Harry Potter: Classic Or Dud?

Also, Pynchon, in the intro to Slow Learner, discussed how an author's approach to mortality is revealing. The way mortality is dealt with in #4 is, as far as I'm concerned, scads more mature than most adult fiction.

As far as the books go, and speaking as someone who reads very few books, I find them captivating. So far I've enjoyed each installment more than the last, so long may they run. I've never met anyone who has read them and not enjoyed them, either.

So I suppose I'm just a big kid. Oh well.

Look ma, literary comparisons! I'll be reading James Joyce next. PFFFFFFFF.

The smacking of infantilism argument is absolute nonsense. To avoid this they've published copies of the book with more subtle designs to make sure that adults can read the book in public without being laughed at for reading "a childrens book". The FluffyGoths reading Miffy books on the tube is infantilism.

Speaking of which, can you still get Topsy and Tim books? There was a great one where they went swimming, and another one where they had an Indian neighbour move in next door and they went all multicultural and learned how to make chapati or something. Gr8!

This ties in a little with the nostalgia thread, as there is a massive market for products which should be for kids, but which are actually aimed at adults. Leaving aside the Simpsons, which is a different argument, sales of retro kids videos, eg Bagpuss, Clangers, etc have gone through the roof in recent years. A decade ago, I'm not sure it would have been socially acceptable for adults to read HP - but the times they have a'changed. And the world is surely a nicer place when we're all a little less hung up about how others perceive us.

This actually answers Andrew W's point to Andrew L (incidentally PEOPLE WITH THE SAME FIRST NAME SHOULD ALWAYS AGREE GRRR)

People reading kids editions of HP on tube - annoying because they are reading a book I don't like and I'm intolerant.

People reading adult editions of HP on tube - annoying because they are a) obviously ashamed of reading a kids book and b) are fools because it costs £2 more. AND because it's a book I don't like and I'm intolerant.

I like lots of kids' things. I just don't like this 'phenomenon'.

Okay maybe more than a few years. I do rate Harry Potter that highly though.

2. I left Bloomsbury Publishing, burning all bridges, just before massive historically unprecedented windfall of HP profits distributed around employees.

3. I am an ass

I suspect that for many people in the world, reading Harry Potter was the first book that they've read and found entertaining/easy since they were in school. Then everyone sees all these people reading it and everybody wonders why and picks up a copy for themselves.

So I wonder if 200 adults were paid to sit on the Tube/train and other public places reading (or pretending to read for that matter) a new childrens book, if that book would start getting raves?

I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I really can't find a good reason to explain why they are so popular. I don't think they do anything "new" be it w/ characters morals monsters magic.

Having said all that, I'm really looking forward to the Movie, and also the Lord of The Rings movie.

In light of this, I absolutely hate Harry Potter. I have nothing against anyone who enjoys it, it just is not my thing. But I don't even like adult books with fantasy/magic angles anyhow, so I'm really a horrible judge of the merits of a children-oriented fantasy series ;)

Despite having not read a word of Harry Potter, I decided to be the biggest fan and see the movie opening night (Nov 16 for the States). On the other hand, I love the Pokemon game yet refuse to see the movies. Must settle this dichotomy...

Ash nazg [something]tuluk

Ash nazg gimbatul

Ash nazg thrakatuluk

[something] burzum krimpatul!

Not perfect, but I think close. I'll stick with Aiya Earendil Elenion Ancalima, thanks.

I'm re-reading the series now, and it's a bit of a disappoinment, which makes me think the discovery of what happens to the characters as they progress is the key to it all. Without the feeling of discovery, it's fairly charmless.

Coincidentally, I am also rereading the books at the moment, in fact I'm about 40 pages from the end of Goblet of Fire. I'd say I enjoyed them just as much second time around, though this may be cos a) the film's just come out, b) it's a while since I read them first or c) cos I'm just a big kid.

It's feel-good nostalgia for people who almost certainly never shared the experiences to begin with

what - people who never went to wizard school?

I saw the damn movie. It was dire. Harry lets everyone else do the magic.

Immortal scene 1: Harry and friends sitting at long dinner table...broom stick shaped parcel arrives..."what could it be Harry? Open it up"..."Wow it's a broom stick!!!"

Immortal scene 2: Harry gets a cloak of invisibility for X-mas, puts it on and his body disappears. Harry's friend: "You know what, I think that's a cloak of invisibility"

We dragged one of my friends to the movie because he bears a resemblance to Harry (round face, round glasses) and we wanted to pick on him for that afterwards, but we decided his little brother looks more like Harry. The little brother, unfortunately, doesn't wear glasses. I had to borrow someone else's glasses and get him to put them on, and it was just wonderful!

still a zillion times better than all the rainbow princess unicorn garbage

horrid Adventure Time slander

report back when you're halfway through book 4 and see how you feel then

well yes i am really dreading that.

if I've learned anything from these books it's the importance of a good editor

well, they did cut out the scene in the book where you have to put on the sorting hat every time you need to use the bathroom

"I'm a Hufflepuff but my poops are Slytherin"

Christ, imagine if she started the books now, in the full grip of the brainworms. possibly she is trying to do exactly that and is being carefully told not to by her publisher.

idk, I think she's more interested in the Cormoran Strike series now.

Well someone has to be interested in them

lol otm

finished the second book, what an uninspired retread of the first. an unknown villain, a secret chamber, a useless trip to the forest, harry alone saves the day. oh and as tiresome quidditch match of course. this one though takes over 100 pages to get going, sets things up that never pay off (though I guess they may still) like harry's embarrassment at the weasley's poverty and his own wealth - and dobby, who is strange and entirely pointless. the writing is worse, packed with awful adverbs said ron dully / harry distractedly, and she loves repeating words in the same sentence - "landing in a crumpled heap on the landing", "the clever handsome boy who was once head boy". obviously kids lack all discernment but it's impossible to see why adults ever fell for this.

Well the good news is that the following books are not so much retreads of the first (in fact book 3 might be the best in the series, maybe)

The bad news, well, where to start?

the "Harry not helping out the poor Weasleys with his vault full of gold" thing was discussed in one of the videos above. It is strange that they are poor anyway, considering the family are bringing in three high-level government salaries, own their house and, you know, can just conjour up almost everything they need from thin air. and there is absolutely no reason Harry can't just find a way to gift them some money, he simply can't be bothered to. this all of course reflects JKR's worldview, that trying to change anything important is wrong and dangerous. which book has SPEW? Think that may be the single most objectionable part of the entire series.

Ron ejaculated a lot

Finished the third. Add cruel and unusual prison system to the list of things that need fixing in the potterverse. Felt like a real slog towards the end - in the two chapters where we have to wait ages for the entirely expected sirius black reveal my daughter said 'how long have they been in this room? about 50 hours!?'. The back of my copy has a sunday express review quote: 'jkr has created a world in which anything might happen, yet everything abides by its own tightly constructed, impossibly wonderful rules'. lol wut. They hardly ever use magic to get out of or do anything - e.g. hermione fetching a dustpan and brush to clear up a smashed milk jug, ron writhing around with a broken leg for the aforementioned 50 hours, or the endless references to lugging heavy trunks around long after they've learned the levitation spell - yet snape can effortlessly conjure stretchers out of thin air. When we do get to see magic being performed, half the time it requires the silly latin, half the time they just point their wands silently.

Harry hadn't got to sleep till daybreak. He had awoken to find the dormitory deserted, dressed and gone down the spiral staircase...

I know it's easier to be wrong-footed when reading aloud, and it's not technically wrong and I could be accused of nit-picking, but I was very confused by the idea of a dormitory getting dressed and going down stairs.

It's a magic dormitory, you see

who doesn't love reading action in the past perfect

what I've always found annoying about the series is the insistence that LOVE saved Harry, leaving a mark on him and making him the only person who could defeat Voldemort, and this being the ONLY reason he was able to defeat him really

this just based on casual observation not ironclad statistical evidence but it's suddenly standing out to me in book four that whenever rowling refers to an indeterminate student she always uses "he or she" never "they".

That was standard until very recently, though. I'm pretty sure I used to tell my comp students that "they" was too informal for academic writing. So that could easily have been the work of an editor.

what editor that book is endless

Good point, that book was the one where they stopped bothering to edit her, wasn't it? But I still don't think it means anything in particular except that the book was written 20+ years ago. I'm not denying that Rowling is transphobic; obviously she's awful. But I think most writers in 2000 would have written "he or she" in something intended for publication.

