And now let the sneering begin
Jun. 24th, 2003 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI ran across a couple of articles today, here and here, which dismiss Rowling's books with sneering condescension. Some representative samples:
Since I've seen this attitude before, I've been thinking about this all day. Look, if you haven't figured it out, (and if you're on my friends' list, you probably have) I really do like JK Rowling's books. Usually, I can say that without blushing, but occasionally, I find it difficult to admit, because I do run across the attitude found in these articles, and in some of the offhand (and occasionally not so offhand) remarks I've heard when discussing the books with other people. It can be painful to listen to challenges to your judgment and taste, which, when boiled down, resemble statements like these:
These books may be popular but they are not well-written. If you like them, you have unsophisticated, nay, "infantile" taste.
These books may be popular, but then there are other fantasy novels (and fantasy novelists) who are better and more literary and who deserve all this attention more.
These books are facile and their examination of theme is simplistic. If you like them and intrigued by the themes they explore, well, that means you're a really shallow person who isn't capable of subtle analysis, aren't you?
These books are about children and therefore are a waste of adults' time, who after all, More Important things to think about.
As a fantasy author who has been on a number of different panels at different conventions, I've heard it all. Some of it is clearly jealousy from other professionals in the field who clearly are mad enough to spit nails about the fact that JKR is getting all this lovely money and attention and they, more worthy, are not. I don't mean to imply that the ONLY reason that a fantasy writer wouldn't like Rowling might be because he or she is jealous! Although I have seen jealousy, it would be ridiculous to say that it's the ONLY reason a fantasy writer might dislike the books. As for readers in general, I understand that there are plenty of people who have perfectly legitimate reasons for disliking Rowling's work because, well, it really doesn't suit their taste, books set in English boarding schools (even magical ones) don't interest them, they don't like her style, etc. Rowling's books just might not work for some people.
What interests (and irritates me) is the really intense condescension in the nature of some of the criticism. Sometimes the condescension is so thick that I just smile and keep my mouth shut, knowing that it would be hopeless to even say anything.
It bothers me. Sometimes it infuriates me. When I speak up to defend the books, I'll sometimes catch the arched eyebrows and the superior little smiles, quickly hidden, and I think to myself, why is it so necessary for you to think you are superior to me because I like these books and you don't? Why do you assume that my enjoyment of Rowling's books is "infantile" and you, since you hate them, are not? Why does Bloom assume it is Rowling's books that will be put in the dustbins of history, since he dislikes them (although he admits he didn't even finish the first and hasn't read the rest) and not the ones that he likes?
I pulled out both Emma Bull's "Why I Write Fantasy" and Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing as I've been thinking about the mean-spirited sneering tones of these two articles. They explain a lot. Fantasy, Bull says, is dismissed as being of the past, the concern of children only, and therefore not important. But, as she says, fantasy was originally the literature of sophisticates, kings and queens--and if you make the mistake of arguing that it was the literature of the "childhood" of the human race, then you are seriously underestimating your ancestors. Fantasy, Bull argues, is really subversive--it allows the writer to draw some pointed conclusions about what's really going on in our own world (think about Professor Umbridge and what Rowling is saying about education, cowardice, the nature of bureaucratic evil. "Infantile?" Hardly).
Russ talks about how women's writing is marginalized, and I see her observations operating here in these articles: She wrote it, but it isn't high art, literary, sophisticated. She wrote it, but she doesn't deserve the fame. She wrote it but it's too popular, and therefore not worthy of the attention of people with really superior taste. She wrote it, but it's about silly little childish things (like friendship, courage, self-sacrifice and death). She wrote it, but it's really just escapism (friendship, courage, self-sacrifice and death??? Escapism???)
Comments?
Peg
When it comes to gripping, unchallenging brain candy, the main difference with the boy wizard is that you can read about him in public, smug in the knowledge that you are part of an accepted cultural trend. In today's infantile culture, it's okay to aspire to be childlike.and this:
The latest instalment of Potter-mania, however, has taken our cultural infantilism to a new low.
In attempting to account for Harry Potter's success, debate has raged over the content of the books. Some have hailed them as new classics, with their roots deep in the rich traditions of children's literature, and others condemned them as superficial and derivative. In my view they are reasonably enjoyable to read, pacy and humorous, with a few surprises; but the characters, especially the evil ones, tend to be caricatured and superficial, and the plots, despite a few twists and turns, are fairly predictable.There's more of the same at the links I provided above, if you can stomach it.
But whatever the quality of the literature, this certainly does not account for the appeal of the Potter books. Ultimately, they are pure escapism - and that's what has worked for adults. . . .the main characters in the Potter books are children, and the adults are mostly stupid or evil. In identifying with these child protagonists, you could see adults' enthusiasm for the Harry Potter books as reflecting a rejection of the grown-up world, where things are complicated and don't all turn out right in the end, where adults do bad things and get away with it, and where nothing seems certain.
It is not only in fiction that more and more adults seem to want to escape from this reality, rather than get to grips with it.
Since I've seen this attitude before, I've been thinking about this all day. Look, if you haven't figured it out, (and if you're on my friends' list, you probably have) I really do like JK Rowling's books. Usually, I can say that without blushing, but occasionally, I find it difficult to admit, because I do run across the attitude found in these articles, and in some of the offhand (and occasionally not so offhand) remarks I've heard when discussing the books with other people. It can be painful to listen to challenges to your judgment and taste, which, when boiled down, resemble statements like these:
These books may be popular but they are not well-written. If you like them, you have unsophisticated, nay, "infantile" taste.
These books may be popular, but then there are other fantasy novels (and fantasy novelists) who are better and more literary and who deserve all this attention more.
