So am I the only one?

[girlyswot]

*looks round sheepishly*

Oh yes, I've been reading those spoilers/leaks/scans...

No, you're getting nothing from me.  Promise.

I think I've mentioned before that knowing what's going to happen doesn't affect my enjoyment of a book, except perhaps to relieve some of the initial scramble-to-get-through-it-as-quickly-as-possible-to-find-out-what-happens tension.  So I won't have to worry about that this time.  

Unless the spoilers are fake.

But here is an interesting thing I've noticed about people's response to the leaks.  A number of comments are about how these aren't 'JKR's style'.  Now, I haven't read the whole thing (too lazy) but what I have read strikes me as exactly JKR's style.  Which got me to wondering about the effect of having read fanfiction on one's actual reading of the book.

I wasn't in the fandom before HBP so I've never had this experience before.  How do the rest of you deal with it?  Do you get so used to thinking of the HP world in the style of your favourite fanfics that JKR's style seems jarring?  Do you long for stmargaretsHarry and Ginny, or for rhetoretician's?  Do you start to find JKR's writing childish compared to some of the more 'adult' fics you might have read?  Or do you find that actually, her writing does stand up to the test and sweep you away compared to the amateur things you've become used to?  Can you still spot 'JKR's style' amidst all the competing voices?

Comments

[stmargarets.livejournal.com]

LOL - I had heard about Snape killing Dumbledore before I read HBP - but when it happened, I was *still* in shock. So that's the power of narrative. I really forgot about my Harry once I started reading JKR's. I did smirk at how quickly JKR dealt with so many fan fic "issues" at the beginning of the book. Many post OotP authors spent pages on Sirius's will, Capslock!Harry, and Angst!Harry. And JKR just showed us a Harry who had come to terms with his pain off stage and in his own way.

As far as the shipping - I LOL at Ron/Lav-Lav - I really did. I thought for sure Hermione was going to be the one in a relationship - but I could see right away the wisdom of giving Ron his chance to make Hermione jealous. I wouldn't have had the guts to do that in fan fic (Look how angry some Quillers were about it), but I thought the whole thing was a hoot.

I loved Harry's first kiss with Ginny and I was very happy - until he broke up with her. Eeep! I think because I had put myself in Ginny's shoes so many times in fan fic, that it hit me harder. I was so upset. I think I read that last chapter about four times that day to wrap my head around it.

So I can't fault the Hermione writers for feeling bad about the Ron/Lav-Lav thread.

It's a very strange feeling to read new JKR after writing in her universe. You can just feel the foundations of your imaginative edifice tremble. LOL. Yes, TDU, even megalomaniacs notice when a bigger giant clears away the familiar landscape.

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Yes, TDU, even megalomaniacs notice when a bigger giant clears away the familiar landscape

lol!

I think I've seen the spoiler that all the fuss is about. My gut reaction was "fake" but I don't really mind. It doesn't tell you why this happened and therefore doesn't really tell you very much. It's sort of like a Ron-Lavender leak from HBP. Any H-Hr shipper would have taken it as vindication that their ship was going to sail as Ron had been got out of the way with a minor character relationship. Instead it absolutely confirmed what was already obvious, that R-Hr was going to happen.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen much bigger spoilers than that, TDU. *grins*

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, this was way bigger than Ron-Lavender but there wasn't a why and so we still don't know how the story got to that point and that's what's interesting. I was just thinking of how many people would interpret this spoiler but how they could still be completely wrong about what had happened that lead to that point.

Any way, are you suggesting that this is bigger than which teenager goes out with which other teenager? Surely, that is far more important than destruction of Voldemeor and the fight between good and evil?

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I'm suggesting I've seen much bigger chunks of actual book than you. Hundreds of pages. *grins*

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. Thatr, obviously, is a deliberate choice to read on your part. What I was getting at, is it isn't actually going to make a big difference to people who didn't want to be spoiled if they saw what I saw. Anyone who didn't want to be spoiled but read as much as you have really can't complain.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Quite right. And there sort of comes a point where you think, this isn't a spoiler any more, this is just reading the book.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I'm glad you found that the narrative was strong enough to pull you in, despite what you already knew and the things you'd been imagining. We spend so much time believing we're in charge of the HP world that I can see why some fans struggle to accept that it actually belongs to JKR and that she can do what she wants with it.

I'm looking forward to the experience of reading this time.