Potter spotter: Wash Post disses HP, & is it right?

[ftah3]

I intend to discuss more of what frantyck wrote than what Levey 
wrote, because...well, I want to.  :-P

frantyck wrote:
> Saw this in today's Washington Post. Bob Levey's column in the 
Style 
> section mentioned Harry Potter. Here's the quote:
> 
> "She is the kind of contemplative child whom parents and teachers 
> dream of -- a talented student who prefers Dickens and Dumas to 
> Harry Potter."

LOL.  Piffle.  Interesting child.  Lovely for her that she'd rather 
read Dickens and Dumas.

> Is Harry Potter the literary equivalent of fast-food? I find it 
> makes great toilet and bedtime reading, because, once read, you can 
> open any one of the books just about anywhere and close it when the 
> task at hand is complete. 

Really?  I find that if I wish to go back to the HP books, I'm 
compelled to read the whole dratted thing cover to cover again, 
because individual sections remind me of how good the rest of it is.  
If that makes sense.  Now, poetry ~ excellent for toilet and bedtime 
reading.  Tidy little capsulated nuggets of brain food.  Which is not 
to say I dislike poetry.  Love the stuff.  But it *is* rather fast-
foody, in the sense of being quick and tasty nourishment.

>Is this like fast food in the sense that 
> it fills your stomach and fulfills the body's need for sugar or 
> cheese or whatever, without feeling like a genuine meal (note the 
> stress given to the 'family' or 'sit-down' meal, symbolising so 
much 
> more than just refueling).

Not in my opinion.  But then, when I read, I will read that which 
makes my brain work, but generally not for the express purpose of 
wearing out the mental hamsters.  I think you're dead-on with the 
fast food analogy, but to me 'fast food' worth eating would be, say, 
Thai peanust shrimp over couscous, which uses 6 ingredients and takes 
slightly less than 15 minutes to prepare...but is mucho yummy and not 
unhealthy.  My (mangled) point being, yes, HP collectively are very 
quick reads, but who cares?  Yummy good brain food, imho.

> In the age of the movie, and at least 
> in the age of the aggressively visually-presented, Rowling very 
> effectively stands across that gap between the world of the real 
> eyes and that of the mind's eye. Her books do not, by and large, 
> depend on the 'quality' of her prose, however that is defined.

Interestingly, despite the fact that I am a very 'visual' reader (I 
like to visualize what's going on), the visual aspect of HP is the 
least powerful for me.  Visual writers to my mind: Martha Grimes, 
Toni Morrison, Dickens.  Not-so-inspiring-of-visuals: Faulkner (who, 
overrated, imho, but anyway), Austen, JKR.

In my opinion, JKR's 'quality of prose' is *distinctly* what defines 
her books.  Her generally spartan use of descriptors, her manner of 
combining omniscient third person narration with limited third person 
narration, her realistic dialogue ~ those things greatly stand out to 
me. The prose is vibrant and energetic, certainly, but I don't think 
it's 'screen-writing.' I personally hadn't bothered to form visuals 
until after I'd seen the film, simply because I hadn't felt the need 
to do so.  I was engaged conceptually by the prose.
 
> Is this why habitual non-readers take to HP? Or why kids like it so 
> much? 
<snip>
> Or is Levey's attitude in his column a reflection of the 'true' 
> reader's sense of reading as a task, a mission, an activity that 
> must be participatory and demanding and hinge on a not-purely-
> visceral intellectual hunger for edcuation in ways of looking or 
> thinking. I don't know if I'm phrasing correctly here. "I read 
> because I must" predominating over "I read because it is 
> entertaining" -- to oversimplify grossly.

I definitely think that reading is a chore for many people.  On one 
hand, it is made a chore by the spectacularly dry texts foisted upon 
us from a young age in school.  Read pages 12 - 56 in your biology 
book about single-cell organismzzzzzzzzzz.  Yawn.  

On the other hand, people read differently.  When I read, I read 
quickly; I don't go word by word, rather I take in a paragraph at a 
time, somehow catching most of the words, but more importantly (to 
me) I get the overall meaning.  I can't recite the dialogue, but I 
can tell you what they were talking about, how it related to the 
story so far, what it implies for the story's future, and any 
implications based on characterization...etc ad nauseum.  

At any rate, I think that reading like that allows me to enjoy 
reading a great deal ~ at least, compared to friends who are 
constitutionally incapable of reading any way other than word-by-
word, and everything they read is tedious and a chore to them.  In 
that respect, though, JKR's quick pace and scroogeful use of verbage 
*would* be a draw to habitual non-readers.  Not that it's candy, just 
that it's more accessible, you know?

> Or is it just that English fiction like that of Dickens and Dumas 
> has the veneer of substance and endurance and English-ness, thus is 
> bona fide litt.? 

Gag.  I have a Bachelor's degree in Literature, and lemme say, yes.  
Granted that Dumas was French, but what you say about certain kinds 
of (generally old and of a certain style similar to Englishers like 
Dickens) literature continues to be considered more 'bona fide' than 
other kinds.  I often think that the more work it takes to plow 
through a work of literature, the more dense the work is, the more 
likel it is to be considered 'real' literature, and therefore better 
than other kinds of fiction.

I like to take that kind of literary snobbery with a grain of salt, 
though, especially in light of the fact that it is only *very* 
recently that literary canon recognized anybody other than dead white 
guys as canon authors, despite the fact that women have been writing 
(what is now considered to be) great literature for centuries.

I also have a great deal of disregard for pompous professionals who 
sneer at good writing simply because it isn't 'canon.'  Not saying 
that it will happen, but how stupid would Levey look if in 50 years 
the mindset against giving currently percieved 'children's books' 
fair due as literature is overturned and Harry Potter is accepted 
as "real Literature?" Possibly as stupid as the hypothetical old-
timey critic 
who would've sniggered and said Aphra Behn was no William Shakespeare.

> I wonder if the girl Levey is describing actually *said* that she 
> preferred Dickens and Dumas. That "the kind of" device makes me 
> wonder. In which case, is Levey merely using imagined extremes to 
> illustrate that the child is contemplative rather than, I don't 
> know, undiscriminating?

I think that particular device doesn't 'illustrate' that the child is 
contemplative, so much as proffer the stereotype that reading Dickens 
is more contemplative and discriminating than reading [insert popular 
current author here].  I 
would consider the comparison between Dickens and, say, comic books a 
valid measure of literary discrimination because I don't consider 
comic books to be literature (sorry, graphic novel fans, no offense 
intended).  Same goes for The Babysitter's Club books, and froth of 
that nature.  But singling out the Harry Potter books smacks of 
sensationalism ~ of using a popular work to make a point based not on 
the work's merits (or supposed lack thereof, in this case) but on the 
fact that the work is so popular that it's 'shocking' yet vogue-ishly 
witty to put it down.  Not to mention that by drawing the 
stereotypical 'popular=crap' connection means that Levey doesn't 
actually have to put any effort into supporting his statement.  

Wow, this was a fun, twisty, chatty post.  I probably shouldn't have 
attempted it first thing back from a long work break, but...there it 
is.

Fun!

Mahoney