I kept thinking, "But Dumbledore already died...."
Perhaps Harry crosses over to the dark side when he kills Draco Malfoy.
I'm not a Harry Potter fan, particularly. So far, I read about a third of the first, put it down, and didn't get back to it (although, as it happens, it belonged to the woman I was then living with, and when we split, naturally she kept it).
The writing was clunkers, but I'm willing to believe it gets somewhat better as she learned. (Folks needn't assure that it either does or doesn't; I've read more than enough opinions over the years, thanks.)
However, this seems unfair: "I so hope Harry gets it, so we can read Harry Potter and the Contractually Obligatory Seventh Novel...."
Because regardless of what I or you think, she clearly loves her work, and neither structured it that way, nor is doing it because she's "obligated" to, or to stretch it out.
Whatever her virtues, Rowling is not an example of any sort of great fantasy writing, by my standards. Not remotely.
The bit about the 7th novel wasn't meant as a dig at Rowling-- it's just that we all know there's going to be a seventh book, and it would be hilarious if HP died in 6, so that the last one had a big WTF feel to it.
She strikes me, from my very limited knowledge, as being all right personally, and sincere and all that, and I'm happy she's got loads of cash. The books are pretty bad, I think, but I read them anyway. Huh.
Pfft. Old hat. Those were in the Atlantic months ago.
I couldn't get through the first one, it seemed dull and uninspired and, well, childlike, so I put it down. Then, a year later, I was feeling sort of depressed and I picked it up again, and then zipped through it and the rest of the first four in a week and a half.
Ouchy snarkiness. Harry Potter books are okay. Let's not be getting too snooty.
Okay, the last one was a little ponderous and the first was for youngish children but still . . .
Before I started doing what I do now, I had a post with a publishing house (getting it out of my system), there was a period of weeks in which the whole of the "lektorat" produced nothing because they had discovered the Harry Potter books. They must have something, even if they are now overhyped.
Yeah, I think the point being missed in this discussion is that they're children's books, written for children, adapting a long-extant children's genre (the Brit boarding school tale, always ommitting the buggery) to one for emotional children (just kidding).
I loved the books for what they are, and my hope is that Rowling has now created a long-term market for fantasy, and by extension science fiction, which will fuel my insatiable needs for decades to come.
So lets tell it like it is: Tom Brown was a cissy and Stalky was nauseating...
The empire was built on fine upstanding gentlemen who could take theirs like a man, and dont lets be forgetting it. Flashman roolz.
I wasn't dissing them - as I said I read four of them back to back. It's just that I had to be in the right mood. In my case, a very low one.
The books are pretty bad
Are they? They get out of the way of the damn story pretty well, and some of the things she dreams up (like the Pensieve, Flue Powder, and Dementors) are pretty cool.
Dead right: Remember the pitch is for children and if you can think yourselves into the primary coloured world of a child rapidly being taught to think in half-tones but not quite there yet, the books are brilliant.
They are over hyped and over-sold, but that is not the fault of the writing.
None of the comments above, however, tackle the essential point which is that Order of the Phoenix was phoned in. I mean, my god, it just went on and on and on with irrelevant page filler. She seems to have contracted a virulent strain of George Lucas's disease.
Fontana Labs seems to have a much clearer view of what to expect in HP6 than the others here.
(And, FWIW, I'd recommend people not read HP6 unless reviews indicate it's a whole lot better than HP5. Just like with SW, consuming what is clearly garbage just because it's the next one in the series only encourages the authors to do worse next time.)
Flashman roolz.
Indeed he does.
I was kind of sad that I didn't enjoy the HP books more than I did -- I like fantasy, particularly the type that gets sold as children's books, and British school stories. (I had occasion to go back to my old high school a year or so ago, and had to wait in the library. More than fifteen years after graduation, I'm the last person to have checked out Stalky & Co.) With all that, you'd think I'd be the audience for HP, but I went back and forth between being bored by them (oh, not only bored, there were bright spots) objecting to them as internally unrealistic, and disapproving of them on a moral level.
what is the moral argument against harry potter?
You mean besides the whole "special race of people who have the gifts to rule over normals" thing? (This is also an objection to much fantasy, and Star Wars).
