Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Plot

[Whifflingpin]

"But then again, JBI, who is left to defend this book series, and who even wanted to in the first place. I feel like a big bully kicking sand in the face of this little children's book. "

"Great analogy. Let's kick enough at it to bury it."

Oh well - I first picked up one of the series (Prisoner of Askaban) and read it only because there was nothing else available. I'd never heard of JKR until then. I thought it was a brilliant book - fresh, exciting and witty. I was keen to read the Philosopher's Stone, and then the others as they became available.

The books varied in appeal, to me, but when I discussed them I found that other people had different favourites, which implies that Rowling is capable of writing for different audiences.

The books all pass my trivial tests: Could I read them right through? Did they offer something new on second or subsequent reading? Did they have grrr moments and ah moments and aah moments? Yes, Yes & Yes.


They only thing I found discordant was the recurring plot device of "protecting" Harry, in the later books, ignoring the case that he had met and defeated Voldemort in a battle of wills in the Goblet of Fire.

Otherwise, I'll join Jozanny in saying "I think she relates well to what interests children, and I think she does have a talent for it."

[LitNetIsGreat]

The books all pass my trivial tests: Could I read them right through? Did they offer something new on second or subsequent reading? Did they have grrr moments and ah moments and aah moments? Yes, Yes & Yes.


Ah, the old "grrr" "ah" and "aah" evaluation, a most comely form of analysis -

[Whifflingpin]

"The books all pass my trivial tests: Could I read them right through? Did they offer something new on second or subsequent reading? Did they have grrr moments and ah moments and aah moments? Yes, Yes & Yes."


"Ah, the old "grrr" "ah" and "aah" evaluation, a most comely form of analysis "

Remember - you heard of it here first - Whiff's intellectual property, hereby donated to the world.

[LitNetIsGreat]

"Ah, the old "grrr" "ah" and "aah" evaluation, a most comely form of analysis "

Remember - you heard of it here first - Whiff's intellectual property, hereby donated to the world.

Thank you very much, I swear that I am going to use that in my next essay, I may have one on Milton coming up.

"It is the intention of this paper to examine Milton in terms of the "ah" and the "grr" factor. It will also consider Satan in terms of the "ahh". Due credit must go to Professor Whiff whose thesis on the "ah, ahh and grr" substantially challenged the views on literary criticism in the early period of the twenty-first century."

I ought to get a first on that one for sure.

On the Potter subject we once did a psychoanalytical analysis in a scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - no really we did, I will leave it to your imagination what the "chamber of secrets" and Harry's sword wielding scene depicted.

Oh, my own take is that it is a good piece of pulp fiction that was never intended to be, nor should be, taken as serious literature. Generally harmless fun though.

[JBI]

Why bother even taking a scene from the Potter. I would think boys playing with their wands, and making sparks come out is food enough for psychoanalysis.

[Equality72521]

A) What exactly is a Ghost writer? (I know, I know...shameful to ask, but I've never heard that term before.)

B) J.K. Rowling was a terrible author and her books were terrible themselves. They considered good due to the propaganda, at least, that's how I feel.

and...

C) The series was just terrible. It started out okay, and then somewhere, retardation occured and it just became miserably annoying to read.

[Drkshadow03]

A) What exactly is a Ghost writer? (I know, I know...shameful to ask, but I've never heard that term before.)

When you hire a writer to write for you. It's usually done with famous persons because they aren't necessarily writers, so they hire a writer to help write their life story for them.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Why bother even taking a scene from the Potter. I would think boys playing with their wands, and making sparks come out is food enough for psychoanalysis.

[Annamariah]

I think people are missing my main point however; what is gained by reading Potter? Sure, people moved on to read other books, but people were reading other books for thousands of years. Sure, it has increased literacy, but couldn't E. B. White do the same? Sure it has inspired people to read, but couldn't Christina Rossetti do the same? sure it has sold millions, but so has the novel She, and I bet many of you haven't even heard of it, despite its 50million copies sold.

