Adult readers who are dismissive about Harry Potter

[mervin180]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "holmesclan2002"
<holmesclan2002 at y...> wrote:
> 
>  The best I can tell is that the three most vocal members feel that
it is too 
> pedestrian for their tastes.  All of us are moms with teenagers. Two
of these gals have 
> genius progeny who are ging to Yale and MIT respectively. One
daughter recently aced 
> That's a score of 1600) her SAT test. I think there is a belief that
if these books appeal 
> to the masses, they must be somehow substandard. 

This thread reminded me of a wonderful experience I had in college...

I recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. One
of my majors was English, and my 4th year I took a course on "American
Literary Realism."  It was considered an advanced course, and  most of
my classmates were 3rd or 4th year honor students.

We expected to study "great" American authors and to hold deep,
philosophical, intellectual discussions on their works.

The very first piece of literature we were assigned was..."Tarzan of
the Apes," by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Yes, Tarzan.  King of the Jungle.  The kind of book you take on a long
bus ride, when you want some light reading.  The kind that spawned
many sequels, including, but not limited to "Tarzan the Terrible" and
"Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar."  

We didn't expect to have much to say about Tarzan.  But we found that
not only did we share many intellectual and interesting discussions
about Tarzan, but that Tarzan actually shaped our discussions for the
entire sememster.  No matter what book we were reading, the discussion
always went back to Tarzan.  

At the end of the year, our professor asked us "Of all the works we
read in this class, which is the one you think you will still remember
30 years from now?"  Almost unanimously, we all answered Tarzan.

Undoubtedly, one of the most important lessons I learned in that class
is that a book doesn't need to be considered a "literary great" to
induce intellectual, meaningful ideas and discussions.

- Angela P.