Who's excited about J K Rowling's new book?

[Sancho]

Okay then, to recap the thread thus far:

OP - Hey everybody, whaddaya think of this new book?
- Sux
- No it doesn't
- Yes it does
- It doesn't suck, you suck
- No I don't, and you're a moron
- Oh yeah, well, you can't even tie your own shoes
- Can too, and I heard your mother swims after troop ships
- She does not, and your mother's a syphilated whore

Moderator - People, People! No personal attacks, or I'll shut down this discussion.

- I suppose the book has some value
- Thank you, I knew you'd come around to reason
- For instance, it'd be valuable in an outhouse when you're out of TP
- Moron!
- Idiot!

Moderator - People!

- I read a review by a very important reviewer of books and he said it sux
- He's an imbecile
- No he's not. He's a genius and he's read more books on the crapper than you've read your whole life
- He's a snob and I've read a bunch of books. What've you read?
- I've read Kierkegaard. I bet you read Dr Seuss.
- Yeah, well, you're weird and I hear you have carnal knowledge of farm animals
- Do not! And I heard you didn't graduate 3rd grade until age 16
- Pig F***er
- Retard

Moderator - I'm not going to warn you people again!

- Okay, suppose your book is like food
- Then it'd be caviar
- No it wouldn't. It'd be pork rinds
- You would know, Pig F***er
- I'm no Pig F***er. I'm a really smart guy. I usually only ever read cuneiform directly from cave walls
- Elitist snob
- Special Ed

Moderator - * sigh *

- Okay, back to my analogy: if your book was food, it'd be on the menu at McDonalds
- I like McDonalds
- Figures
- Oh, and I suppose you only ever eat filet mignon and escargot
- I only eat organically grown vegetables
- What! You don't eat no meat!?
- Occasionally, but only free-range, hormone-free, chicken, who had an emotionally-fulfilling relationship with a left-leaning farmer
- Uhhh...

Moderator - People, Keep it on topic, please.

El Sancho - You know, that McDonalds is a pretty good stock, pays a nice dividend, good PE ratio, big time growth potential in China.

- What the hell?
- Yeah, What the hell!?
- Well, at least we agree on that, but your book still sux
- No it doesn't. You suck
- Nuh-uh, but now, since I'm so much smarter than you, I'm going to make a really really long and tedious, somewhat pretentious post that nobody's going to read because it's so long and tedious with lots of obscure references and questionable logic, but that won't matter because I'm going to use a bunch of big words that nobody understands and nobody will bother to look up and that won't matter either because it'll make me sound smart and anyway when you get right down to it that's what's important to me - sounding smart. Have I mentioned that I took my first doctorate in Interpretive Literature at age 12 from the Sorbonne in Paris? And I'm presently studying the effects of Elevator Maintenance on the Consciousness of Racial Minorities in Minsk, Russia? Yes, well, it's a fascinating area of research, with far reaching ramifications to the broader global society, blah blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah.
- I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I sort of glazed over right after, "Nuh-uh."
- I'd be happy to, my dim witted little friend, as I was saying...

And so it goes, on the Lit-Net.

[Emil Miller]

Okay then, to recap the thread thus far:

OP - Hey everybody, whaddaya think of this new book?
- Sux
- No it doesn't
- Yes it does
- It doesn't suck, you suck
- No I don't, and you're a moron
- Oh yeah, well, you can't even tie your own shoes
- Can too, and I heard your mother swims after troop ships
- She does not, and your mother's a syphilated whore

Moderator - People, People! No personal attacks, or I'll shut down this discussion.

- I suppose the book has some value
- Thank you, I knew you'd come around to reason
- For instance, it'd be valuable in an outhouse when you're out of TP
- Moron!
- Idiot!

Moderator - People!

- I read a review by a very important reviewer of books and he said it sux
- He's an imbecile
- No he's not. He's a genius and he's read more books on the crapper than you've read your whole life
- He's a snob and I've read a bunch of books. What've you read?
- I've read Kierkegaard. I bet you read Dr Seuss.
- Yeah, well, you're weird and I hear you have carnal knowledge of farm animals
- Do not! And I heard you didn't graduate 3rd grade until age 16
- Pig F***er
- Retard

Moderator - I'm not going to warn you people again!

- Okay, suppose your book is like food
- Then it'd be caviar
- No it wouldn't. It'd be pork rinds
- You would know, Pig F***er
- I'm no Pig F***er. I'm a really smart guy. I usually only ever read cuneiform directly from cave walls
- Elitist snob
- Special Ed

Moderator - * sigh *

- Okay, back to my analogy: if your book was food, it'd be on the menu at McDonalds
- I like McDonalds
- Figures
- Oh, and I suppose you only ever eat filet mignon and escargot
- I only eat organically grown vegetables
- What! You don't eat no meat!?
- Occasionally, but only free-range, hormone-free, chicken, who had an emotionally-fulfilling relationship with a left-leaning farmer
- Uhhh...