I hit post on that, and regretted it -- 'moral' is an overstatement, and the books didn't stick in my head well enough for me to defend it. But for what it's worth, I was bothered by the Sorting Hat/houses thing, particularly as it applied to Gryffindor. Hufflepuff is solid, worthy, hardworking types; Slytherin is the evil manipulators; Ravensclaw is the intellectuals; and Gryffindor is....? the house who we're sort of supposed to consider better than everyone else, for no well defined reason. Are they the hereditary aristocracy, or what?
Harry is formally in the position of the poor, put-upon orphan hero, but he's a very weird version of it -- rich, famous, relied on by all as the potential savior. He's anti-intellectual (really, if you were in wizardry school, wouldn't you be paying attention in class), and not notable for his brains, or his effort, or his decency -- he wins because he wins, because the plots are arranged to work that way. There's this whiff of power-worship I get from them; you're supposed to accept that Harry is the hero because he just is more important than everyone else. (And the fact that a crusade against slavery is a laughable way of showing what an irritating jerk Hermione is also annoys me.)
This is overstated and crude, and I can't defend it with cites. It's hard to spell out a subtle reaction without, in making it definite, making it sound stronger than it is. But I didn't like them.
In Harry Potter, the wizards don't exactly rule over anybody; it is more like two adjacent worlds. The non-magical are ignorant of the magical, and the magical are bound to keep it so. That is what I gather from the movies.
In Star Wars, the Jedi don't rule over anyone either-- they just kick ass.
I thought Gryffindor were the brave, plucky ones. But it's an interesting question: Harry is a powerful wizard, the Force is strong with Luke Skywalker, even though neither one of them is extraordinary in any other way. So what is this gift that they have? What is it supposed to be a symbol of?
(I do think you're wrong about what the crusade is supposed to show about Hermione: seems to me that it's an illustration of how being right doesn't get you very far against prejudice, etc. Especially since Rowling has said that she identifies with Hermione....)
As I recall, there's some discussion of how Harry is in terms of background more naturally a Slytherin, but he chooses to be a Gryffindor. And that what is important is your choices. Or something.
Right, the Hat is having trouble deciding, and Harry keeps muttering "not Slytherin" and later, when Harry is doubting his own goodness, someone (Hagrid?) tells him that his wishing not to be a Slytherin is itself what keeps him from being like one.
(And the fact that a crusade against slavery is a laughable way of showing what an irritating jerk Hermione is also annoys me.
Admit it, LB. You over-identify with Hermione. That's alright. I used to identify with the Patrick Depmsey in Can't Buy Me Love, right down to the cracking voice in moments of earnestness. And this was just last year.
Keeping in mind that I've already said that I liked the books, and don't care to be eprceived as attacking them as an exception al case (I think the tropes on display are endemic in any heroic literature) I'd like to explain my reasoning a little more clearly:
Perhaps "rules over" is a poor choice of words--how about "designated savior based on lineage, with option to rule to be determined at a later date?" I'll admit that the wizard/muggle worlds are separate, but in those instances where Harry and other wizards are interacting with his horrible Muggle family, it is often shown to be only right that they use their special powers to put the uppitty muggles in their place.
On the Hermione thing, I thin LB's case is a little weak. My read on that plot thread was that Hermione will eventually be vindicated over the course of the series, and all her doubters will convert and regret their callow and thoughtless ways.
I've always been bothered by the fact that the wizard and muggle worlds are separate. It seems to me that the wizards should have been trying to prevent the holocaust, other genocides, ending famines, etc.
These books are a deliberate attempt to smear god-fearing Christians. Leftists never understand that the Slytherins of the world take action for the good of society--they're selfless champions of downtrodden individual against the bureacracy.
My characters use names like Locke and Demonsthenes so that I can make absurd historical allusions, aren't I clever?
You're all probably right about the Hermione thing, and the rest of it is more tone than anything else. I just didn't feel enthusiastic about rooting for Harry to win.
I am surprised to see so little love for the Potter series here. And by "so little love," I don't mean to indicate that I'm all down, dog (although I am, rest assured); rather it's that I think the books receive, and deserve, adoration. Seriously, they're great. Rowling populates a inventively imagined world with a series of likable characters. And for a melodramatic genre (good vs. evil, light vs. dark, pinkos lefty elites vs. the U.S. of A) it displays surpassing delicacy about moral cahracter.
Also, it's not Rowling's fault that elves want to be slaves. She's just reporting the facts.
Preach it! I do love them. As for this crowd, I think the explanation for their lack of enthusiasm is that people familiar with the fantasy genre don't see the big deal with Potter. But that's just a guess.
That's right, certainly -- there are lots of charming things about the books that I don't really give Rowling credit for, because they're fantasy basics.
LB, did you finish the project that you said was keeping you away from commenting? If so, what happened with the Nobel Prize winner?
More than fifteen years after graduation, I'm the last person to have checked out Stalky & Co.
LB that is so sad, really! I Kipling belongs to part of who I am, I think. Not so very much the Stalky stories, but I revere them too, simply because he wrote them.
Diversity of Creatures is my favourite, if I had to choose.
I've but read the first 2 books, but I'll feel free to throw in my own reactions nonetheless.
Book 1 was a virtuoso performance of weaving a number of disparate elements, each of which was a sort of literary device for reeling in children (and the child in all of us). I noted at least 8 when I read it. Things like, already-famous, put-upon-but-virtuous, and the like, however you want to phrase them, which makes a reader really want to identify with Harry. LB has a point that he doesn't have to work too hard, but that's part of the deal: Harry leads a charmed life. What's special about Harry (other than given fame, fortune, and a knack for sports and wizardry) is his bravery. In the magical nerd-fantasy that is Rowling's creation, the most important thing is the pluck which the Gryffandor's exemplify. It's the leveler, more important than reputation, fortune, or lineage.
And, while one might fault Harry for being too privledged, and thus hard to identify with, the other characters rather make up for this. The Weasley's are poor, Neville is unpopular, etc..
I probably have a little extra sympathy for Harry right now because I'm in the middle of a biography of Washington, whose most important characteristic, I would say, was not intelligence or even hard work, but bravery. (luck and pride tying for 2nd)
However, I will not defend the plot of the 2nd book.
Umm. Good?
Well, not in any way that I can take credit for, but it went well for us, badly for the Nobelist.
Not so very much the Stalky stories, but I revere them too, simply because he wrote them.
Stalky's important for me for personal history reasons -- I happened across it in high school, read it, and realized that (a) this was the same man who wrote the Mowgli stories, which implied that (b) I should devote as much effort as necessary to finding everything else he'd ever written. But you're right, it's not his best work. I'm awfully fond of Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, among his children's books.
Yes those are marvellous books. Young men at the manor and Brother Square Toes spring immediately to mind - I ve forgotten the title of the story about queen Elizabeth and it is too late to go into the study and look it up. I really look forward to being able to read them with the children.
I have now remembered the title of the almost-Stalky story in A Diversity of Creatures: It is Regulus a wonderful story.
LB, regarding 15, I trust you've noticed the forthcoming movies of Five Children And It, and Narnia (starting with TL, TW, ATW). Not that I have high expectations for the first, having seen the trailer, but am slightly more hopeful about the second.
Ogged, there's definitely something to your point in 33, but I won't address it further because I don't feel I've read enough Rowling to really be fair to her. She's not exactly Gene Wolfe, though, or John Crowley. Or R. A. Lafferty, or J. G. Ballard, or Ursula Le Guin, or Jonathan Carroll, or Geoff Ryman, or Terry Pratchett, to throw out a few names. But, of course, her fans wouldn't want her to be.
forthcoming movies of Five Children And It
Really?! I had no idea. But you say it doesn't look good. At least Nesbit is getting her proper respect. I must google to find out about this.
I think there would be quite a few parents quite upset with Rowling if she turned into Gene Wolfe.
Oh good heavens, you're completely right about the trailer. Drat.
I recall seeing Rowling being unfavorably compared to Mervyn Peake (in the vein of "adults who like Rowling are just reading it because they don't know Peake"), but I forget where.
title of the story about queen Elizabeth
Gloriana, isn't it?
I duly snorted at 46.
Although probably not a truly major influence on me, I was distinctly and nonethless very fond of E. Nesbit, as a child, LB. And, yeah, the trailer looks like, although it starts out with a focus on the kids, it's heavy on being a vehicle for comedians, something closer to a live-action version of the sort of feature animation that is popular these days where, aside from the animation, the dialogue is all Eddie Murphy and Mike Meyers and pals. I fear it will bear more relation to Mike Meyers as the Grinch than E. Nesbit. (Of course, I could be wrong.)
Hrm. It turns out that, being in the public domain, the entire text of Five Children and It is online.
Kipling -- now there's an author who really deserves unconditional worship. Bravo Austro and LB!