Harry Potter

[JBI]

I don't know how many are reading Dumas - most people I know who are fans read a 400 page Count of Monte Cristo, and lets face it, the book was not 400 pages.

[glory]

Ah. Well JBI, as I'm glad to state, I and a few of my freinds read the Oxford edition of The Count of Monte Cristo. Which is around 1200 pages.

[JCamilo]

I still read Dumas, the first book of 3 Mouskeeters is a damn fine book, with all flaws of Dumas, but a capacity to build the action and characters (not the mention the good sense of being humourous). Lets face it, if the best-sellers writers today had the same capacity of Dumas (and his ghosts) to organize a product, it would be considerable harder to attack the level of the industry. They just do not. Dumas I think (alongside with guys like Stoker, Doyle, Le Fanu,etc) the limit of what will be immortal and what is not. I do not think HP got near there, and that is the problem: even enterteiment can be better. (Even if I think HP is even a little better than a few other popular writers).

[glory]

Hmm, you bring interesting points J. But, can you honestly say that Dumas would be able to adapt into this modern era? I'm not criticizing you, but maybe if he could adapt, would he still have as an adept Literary concept as he had before? I think this really raises a few questions, such as if he would be able to adapt and be able to keep things as funny and interesting as he had wanted?

[mortalterror]

Hmmm, except I know people who still read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Also, we're still reading Dumas too.

Count me down for that. I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Catcher in the Rye the summer of my sixteenth year. JLS was a decent book and I still think of it from time to time, but it cannot stand with the rest of that company. Having recently reread some of the Three Musketeers, I am confident to proclaim it phenomenal, one of our very best books. StLukes and JBI have some misplaced notion that in order to be good a book shouldn't appeal to anybody or have any action. All they love are Jane Austen and James Joyce the king and heiress apparent of namby pamby fancy pants effeminate letters.

There's something to the Harry Potter books. The language, diction, philosophy, and construction are solid but not impressive on their own; but that's not a negative with the audience which reads these books. As Drkshadow03 mentions in his blog, genre fiction often subjugates language to action and ideas whereas the opposite applies to belles lettres. I can see something in the Potter series. It is something like the appeal that the Wheel of Time series has for men of my generation. But like I said, neither is really my thing and I think Dumas, ghostwritten or not, is still better than either.

[glory]

So... Your supposing that JBI does not know what he's talking about. Hmm... this is a unique situation, seeing as you yourself seem to be a little lost. Let's see if I can help.

Alright, first let's take Dumas. As you said, he is one of the world's most renowned writers. Naturally, the three Muskateers is still a wide and unsurpased book filled with adventure, comedy, and full right down to existence. Dumas is creative, intelligent, and known as a world ranked writer.

Next, there is Rowling, a woman who is clearly not a Feminist( which I have nothing against) as she disguised herself to sell a book of mediocre level and had ideas already been done. I fail to see where no character developement and uniqueness should not also be characteristics in a good book? She filled page upon page with things that do not even influence or make a change into the books. As JBI had earlier written, the first three were fillers, and the last four didn't catch to the main scheme until the last 100 pages of each book. There's also the fact that even though she kept the book pg-7, she should have raised herself beyond that limit. She should have maybe brought in a little gayness/lesbianish type ideas, besides telling people the headmaster was gay in her own little conference. That completely depletes the importance of half of Dumbledors actions in the first few books.

Sadly, as I will conclude, Rowling is not a structured writer, and could not keep basic facts straight and developement to surpass her character's merits. You can never place Rowling with any classics writer. Ever.

I believe that JBI clearly knows what he's talking about, and has very good taste and knowledge in Lit. yet sadly that is all I can add unless I want to sounds as if I'm all over him. Mortalterror, I command you for your insubordination for this topic.

[JCamilo]

I do not think JBI or St have this concept that a good book cannt appeal to masses, but the other round, that just because it appeal to masses - or it is a fashion - it is good. I have seen them talking about Dickens and Dickens was a writer for masses but he would wipe the floor with writers like Dan Brown who can not even lost his way with actions scenes, much less lead an entire book split between two different cities.
It is not being popular or not that make me Defend some cannonical status for Dumas. It is his capacity to provide continuous reading, to have impact on literature (and other arts), to have expressions and characters reckonized and used by everyone else and all this Dumas achived. If he had done this while having only 100 readers during 200 years it would be as worth as having 100 millions in 200 years.

Hmm, you bring interesting points J. But, can you honestly say that Dumas would be able to adapt into this modern era? I'm not criticizing you, but maybe if he could adapt, would he still have as an adept Literary concept as he had before? I think this really raises a few questions, such as if he would be able to adapt and be able to keep things as funny and interesting as he had wanted?

Well, Da Vinci today would not be him, imagine Dumas. Altough a dude who can pull up adventures with perfection like Dumas would rule in Hollywood, in fact he seems to have settled down every rule of what a blockbuster would be. I dunno why Hollywood still thinks they must change him... Now, Imagine Melville writing today... maybe in his blog...

[Etienne]

StLukes and JBI have some misplaced notion that in order to be good a book shouldn't appeal to anybody or have any action. All they love are Jane Austen and James Joyce the king and heiress apparent of namby pamby fancy pants effeminate letters.

