One reporter reacts to JKR's revelations

[pippin_999]

Carol:
> 
> A fellow list member was kind enough to alert me to this article,
> which pretty much sums up my own feelings on the matter, and does so
> in a clever, enjoyable way that even readers who don't share the
> writer's view may find entertaining. It's called "Harry Potter and the
> Author Who Wouldn't Shut Up":
> 
> http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-
rowlingcolumn_1024gl.State.Edition1.2292bdc.html
> 

Pippin:
The difference is that if JKR ever said that Harry wasn't a real person,
that he's just a character in a book and doesn't exist outside the matrix
of words that she's written about him, a million children would go to
bed in tears. And their parents would  justly be furious.

Of course aside from the truly troubled, no one believes in Harry. But
as my young cousin once said of Santa, "I don't believe in him. But
I like to pretend I do!"

If a parent says, in answer to one of those awkward questions about
chimneys, "I leave it to your imagination" then the game is over. And
that's too bad, IMO. 

Maybe the fandom will split the way the Sherlock Holmes fandom has,
between those who study the literary works of Arthur Conan Doyle, 
and those  whose fondest pleasure is to pretend that there really
was a Watson and a Holmes,  and Doyle was simply their  somewhat
careless literary agent. I've heard relations are strained, so I hope
not. 

Pippin