FAQ -- The Universal Appeal of Harry Potter
jonathandupont at hotmail.com
jonathandupont at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 3 21:50:57 UTC 2001
No: HPFGUIDX 23554
--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer <pennylin at s...>
wrote:
> Hi there --
>
> prefectmarcus at y... wrote:
>
> > What I want to know is WHY the books are so popular. Why do
children
> > and adults love them? How is it that dyslexic and autistic
children
> > read them when they can't manage more than a chapter or two of
other
> > books?
> >
> > How does JKR do it? As pointed out, she uses advanced english
> > construction -- construction that puts to shame most other "adult
> > fiction" writers. She makes use of a large vocabulary. They are
long
> >
> > books. Children are not intimidated by all this. Why?
> >
> > <snip> As I said at the start, I hate to sound like a school
> > teacher. I know
> > how much work went into the FAQs. I am humbled and awed by it.
But
> > this FAQ needs some more work, IMHO.
I think its a mix of a lot of things personally:-
1) Reading anything / children's books is fun - but sometimes you
need a very well hyped book to get people to try it. Still,
obviously, that's not all or they wouldn't get hyped in the first
place.
2) The book uses the format of a classic school story, and school
stories have always been very enjoyable (Jennings / Bunter / Enid
Blyton for some British examples). However she also mixes that in
with some adventure, another popular genre, and humour to keep the
book interesting as one reads along. There is also a bigger incentive
as the books have a continuity, rather than self contained adventures.
3) Related a bit to the above, the mood is constantly changing from
serious drama to adventure (mid way through the books) to humour.
This makes it very hard to keep bored, and again keeps you reading.
4) The characterisation is very good. None of the characters are
perfect, but they are all interesting and have their own features
making them individuals (with the possible exception of Crabbe /
Goyle - I for one don't have separate mental pictures of those two).
Just look at all the ways the characters have been explored in
fanfic - in other genres I've looked at, there isn't this constant
twisting of characters and it isn't so interesting just putting them
in new situations.
5) JKR is a very, very, good writer.
To conclude - I really don't have much of an idea to be honest...
Jonathan Dupont
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