Moderator - People, Keep it on topic, please.

El Sancho - You know, that McDonalds is a pretty good stock, pays a nice dividend, good PE ratio, big time growth potential in China.

- What the hell?
- Yeah, What the hell!?
- Well, at least we agree on that, but your book still sux
- No it doesn't. You suck
- Nuh-uh, but now, since I'm so much smarter than you, I'm going to make a really really long and tedious, somewhat pretentious post that nobody's going to read because it's so long and tedious with lots of obscure references and questionable logic, but that won't matter because I'm going to use a bunch of big words that nobody understands and nobody will bother to look up and that won't matter either because it'll make me sound smart and anyway when you get right down to it that's what's important to me - sounding smart. Have I mentioned that I took my first doctorate in Interpretive Literature at age 12 from the Sorbonne in Paris? And I'm presently studying the effects of Elevator Maintenance on the Consciousness of Racial Minorities in Minsk, Russia? Yes, well, it's a fascinating area of research, with far reaching ramifications to the broader global society, blah blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah.
- I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I sort of glazed over right after, "Nuh-uh."
- I'd be happy to, my dim witted little friend, as I was saying...

And so it goes, on the Lit-Net.

I was wondering when someone was going to post something like this but you did leave it awful late. I mean, 21 pages on Harry Potter.

[qimissung]

Sancho, really, this is a serious discussion! 10 demerits for not taking it seriously!

Actually, the discussion has been remarkably civil-kudos to all the participants for that.

[Drkshadow03]

You miss my point. If we are reading race into this, we must note that muggles are inferior to Wizards. Take your pick. We are muggles reading wizards, right, but we are still muggles - and muggles don't get portrayed well - The Dursleys, Voldemort's Dad, etc. - And they cannot go to hogwarts, they need to be brainwashed every time they get out of hand. How do you address this with your racial reading - they are just not special, or not worthy? They are not born with the talent? Or are you dismissing this as an overstatement, or is this just a kids book and not that intelligent.

What is a muggle, if not something non-wizardly. Some may be able to unmuggle themselves, and some wizards may be able to marry muggles, but they are still muggles. Is the lesson we need to learn to tolerate muggles, and live with the fact that some can get lucky and be "born with the ability" to become wizards?

I'm disinclined to continue this conversation for the most part. I have other things to do with my time and we've been having this SAME EXACT conversation for years. The essay I posted in this thread was an adaptation from an earlier essay I posted in a different HP thread from 2009. I edited it and cut out parts. Below are the parts I cut out, which directly pertain to your comments above and were written in response to similar comments you made back in 2009 (bolded for the parts that describe my position most directly):

It is precisely through the divorcing quality of fantasy, by creating an ideology that exists only in a different world, yet bearing similarities to our own ideologies, that allows us to see the extent of racism’s arbitrary nature. However, the opposite is not true in regards to the Muggle and Wizard divisions as possibly encouraging racist ideology.

It is important to remember that the Muggle and Wizarding worlds exist separately from each other much like two counties adjacent to one another, which is an inherent part of the Wainscott genre (the larger world needs to be ignorant of the magical sub-culture world living among or beside them). The Muggles live their everyday lives completely ignorant of the Wizarding World for the most part. The story never claims that Muggles are inferior to Wizards, at least not from the perspective of the heroes, only from the viewpoint of characters we are meant to despise. The Wizarding World and Muggles are merely different, not inferior or superior; this I think is the position of the story, and likewise, is present more for the sake of telling a fantasy story in the Wainscot tradition than serving as any effectual commentary on our society. After all, in real life there are no Wizards. These distinctions are merely conveniences of the genre, for the story’s sake, and most readers will recognize that instead of reading a particular theme of racial inferiority into it. After all, the readers of the books are all Muggles. It is ridiculous to think that readers will identify Muggles as inferior and bad when they themselves are Muggles. For this reason the real distinction between Muggles and Wizards doesn’t uncut the earlier anti-racial themes because readers will not identify this as any sort of real message that is applicable to their real lives, but merely as a genre trope, a convenience serving the nature of the story. The divorce between fantasy and reality is much greater in this instance. The racist belief that some races are superior to others in intelligence, physical prowess, and ability is too large of a metaphorical leap from the fantasy logic that some people can perform magic and others cannot for most people to read anything into this idea.

Even with all that said, Rowling paints the interrelations between these two dichotomous societies more complexly than just one having power over the other. Although most of the book shows the Wizarding World threatening to conquer the Muggle world, there are instances in the book when Muggles kill, torture, and harm wizards. The most obvious case being Dumbledore’s sister who is tortured by Muggles when they see her performing magic, but even Tom Riddle, the boy who would grow up to be Voldemort, lived also experienced a life being tortured by Muggles for being different in the orphanage. Harry Potter himself is verbally and psychologically abused by his adopted Muggle aunt and uncle. The Muggle world is just as much a threat to the Wizarding World as certain elements in the Wizarding World are a threat to the Muggle world. This explains why the Wizarding World needs to stay a secret. When Ministry officials tweak Muggle memories it is not out of some elitist joy of manipulating Muggles as rulers, but a general measure of preemptive self-defense.