That was standard until very recently, though. I'm pretty sure I used to tell my comp students that "they" was too informal for academic writing. So that could easily have been the work of an editor.

― Lily Dale, Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:45 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was brought up to be clear about gender when writing- pretty sure that was the standard curriculum at the time. i remember people asking why they can't just use "they" or "them"... and it was just laid down as this flat "formalities" sort of thing that it had to be.

My English teachers were adamant about not allowing the singular they, it was a crime on par with y'all, ain't and the passive voice.

Vague memory that we were instructed to default to male as the gender-neutral pronoun but English was a long time ago.

i'm another in the 'book 4 drove me away for good' camp

Feel like there's a hard line around October 1 1983 where no one born before read the Potter books as they released and everyone born after did.

sadly this holds true for my current students. i always suggest other books!

I devoured the entire series twice over in secondary school, and then never engaged with it since (even as I dabbled in fandom, I stayed away from HP for some reason). I found I was trans at around the same time JKR went full mask-off TERF, and understandably my interest in the series totally cratered after that.

People's obsession with the series practically ruined my enthusiasm, like, I'm not even just talking about the dumb FB surveys circa 2010 of "what house are you?", but for some people it felt like being YA Radio Raheem, where their entire personality was filtered through these books. There were some people in my circle whom, if I was at a party, I was real careful not to reference Potter or be subjected to an hour-long discussion at which I'd go back to the bar.

Obviously, my own personal "old man" annoyance aside, I realize what a blow that had to be for all of her trans fans (and fans who weren't hateful TERF assholes) when she did her heel turn, and I'm not making any light of that.

also she liked to write about vomit a lot.

Drove by this place yesterday in Oxnard

https://media-api.xogrp.com/images/15cd13b8-1fe5-4704-92be-8a5ec0c5fd34~cr_139.0.618.479

congrats I just puked in three diff ways

can be hard sometimes, in the UK at least, and just talking about the books, to work out who's the bigger menace out of her and walliams mind

he is certainly vile and his books are vile and shit.

exactly and loads of kids seem to be given his noxious bollocks to read too

walliams is the bigger menace esp when there are 5 of his books in our top 30 kids chart.

Feel like there's a hard line around October 1 1983 where no one born before read the Potter books as they released and everyone born after did.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 5 September 2023 08:35 (eleven hours ago) link

my folks thankfully(?) introduced me to Tolkien a couple of years prior so when I started reading the first HP I found it to be utter garbage.

the saddest thing in the world are harry potter gays imho

i love these kinds of headlines

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/harry-potter-book-auction-jk-rowling-b2405112.html

I feel compelled to keep documenting when we finish each one though I know I'm not adding anything new. The first chapter of GoF, opening seemingly irrelevantly with an old man and an abandoned house and then introducing voldemort, almost felt exciting and readable. Then we went back into the same old dead weight under which she smothers every crumb of intrigue and mystery. I'm a bit mystified by how when cedric dies he falls next to harry, with wormtail standing by a headstone six feet away; then when harry is tied to the same headstone cedric's body is twenty feet away. Never mind, a minor mistake. The ludicrous plan and engine for the whole story is more mystifying; the explanation coming as six pages of near monologue, spoken in a monotone, is disastrous.

Goblet of Fire is ridiculously padded out bullshit with a plot that makes no sense at all (why not just find a way to take him out of the tournament ffs?) and gratuitous killing of minor characters, it also includes the truly disgusting "slaves just want to be enslaved, silly do-gooders!" plot. Joint-shittest in the series with the next three books.

rewatching the movies

question: the gold at Gringott’s that hargid helps Harry get from the vault - supposedly his parents left it to him
if so HOW the hell did a couple of artsy fartsy wizards fighting in the resistance make that much money lmao

magic, iirc.

Harry's parents made a lot of money from corporate speaking gigs in which they secretly advocated for more conservative, anti-Order of the Phoenix, pro-surveillance measures. complete scum, Voldemort just pointed out their hypocrisy. about time we had an outsider telling the truth!

I KNEW IT

harry really is quite dumb

The (-boy-) SMOOTHBRAIN who lived

me watching the harry potter movies, annoying the shit out of my ex: “if they have magic, why is there currency”

lol