Oh! the bitter frustrations of a frustrated plebe!

Your first sentence is really just an plebeian's rhetoric.

The second sentence is really just a frustrated plebeian's rhetoric.

What are you even doing in a literature forum if you have such opinions? You don't like literature, you like stories... go watch a movie, go play a video game if it's a story you want.

[JBI]

Why read a story for plot? What is the purpose of that? The plot cannot sustain itself alone. The plot is a premise, not a book. Action is only interesting because of the motives behind it, not because of the action itself. In terms of plot, there is essentially no originality anywhere, as plots seem to fall into two categories, as Frye tells us, Comic and Tragic. Everything else is the way it is handled, and the way other devices play to achieve the end. Not the Plot. The Plot is backdrop for the real story.

Even in the most basic examples of literature and storytelling we see the plot as the background. The plot in a fairy tale, for instance, is a means of bringing about the moral. The plot in an epic poem, for instance, is the means of expressing themes, particularly idealistic ones that are relevant to the culture producing the epic.

A book that can only be read once is not a very good book, and plot rarely deserves a second read, if not for the other elements at play within the work. I can't reread a completely plot driven work, because knowing what happens deeply lowers my appreciation of such works. I can, however, reread, for instance, Alice Munro's Short stories, while enjoying them more on the second reread. That is what, and how literature should function. If it's only good once, it can hardly be that good.

[glory]

Why read a story for plot? What is the purpose of that? The plot cannot sustain itself alone. The plot is a premise, not a book. Action is only interesting because of the motives behind it, not because of the action itself. In terms of plot, there is essentially no originality anywhere, as plots seem to fall into two categories, as Frye tells us, Comic and Tragic. Everything else is the way it is handled, and the way other devices play to achieve the end. Not the Plot. The Plot is backdrop for the real story.

Even in the most basic examples of literature and storytelling we see the plot as the background. The plot in a fairy tale, for instance, is a means of bringing about the moral. The plot in an epic poem, for instance, is the means of expressing themes, particularly idealistic ones that are relevant to the culture producing the epic.

A book that can only be read once is not a very good book, and plot rarely deserves a second read, if not for the other elements at play within the work. I can't reread a completely plot driven work, because knowing what happens deeply lowers my appreciation of such works. I can, however, reread, for instance, Alice Munro's Short stories, while enjoying them more on the second reread. That is what, and how literature should function. If it's only good once, it can hardly be that good.

Well said. I'd add but, you pretty much summed up my giant post I was about to make...

[mortalterror]

Mortalterror, I command you for your insubordination for this topic.

Sir, your effective use of the smiley feature unmans me. I am humbled and must change my life.

What are you even doing in a literature forum if you have such opinions? You don't like literature, you like stories... go watch a movie, go play a video game if it's a story you want.

Wow. You're right. I don't like literature. I don't know anything about it. That's a load off. I think I'll go play some video games. Thanks.

[stlukesguild]

StLukes and JBI have some misplaced notion that in order to be good a book shouldn't appeal to anybody or have any action. All they love are Jane Austen and James Joyce the king and heiress apparent of namby pamby fancy pants effeminate letters.

Ah yes... we are but effeminate aesthetes... while you, undoubtedly, speak from that masculine strain of thought that embraces the machismo of Hemingway and Charles Bukowski and Joe the Plumber, no doubt. Even that manly Roman avatar... (but why not Caracalla?) Combine it all with a feigned preference for the tastes of the "common mensch" (in spite of your obvious rather "elite" education and taste in reading) and it creates a marvelous illusion... the intellectual who is also down with the people... although perhaps a bit unsettled in his own manhood.

[glory]

Well, I'd just like to tell you, Mortal, that it is quite ridiculous to just come out and try to stab someone like that. You hadn't made any comments, or said anything in this forum, and you come out and just say there ideas are ridiculous? It truly raises some questions mate. You should probably apologize, and back up your statements for them better.

Never diss the smilies

[JBI]

All right, before this goes on to petty namecalling, lets just have a bit of a re-cap, and a summing up of things.

A) can we agree that Rowling's prose is far from perfect, and is not stellar, or spectacular, and perhaps not even good?

b) can we agree that the last 4 or so books are not geared towards kids, but towards young adults, and perhaps adults, given their bloody content, and their darker, and more violent nature, thereby outing them from the genre.

c) Can we agree that the most acclaimed points in Rowling's work seem to be her plot, setting, and magic?

d) Can we agree that the books are Christian in moral focus, especially given the ending of the 7th book, which is purely out of the Bible, without much possible dispute.

e) can we also agree that fashion, advertisement, and word-of-mouth marketing can contribute to large amount of scales, regardless of the quality of a work

f) That a book's contemporary popularity is no real judge of its merit, being that there were as many books that were popular in their day and went on to be enduring, and popular in the future, and as many books that got bad receptions in the beginning, and then became popular later.

[mortalterror]

Even that manly Roman avatar... (but why not Caracalla?)

You know me too well. I tried a picture of Caracalla first, but the detail of the statue didn't show up at that resolution. It was all dark and pixelated. Plus, it didn't fit the color scheme of my page.