These books are facile and their examination of theme is simplistic. If you like them and intrigued by the themes they explore, well, that means you're a really shallow person who isn't capable of subtle analysis, aren't you?
These books are about children and therefore are a waste of adults' time, who after all, More Important things to think about.
As a fantasy author who has been on a number of different panels at different conventions, I've heard it all. Some of it is clearly jealousy from other professionals in the field who clearly are mad enough to spit nails about the fact that JKR is getting all this lovely money and attention and they, more worthy, are not. I don't mean to imply that the ONLY reason that a fantasy writer wouldn't like Rowling might be because he or she is jealous! Although I have seen jealousy, it would be ridiculous to say that it's the ONLY reason a fantasy writer might dislike the books. As for readers in general, I understand that there are plenty of people who have perfectly legitimate reasons for disliking Rowling's work because, well, it really doesn't suit their taste, books set in English boarding schools (even magical ones) don't interest them, they don't like her style, etc. Rowling's books just might not work for some people.
What interests (and irritates me) is the really intense condescension in the nature of some of the criticism. Sometimes the condescension is so thick that I just smile and keep my mouth shut, knowing that it would be hopeless to even say anything.
It bothers me. Sometimes it infuriates me. When I speak up to defend the books, I'll sometimes catch the arched eyebrows and the superior little smiles, quickly hidden, and I think to myself, why is it so necessary for you to think you are superior to me because I like these books and you don't? Why do you assume that my enjoyment of Rowling's books is "infantile" and you, since you hate them, are not? Why does Bloom assume it is Rowling's books that will be put in the dustbins of history, since he dislikes them (although he admits he didn't even finish the first and hasn't read the rest) and not the ones that he likes?
I pulled out both Emma Bull's "Why I Write Fantasy" and Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing as I've been thinking about the mean-spirited sneering tones of these two articles. They explain a lot. Fantasy, Bull says, is dismissed as being of the past, the concern of children only, and therefore not important. But, as she says, fantasy was originally the literature of sophisticates, kings and queens--and if you make the mistake of arguing that it was the literature of the "childhood" of the human race, then you are seriously underestimating your ancestors. Fantasy, Bull argues, is really subversive--it allows the writer to draw some pointed conclusions about what's really going on in our own world (think about Professor Umbridge and what Rowling is saying about education, cowardice, the nature of bureaucratic evil. "Infantile?" Hardly).
Russ talks about how women's writing is marginalized, and I see her observations operating here in these articles: She wrote it, but it isn't high art, literary, sophisticated. She wrote it, but she doesn't deserve the fame. She wrote it but it's too popular, and therefore not worthy of the attention of people with really superior taste. She wrote it, but it's about silly little childish things (like friendship, courage, self-sacrifice and death). She wrote it, but it's really just escapism (friendship, courage, self-sacrifice and death??? Escapism???)
Comments?
Peg
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-25 08:41 am (UTC)I've read the first three. I thought they were... OK, pretty good even. I'll probably get around to reading the fourth one of these days, and the rest if Zorinth buys them, but I've read thousands of books I'm more likely to get excited about.
I'm not jealous of Rowling, (well, not much, and not in a career sense) and I like fantasy (and YA books) and I don't even see anything wrong with outright escapism, if they were that. I don't despise anyone for liking them, gosh, if we all liked the same things think of the terrible shortage of oatmeal!
Why I merely think they're OK is, I think, mostly because I don't much care for jokes and puns on the level they are in those books -- Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones also leave me cold. Essentially I am going to enjoy any book that does not contain "Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans" and "Diagon Alley" a lot more than one that does and then wants me to take other things seriously. The change in register doesn't do it for me.
It may also appeal to me less because I read thousands of British school stories when I was a kid, so a lot of the minor details of the books, and even sub-plots, are really familiar, or ringing the magical co-ed changes on things that are really familiar, so I find that a lot less compelling. Also I was at a British boarding school when I was a teenager, and it isn't like that, so there's not much glamour about the setting for me.
But even so, I think they're OK.
I think the phenomenon of why so many people are enthralled with them is much more interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-25 06:49 pm (UTC)I find the books very humorous, but it's not the punning humor that attracts me, because as a general rule I find puns extremely tiresome. I note Rowling's puns in passing, but it's not THAT humor that I enjoy about the books. What I notice and relish is the human-interaction-humor, like the way that Fred and George mercilessly tease their younger siblings, and bait their mother, the way their father gets so excited about muggle inventions without understanding them at all. The bickering between Ron and Hermione. The subtle jousting between the teachers. (Trelawney, the misty-eyed divination teacher makes one of her typical absurd vague predictions at the Christmas feast; McGonagall, the steely-spined Transfiguration professor, passes her a dish on the dinner table and says with pointed sweetness, Tripe, Sibyll?" I find that hilarious.) The painful way Harry gets embarrassed around a girl he'd love to impress. You could take those bits of dialogue out of their magical context easily. I still find them extremely humorous.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-26 11:15 pm (UTC)I think that this is caused by the mockery and cynicism that people experience when they admit to liking HP books on the one side, and the almost cult-like reverence a small number of readers have on the other. Critics write reviews which deplore not only the books, but the people who read them. The people who read them become defensive and insist that the books have no flaws at all. The critics get nastier, and fans get more defensive, and the situation is polarized in no time. Instant polarization, just add water.
An awful lot of people who don't normally read sf or fantasy are reading them, and they live out in the real world without much support for this kind of reading, except for other HP fans. They tend to band together against what they perceive as the hostile outside world, which makes the outside world think that they are too hung up on this whole HP thing and should get on with their lives, which sounds an awful lot like an invitation to come on out and take your thrashing like a good boy or girl, and then stop acting in such a silly way.