Schlafer Book - H's Age, HP as adult fiction, etc.

[jonathandupont]

No: HPFGUIDX 31754

Hi -

Well I had a free hour this lunch, and I saw the book "Exploring 
Harry Potter" on the shelves in the library. Unable to resist, I 
pulled it out and skimread through the thing - skipping all the 
rather irrelevant witch trials history or whatever, and sticking to 
the HP stuff. A few things stuck out to me (sorry if you've all seen 
this all a 100 times)-

a) The list of important characters is just bizarre. Under the lost 
of main characters are Harry Potter (fair enough), Lord Voldemort 
(fine), and then the Dursleys and the Potters - characters who don't 
really appear that much at all (especially in Book 2 & 3) 
comparatively. Ron, Hermione, Draco (OK - maybe too much fandom 
contamination in my mind over the relative importance of that one), 
and Hagrid apparently aren't considered as major as Dudley. Then 
again, the author obviously thinks the Dursleys have important roles 
to come - one of her suggested future plots is that the Dursleys 
conspired with Voldemort to get rid of Lily and James... (excuse me 
while I shudder at the very thought)

b) [Note - the book was written before GOF and relevant JKR 
interviews.] In the timeline of the HP books (for some reason 
consisting of JKR's life, HP world events and important world and 
mythic happenings) Hermione's birth is provisionally pencilled in as 
*1980* - with a guessed birthday of September 10th. Where did the 
tenth come from (not to mention the very obviously wrong year .... 
yes, I'm joking, sort of)?
 
c) Completely irrelevant to the book, but rather interesting to me 
were some of the random JKR quotes. Now, when arguing about whether 
HP is adult or child literature, one of the oft bought up points is 
that JKR wrote it for herself (therefore making it designed just as 
much for adults). Which is all very well, except, well to quote her:-

"I write something I know I would like to read now. But I also wrote 
something that I know I would have like to read at age 10."

Or to put it more clearly:

"Real literature can be for people of 9 and that's what I'm trying to 
achieve."

All of the information apart from the quotes is from my memory btw, 
and so I wouldn't trust it,
Jon