What is gained by reading Potter? At least I have spent several pleasant hours reading and re-reading the series. I think that if a book can help me forget my own problems for a while (and not only once, but even on the umpteenth re-reading) it has some merit.

Of course this is just my personal opinion and maybe I have a horrible taste in literature (unless using the word "literature" while talking about the books I enjoy seems blasphemous), but then again, who decides what can be considered "literature"? Mind you, I have read my fair share of books that are usually referred to as "classics". Some of them I enjoyed greatly and some of them I found deadly boring.

I'm not trying to say that Harry Potter books are great literature, but I don't think it's fair to say they have no value whatsoever just because people (the OTHER people, of course, the stupid ones ) prefer them to Shakespeare and Dickens.

[The Atheist]

Nice post, Annamariah - you're a living example of exactly what I'm saying in this thread; that no book has more value than another.

[JBI]

Nice post, Annamariah - you're a living example of exactly what I'm saying in this thread; that no book has more value than another.

That isn't what she is saying at all. She is simply saying she enjoys Harry Potter.

[mayneverhave]

Nice post, Annamariah - you're a living example of exactly what I'm saying in this thread; that no book has more value than another.

Define value. If teaching moral lessons is not a requirement to writing good literature (e.g. Paradise Lost is good, not because of its moral message or philosophy, but because of its language and execution of theme), then by "value" you must mean the amount of pleasure one can draw from any given thing. There is, of course, also the issue of educational benefits of reading - of which Shakespeare (although he's becoming a tired example) would be more beneficial than Harry Potter, but I have a feeling this is not what you mean by "value".

In that case, you are correct, there is no objective "value" in any given work other than what we give to it. Drawing from Edmund Burke's "On the Sublime and the Beautiful":

"Certain it is, that the influence of most things on our passions is not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions concerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only."

I agree with this. Yet just because art is subjective does not mean that certain art does not posses a greater depth and potential than other art. In Shakespeare, if one were to dive deep in, they would find a wide and deep ocean full of wonderful life and treasure. Searching for life and treasure in a lesser work would be like searching for rarity at the bottom of a shallow puddle.

[The Atheist]

That isn't what she is saying at all. She is simply saying she enjoys Harry Potter.

Mate, are you obsessed with Harry Potter?

Did you see this?

Mind you, I have read my fair share of books that are usually referred to as "classics". Some of them I enjoyed greatly and some of them I found deadly boring.

Define value.

Value beyond the evolutionary requirement to be able to read complex written documents.

In that case, you are correct, there is no objective "value" in any given work other than what we give to it. Drawing from Edmund Burke's "On the Sublime and the Beautiful":

"Certain it is, that the influence of most things on our passions is not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions concerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only."

Perfect. That's exactly what I've been saying. Conditioned & cultural human construct.

I agree with this. Yet just because art is subjective does not mean that certain art does not posses a greater depth and potential than other art. In Shakespeare, if one were to dive deep in, they would find a wide and deep ocean full of wonderful life and treasure. Searching for life and treasure in a lesser work would be like searching for rarity at the bottom of a shallow puddle.

That's not too bad, although one man's treasures may be another's trash.

[JCamilo]

I agree with you, to read a book you need to grasp the idiom and that is all. You can read any book alikely. But Reading is not passing eyes by words, is manipulating them, is understanding their connections and Interpretation is far from reading. That is why I once saw a guy claiming Voltaire was saying that ignorance is a bliss after reading Candine. Ok, sure.

[*Classic*Charm*]

I really don't see the point in drawing comparisons between Rowling and authors such as Proust. The Harry Potter books were written as Children's lit. That's all. And if they encouraged more kids to read and they got a kick out of it, what more can you ask for? If an adult happens to enjoy them as well, what harm is there in that? No one is claiming that their literary merit will transcend generations.

As for the proposition that the later books were written by ghost writers because they were so much better, I'll credit that to the fact that Rowling was an inexperienced writer when she started and simply got better the more she wrote.