Harry Potter and God
16 Jul '07 12:04I find both the type of pointless topic this article is about, and the likening of Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings or the Narnia series laughable.
Harry Potter is an averagely well written book which happens to have hit the right market at the right time. It has not the intricacies and spellbinding wordsmithery of Tolkein's work, nor the fantastical world and imagery of Lewis's. I don't even think it's as good as Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials series. It annoys the bejesus out of me when I hear people talk about its literary merits. If Rowling had been writing at the same time as any of the above, she would have been ignored utterly. Not least in my library of misgivings towards her writing is how insipid and needy Harry is becoming, how bloody bland Hermione is and how ginger the Weasley boy is. By 20 I predict Harry will suffer a mental breakdown and begin drinking heavily (or get addicted to giving himself magical orgasms), Hermione will be some Hoxton it-girl vacuuous and disenchanted, whilst the ginger will be killed in some freak boating accident.
All that aside, what really gets my goat is literary journalists or critics who see the need to incessantly over-analyse stories and extrapolate sub-texts into a need for external reference or justification in the general history of writing. Who cares that Cervantes' legacy is dead, who even reads Shakespeare? Milton? Dickens, who the Dickens is he? Lets just harp on about how much money they make and try to make ourselves sound knowledgable by referencing other writers in a pretentious and obtuse way.
Sigh...
Harry Potter is an averagely well written book which happens to have hit the right market at the right time. It has not the intricacies and spellbinding wordsmithery of Tolkein's work, nor the fantastical world and imagery of Lewis's. I don't even think it's as good as Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials series. It annoys the bejesus out of me when I hear people talk about its literary merits. If Rowling had been writing at the same time as any of the above, she would have been ignored utterly. Not least in my library of misgivings towards her writing is how insipid and needy Harry is becoming, how bloody bland Hermione is and how ginger the Weasley boy is. By 20 I predict Harry will suffer a mental breakdown and begin drinking heavily (or get addicted to giving himself magical orgasms), Hermione will be some Hoxton it-girl vacuuous and disenchanted, whilst the ginger will be killed in some freak boating accident.
All that aside, what really gets my goat is literary journalists or critics who see the need to incessantly over-analyse stories and extrapolate sub-texts into a need for external reference or justification in the general history of writing. Who cares that Cervantes' legacy is dead, who even reads Shakespeare? Milton? Dickens, who the Dickens is he? Lets just harp on about how much money they make and try to make ourselves sound knowledgable by referencing other writers in a pretentious and obtuse way.
Sigh...
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