Heck, even Emil, is making the same points he made back in 2009.

[mona amon]

LOL, Sancho!

... I mean, 21 pages on Harry Potter.

Well, I must say I didn't think my humble topic would get such a huge response.

[JBI]

So your answer is, it's a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously. Therefore I say the whole good vs bad in the books is a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously - these tropes have played out in fantasy for 200 years now.

[Emil Miller]

So your answer is, it's a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously. Therefore I say the whole good vs bad in the books is a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously - these tropes have played out in fantasy for 200 years now.

I don't think I could take another 200 years of Harry Potter.

[Drkshadow03]

So your answer is, it's a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously. Therefore I say the whole good vs bad in the books is a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously - these tropes have played out in fantasy for 200 years now.

Yep, that's the basic gist. You can think whatever you'd like; I already explained some of the ways Potter takes common fantasy tropes, such as good vs. bad and twists them around.

I don't think I could take another 200 years of Harry Potter.

Well, perhaps we will still be reading Potter 200 years from now, the first book is still being read after 16 years.

[Emil Miller]

Yep, that's the basic gist. You can think whatever you'd like; I already explained some of the ways Potter takes common fantasy tropes, such as good vs. bad and twists them around.



Well, perhaps we will still be reading Potter 200 years from now, the first book is still being read after 16 years.

Only 16 years? Judging by this thread it already feels like 200.

[TurquoiseSunset]

I don't think I could take another 200 years of Harry Potter.

Nicolas Flamel, is that you?

[YesNo]

Well, perhaps we will still be reading Potter 200 years from now, the first book is still being read after 16 years.

This was a very enjoyable and successful thread, mona amon.

Hopefully, we are not at a market top for McDonald's, Sancho, but it looks like MCD is a good stock to own.

I guess I will have to be reincarnated to be reading HP 200 years from now. However, that was an excellent commentary on the series, Drkshadow03. You have shown that literary criticism can offer value to the reader.

[qimissung]

Also, and probably this has been said before, that what was so interesting about the books is that Rowling created this whole magical world, much like Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings. I compare Rowling to Spielberg. It doesn't seem like there's much new there, but the author is capable of creating a work that holds whole populations of readers spellbound, and that they even return to time and time again. It's not what the story is, it's how it's told. And therein lies her magic.

And since we're all (more or less) friends here, we know how you feel, you know how we feel-and you respect that. Ahhh! Thank you!

[JBI]

Also, and probably this has been said before, that what was so interesting about the books is that Rowling created this whole magical world, much like Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings. I compare Rowling to Spielberg. It doesn't seem like there's much new there, but the author is capable of creating a work that holds whole populations of readers spellbound, and that they even return to time and time again. It's not what the story is, it's how it's told. And therein lies her magic.

And since we're all (more or less) friends here, we know how you feel, you know how we feel-and you respect that. Ahhh! Thank you!

To be honest, for the past 2 months I have been using Rowling as a textbook for teaching children, and Bloom's criticism now seems far truer than before. The use of adverbs and cliches is almost every other sentence. It is dreadful writing. The second book shows improvement, as does the third, which I am going to assume is the hiring of a proper editor.

The book is riddled with bad prose, or at least the first one. It is not terribly crappy in terms of story, but not exactly original. To me the books are not bad, just dull. The second in terms of plotting is inferior to the first, but in terms of writing is superior. The third is perhaps the strongest in the series in terms of pacing, development, and plot, though the ending could have used a reshuffle. The repetitive use of red-herrings had already tired on me.

I feel, using it as a teaching material, that the book is an example of poor writing (the first). The use of too many adverbs is rather silly at times, and grouping adjectives in clusters is just weak sentence structure. She does a lot more telling than showing too, which is a bit weak on her part. As a teacher I need to keep advising my students, do not use adverbs like she does, do not use adverbs to modify adjectives like she does, these cliches are dry do not use them. I use the book because the kids in China (who pay me quite well mind you) like them because they are trendy, and their parents are glad to have them reading English, but they are not a good example of good prose, or a creative use of language. Le Guin was spot on in one of her essays on fantasy writing where she noted fantasy must pay particular use to language. Much of fantasy literature would be better, and better received if such was the case. Writing by thesaurus just reads like redundant prose.

I can see now why Mortalterror likes Hemingway so much, he at least knew how to reduce prose to the bare essentials, the raw and necessary. Rowling lacks this form of censorship. Everything is obvious, everything is overly exposed, everything is modified by 2 adjectives and an adverb. It is sickening. A paragraph is usually 2 sentences too long, and each sentence 2 words too long. Repetition is dull.

[Lokasenna]

Oh heck, here we go again...

[Pierre Menard]

Well at least now no one can say that people haven't been in-depth with their criticism of the series.