in a state about either the books or any criticism of them is frankly rather pitiful.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-10 03:41 am (UTC)To be fair, there were some considered, balanced and extremely well-written comments as well as the annoying ones. I tend to agree that if one is going to write an opinion piece, it is generally better to be well-informed about the topic. She really didn't appear to have read the later books. She did take JKR's words about the end of the series out of context. And throwing words around like 'infantilised' is never going to end well.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-10 03:59 am (UTC)And yes, there were some more balanced comments. But honestly, fans like that just seem to me to prove Reid's point about HP not doing a whole lot for literacy.
Maybe she could have done more research - but those are big books to get through when you're churning out articles. And her main point wasn't about the books but about their effect on culture. Which I thought was an interesting and worthwhile observation.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-10 05:05 am (UTC)As to the main article, I don't really see the author's point. Many works of art, literature or "popular culture" become symbols for more than they contemplated when they were made. HP is famous, so it's being used by a lot of people to refer to a lot of things; what's interesting about that is the very large number of things to which it can comfortably refer. As to the adult reactions she quoted, they didn't sound especially "infantalized" to me. I'm 46 47 and I got upset about Harry breaking up with Ginny; but then, I got upset about Raskalnikov's self-destruction in Crime and Punishment too. Is the only "adult" reaction to literature an unemotional one?
Harold Bloom's commentary was a perfectly sound criticism -- of the first book. I almost didn't read CoS. But the writing got steadily better with each novel (especially after PoA), the cliches were reduced, and the moral universe the characters inhabited became much more complex. The three possibilities that occurred to me were (1) JKR was learning as she wrote; (2) you write better when you don't have to do it on welfare, in a cafe, trying to avoid waking the baby in the pram; and (most interesting of all) (3) that the writing became more sophisticated because Harry is becoming more sophisticated as a character as he gets older.
As for "highbrow" vs. "middlebrow", pfui. No one knows what's classic until it's been around for a hundred years or so, and even then we're often surprised. I do think that Tolkien, for example, has a better chance of long-term resonance than HP, but that's because of his astonishing powers of description and exposition (only author who could make me cry by just describing a landscape). But I could be dead wrong about that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-10 05:25 am (UTC)And I don't quite know why I got so carried away. Partly I just always get annoyed with people who don't think about how stupid they sound. And maybe it was just a way of expressing some of my frustrations with the obsessives of the HP world. And partly I just wanted someone to be fair to the journalist.
Anyway, I've spent the last hour much more productively writing some Valentine's fluff!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-10 05:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-10 11:13 am (UTC)