Sexuality! and Poor Writing! - JKR's Mistake

[dumbledore11214]

> Mike:
> I do agree with this analysis. Not speaking for Carol or Susan, but 
I 
> think there seemed to be a little more to the opposition to this 
> story than mere annoyance. Let me use one of my examples. I 
despised 
> almost every character in "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway. I 
hated 
> their personalities, their life-styles, and could find no useful 
> message in any of the plot-lines. I thought their world would be a 
> better place if each and every one of them drown in some boating 
> accident. (OK, the bullfighter could live, he was merely annoying.) 
> <g> Yet I wouldn't call the book or its message "evil", nor say 
that 
> Hemingway was seriously warped for writing these characters. (Yeah, 
I 
> know, some people think he was seriously warped anyway).
> 
> Hemingway's characters lived in the real world, our world. JKR 
wrote 
> her own world, a fantasy world of magic. Sure, she styled it after 
> what she knew, both from our world and from our world's folklore. 
But 
> JKR is vilified much more for the message she supposedly sent via 
an 
> erstwhile children's story. 
><SNIP of everything I agree with as to Slytherins ;))

Alla:

Great post Mike. What I am wondering about though is how the leap is 
made from disliking the book or hating the book to calling JKR 
herself evil.

I mean, she is a celebrity, so I am not disputing anybody's right to 
call her names, but I am always scratching my head as to how people 
arrived at that conclusion.

Meaning how they (not just Magpie, anybody) managed to figure out 
what kind of person JKR is without ever meeting her. Of course JKR's 
friends and acquaitances if they post on this list are excluded from 
this statement, they met her in RL and I understand that they can 
form a judgment about her, any sort of judgment ( I am saying that I 
understand how they can make a judgment of her as a person whether I 
agree with it or not).


I mean, for example, I never met JKR, so even though what I see her 
doing in the public arena, I like very much, I totally understand 
that she can be that horrible person in her private life. I am being 
totally serious by the way.

But isn't the opposite true as well? If you never met JKR, how do you 
form a judgment of her as a evil, crasy, bad **person**?

It is your right to do so, it is my right to find this extremely 
strange.



Can't writer write something just because her muse called her in that 
area?

Is it a given that writer has to AGREE with what she writes? If she 
would not specifically punish Snape or Dumbledore, but still 
disapproves of child abuse, didn't she make it very clear that their 
actions were wrong? ( well, for those who agree with this of course).


I mean, when you read "Brothers Caramasov" or 'Idiot" or "Writings 
from psychiatric clinic" ( not sure how this one is translated in 
English, so just translated word by word from Russian), one would 
think that Dostoevskiy may have had some mental problems.

Do you call Dostoevskiy crasy? And with Dostoevsky you can make some 
case at least that he was highly traumatised by his almost execution, 
but still, how can I call him crasy without knowing him personally? 
It is a possibility that that event in his RL traumatised him badly, 
but do I know it? Of course not.

He explored human psyche to the extremes and was so good at it, his 
muse was encouraging him to write about it, no?


I mean, as I said IMO it is everybody's right to call JKR's any names 
they wish. But it is my right to find it strange, unless you met her 
in RL. 

JMO,

Alla