[Bond]

I am a fan of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. I am charmed both by their simplicity and depth. However, not everyone is. There does seem to be this attitude held by not a small few that generally dismisses the entire hubbub over Harry Potter as nothing but hype or fad. Even among those who are more generous and will concede it is entertaining and worthy of some literary merit, there is still a great reluctance to deem the books more than just amusing children's books. This is typified by the raised eyebrows that greeted the Prisoner of Azkaban's nomination to the Whitbread award and now the Goblet of Fire's win of a Hugo.

Could someone give a good critique of why the Harry Potter books are unworthy of literary acclaim and why they fail to live up to the criteria of a potential classic? For example could someone explain why Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy is superior and worthy of nomination for the Booker prize over Harry Potter? Or perhaps why Goblet of Fire didn't deserve to win the Hugo?

The harshest critique I've read so far is one by Anthony Holden who by the way had good reason to be biased as ardent a supporter of Heaney's Beowulf as he was. His attitude toward anything that might smack of low brow, royal historian that he is, could also be called into question. Is this just a case of the books not being good enough or is it a case of envy and snobbery in the literary community? Is it a crime for a book to be popular and to appeal to a mass audience? I ask because, even though I am by no means a professional critic, each time I scrutinize the Harry Potter books and compare them with accepted classics (of which I grant I only have limited exposure) I cannot but help end up being more and more impressed with them than I was before.

The thread on symbolism in Harry Potter is but one of the discussions on the Harry Potter books that I have encountered that points to surprising literary depth and hidden sophistication in Rowling's work. I've seen well thought out articles and reviews that suggest much the same. Thus it is with consternation that I find people proclaiming there is children's literature out there that is WAY better. Maybe there are some books better in certain ways or for certain tastes--but just out and out WAY better? What is it called and why is it better?

Anthony Holden's Review for The Observer. http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,335923,00.html


[This message has been edited by Bond (edited December 04, 2001).]

[Liselle]

Well, I am not the one you wished for to answer, I suppose, for I love the Harry Potter books, really. I only wanted to object to the symbolism you spoke of - I am of the opinion, that if there was a symbolism in Harry Potter, JKRowling should tell us herself (No, I do not accept those arguments that speak of the author putting symbols unconsciously into his opera) - otherwise, I would say, HP are just entertaining books- not only for children, and eccelent ones, but still. Nevertheless, this is fare more than many other books can claim.

[Bond]

Any ideas are great : )

I'm not very fond of digging for meanings either but I think good literature does tend to lend itself to various interpretation whether it was intended by the author or not. It is ultimately the relationship between the book and its readers that the merits of a book should be judged. Much like how one solution to a problem might provide an unexpected but beneficial effect, does that make it any inferior? Hmm... I guess one could also wonder should an award be given for the author or the book? For me, as long as the book can inspire good ideas or feelings one otherwise would not have had, it has served a fruitful purpose. Truly great literature or art I think does so without being terrribly obvious about it. That's what I really admire about the Harry Potter books: as magical a story as it is, it seems so natural.

[This message has been edited by Bond (edited December 02, 2001).]

[SusF]

I was a bit surprised at Harry Potter getting a Hugo. Not because of the merit of the book itself, but the fact that it was fourth in a series. I had no idea of the voting or the criteria that makes a Hugo award, though.

That said, I think the Harry Potter books will be classics. Children's classics are books that are read over and over again and remembered and re-read when you are an adult. The children themselves get to determine the classics, not some adult saying "this is good, this one is bad" unless adults are censoring (which they've been trying to do here in Oklahoma-Harry Potter is the devil!)

What I think is interesting is how Harry Potter is going to change the bookshelves when those kids grow up. They had a taste of fantasy as a kid and may want more as adults. We may be seeing more of it as the Harry Potter generation grows up.

And let's face it, any books that get kids excited about reading and getting their imaginations going is a GOOD THING.

Susan

[alison]

I think the HP books are charming and enchanting, and I mean absolutely nothing patronising in saying so. To my mind they richly deserve their popularity: they speak so readily to a child's imagination (and of course the child's imagination within an adult) without cheapening or trivialising fears or griefs (the emotional subtext of Harry's grief is I think one of the truly excellent things about them). And I have no doubt that they are empowering for the children who read them, which is perhaps why they are being censored in some quarters, even here in secular Australia. (Does anyone here know Bruno Betelheim's book "On the Uses of Enchantment"?) They're funny, witty, entertaining, occasionally moving and completely un-put-downable, and yes, that can't be said about a lot of books.

