The Big Read

[GulPlum]

I just posted my views on tonight's show on the Leaky Cauldron comments 
section, but thought I'd release it to the wolves here as well... ;-)

Regrettably, I missed the first 5 mins, but I felt that most of what Ripley 
had to say about the GoF was completely beside the point, self-evident or 
well, patronising. Considering that most people who would be likely to want 
to read HP have already read the five books to date, the detailed (yet 
flawed) synopsis of the GoF storyline was unneeded.

The way the Big Read survey is structured (no more than a single book by 
any author) is unfair to the HP phenomenon and the possibility of 
discussing (i.e. "selling") it is hampered by the fact that, compared to 
the other multi-book "Books" included in the survey (LOTR, H2G2, HDM), it 
isn't finished, and we don't know where it's going! Not only that, but 
whilst "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" (also reviewed tonight) also 
suffered in that the "pitch" had to be limited to that one book rather than 
the wider Narnia chronicles, at least that was the first Narnia book 
published, whereas GoF is smack in the middle of the HP series!

It's perfectly fine Ripley saying that "Harry is growing up", or to spend 5 
minutes each on the First Task and the Yule Ball, but the Second Task was 
overlooked, the Third Task was summarised in a couple of sentences, and not 
a word was said about the changing relationship between Harry, Ron and 
Hermione (and not mentioning Cho Chang was, frankly, unfair) - those 
relationships are what show that Harry & Co are growing up, and are at the 
core of the book's meaning!

Another thing that displeased me... I really liked Bill Oddie's review of 
"Wind In The Willows" (I'm not a particular fan of the book although I've 
read it a couple of times, and even participated in a stage version) - the 
thrust of his presentation was to explain why adults might be interested in 
this book, and what it means to him personally. There was a little of that 
in Ronni Ancona's presentation on LW&W (although I find it disingenuous 
that she failed to raise the issue of the book as religious allegory, which 
whatever one's views on its literary merits, is central to what it's 
about!), but beyond stating that the Potter books had found an adult 
audience, Ripley said absolutely nothing about what it might possibly be 
that attracts us!

Frankly, I disagree entirely with Sarah's opinion - I thought the HP 
segment was a hugely wasted opportunity for a serious investigation of 
Harry's appeal to adult fans (given that we're considered something of a 
joke in the British media) and an exploration in a serious context of WHY 
JKR has turned around children's interest in books, rather than just 
stating as an accepted fact.

Incidentally, I don't even think that GoF is the best of the HP books and 
it shouldn't even have been included in the top 21 (PoA wins hands down).

(For those who haven't worked it out, HDM = His Dark Materials, H2G2 = 
Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, LW&W = The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe)