Recommending HPforGrownups

[Victoria McLure]

No: HPFGUIDX 9386


> 
> > I hope no one minds terribly that I recommended this club to the 
> > people in my "Teaching HP" class on B&Nuni's page. It's a course 
> > using the Schafer book. 

Actually, this is how I found out about the group.> 

> 

> > One thing that I thought seemed silly was the suggestion that 
Harry 
> > is still able to learn magic from his parents through the Ministry
> > of magic (MOM) and Defence Against the Dark Arts (DADA). 
> > Is this for real? I don't mean to sound rude but I can't see any
> > merit in it. Will someone explain?
> 
> No one can explain, except perhaps Elizabeth Schafer (and I doubt 
> that she can).  Actually, my favorite "howler" from Liz's book is 
the 
> following (p. 66):  "Pettigrew's missing finger symbolizes his 
> inabilty to make his point effectively."
> 
All three of these points are typical of what I see in bad literary 
criticism.  Some critics (and, btw, not all) try to read so much into 
things that they get way out of hand.  They refuse to believe that 
sometimes "a cigar is just a cigar."  They attempt to make their 
reputations and their points by ostensibly "delving deeply" into 
varous topics.  Sadly, many believe they are brilliant scholars who 
have found things no one else ever would have.  Well, this is probably 
true--no one else would have found these things out because they 
weren't there to find in the first place.  I haven't read Schafer--I 
skimmed a copy at the book store and saw enough babble to turn me off. 
 What is distressing is that this got published and that there are 
people who will take her information as gospel and teach HP this way. 
 Sigh.

On another note--re my time turner post about Harry and Hermione 
changing things--yeah, I flubbed that one.  Chalk it up to not enough 
coffee!  ;-)

Vic who really should be getting class work done.

> -Jim Flanagan