I think they're classics - like the Narnia books are classics, like The Wind in the Willows (which is actually a very serious book) and some of Alan Garner (some of which is very serious writing). But I don't think the HP are by any means Great Literature. Very non PC to say these days, but Rowlings' books don't pretend to be Great Literature and it's unfair to judge them on those terms, on both HP and whatever other books you want to include in the other canon, whether it's Dostoevski or Beckett or Swift or whoever. (I know Great Literature is a problematic term, and I mean it slightly ironically - I think you could look at Alan Garner's Stone Quartet, supposedly a kid's book, in those terms). Which is not to say that genre classics can't be - of course they can. Stanislaw Lem is a great writer by anybody's count. But he's certainly not demanding the same things from writing, linguistically or ideas-wise, as JK Rowling. Does it matter? No. Does it make either of them lesser writers to say so? Surely not! They can both be taken seriously on their own terms, and loved by readers for their own reasons.

Good books can always be interpreted in a multitude of ways - it makes me think of Tolkien's comment about allegory in the intro to the LOTR, and how he prefers "history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability". I think it's possible to distinguish between various ambitions of various books without disparaging them. Someone with literary pretensions like Philip Pulman is doing something else to Rowling, who's coming from Enid Blyton as much as anything else. And perhaps he should be judged on the terms he sets for himself, and compared with Milton and Blake (I'm not entirely certain if one does that he comes off _entirely_ well...)

Anyway, enough blathering from me...

Best

Alison

[jbcohen]

The same things were said of Orson Scott Card and CS Lewis in the days that htey wrote. I have also read somewhere that when Charles Dickins wrote A Christmas Carol it was dismissed in the same terms that Rowling is now dismissed. The only difference is when the novels are written.

[Alucard]

I'd say Harry Potter has definitely become a classic, if for no other reason it has gotten children all over the world into reading. And IMO, J.K. rowling deserves all of the praise and popularity she's recieving. I love the books, some of my favorites actually, and considering that I began reading them as a complete skeptic, and they managed to turn me around (which is difficult. I'm stubborn), she's earned my respect and a slot on my "top five" authors of all time list. Her books have such an amazing sense of flow that it really amazes me. I read the first book in one sitting and hardly even noticed. I have never done that with any other story (excluding short stories), even one's that I actually enjoyed more as far as content is concerned. In turn, I've become a huge fan of the series, and so has every other person in my family, young and old (another feat that no one book has yet accomplished in my household). So if harry potter can do all of that, then I, for one, will always view it as a classic, even if the rest of the world begs to differ.

[SusF]

I did forget to mention in my post above that I loved the HP books. I just recently re-read all four of them right before the movie came out.

My only regret is that I didn't have them as a kid myself. There is so much cool stuff for kids to read these days.

Susan

[Barbarossa]

Ok, for the start, I love the Harry Potter books.

But to play the devils advocate, there are quite a few chriticisms one could use.

(For the record I'm not really agreeing with the following, except to some extent with the last point, and even that doesn't really distract from my enjoyment of the series)

1) The books are formulaic, each follows the basic formula: Bad Dursleys, school starts, something happens, there are some suspects, lots of red herings and in the end it's someone you didn't really suspect.

2) Rowling overuses certain deus ex machina like plot twists, especially new spells/artefacts crop up whenever needed.

3) Rowling sacrifices the internal logic of her world, for a good effect or a quick effect occassionally. Examples: A)Student's aren't allowed to cast spells on Hogwart's corridors or at home, but casting on the Hogwarts express is no problem.
B) The problems the wizards have with muggle clothing at the world cup (while funny) aren't really cosistent with how they are shown earlier in the books (for example wizard kids regularily wearing muggle clothes, or how Wizards are clad in the leaky cauldron, or at platform 9 1/2

This doesn't mean that the books will be a classic in time, just that people who don't want to like tham have some amunition.
And yes I beleive that least a large part pf the chritics is fueled either by envy, or by a general arrogance, that whatever is popular can't be good.

[Cadfael]

Don't lse sight of the fact that these book were writen for a specific ... children.

So I agree each book follows the smae 'formula'... this appeals to children, they love it... it is only later we the adults get cynical http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

What I would like to see is for members with children to allow them access to the keyboard for a few minutes... and let the audience the book were writen for to give their opinion...

In short... it is a total pointless excercise for adults to make judgement upon these books... we are not invited to this party http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif... the kids are the critics that really matter.

Thankyou JKR, one of my sons is reading b/c of you!