shippers/URL/mystery?

[Emily Owens]

No: HPFGUIDX 9512

I am one of those newbies who found you through the salon.com article, and 
I'm extra-pleased to find such a thoughtful group of people staying so 
on-topic. This is unique in my experience of listservs and newsgroups!

Since I've been lurking a few days by reading the digests, I will begin with 
hopefully not annoying you too much by replying to a few threads at once: 
the shippers, the electronic version and (most loquaciously) is HP a 
mystery?

I am completely amused (in the good way!) by the shippers' debates, but 
would like to suggest, as a devil's advocate, that it's more fun not to 
know. Which is more fun to watch: a soap opera, where everything takes place 
on the surface, and everyone is always getting it on, or the X-Files, where 
nothing ever, ever happened? I think I prefer *not* to know, thereby 
maintaining the potential of all sorts of interesting 'ships. But OTOH I am 
gratified to know that I'm not alone in finding Sirus intriguing... ;)

I haven't followed the URL to the electronic version, but I second the 
person who pointed out that their searchability is key. I work in 
publishing, but even I'll admit that it's useful to have that ability--and I 
don't feel threatened by the possibility of people reading entire novels on 
their computer screens, because I don't believe they'll do it.

I think it's important to have a searchable version because of the kind of 
books that JKR writes -- books that reward the careful reader. It's 
important to be able to find arcane quotes and details, because the author 
evidently intends us to find and think about them. I am reminded of the work 
of Nabokov (no, really :) because of the way that JKR hides little details 
that you completely miss the first time, but that *wink* at you on a second 
reading. Many of the posts I've read have dealt with things like allusions 
to _The Secret Garden_, and I don't find them at all far-fetched. I think HP 
represents something new: "children's" literature that deals with its 
antecendents in a sophisticated "adult-literature" sort of way. There aren't 
many children's books that could sustain the sort of discussion that goes on 
here!

That brings me to the "mystery" thread, and why I don't think that HP books 
are mysteries, at least as I read them. First of all, I don't like 
mysteries, and I like HP, so HP can't be mystery. ;) More seriously, while 
JKR does an excellent job of planting hints that prevent you from feeling 
cheated by the ending, she also doesn't seem really to want you to figure it 
all yourself out on the first reading. I wonder how many people, even 
adults, have actually figured out the "mystery" of any given book -- I 
venture to guess it's very few.

Unlike "whodunnit"-genre mysteries which follow a protagonist as s/he tries 
to discover the circumstances surrounding a particular mysterious event, HP 
books lack specific mysteries to be solved. There is a sense that something 
bad is going on, but there is rarely *one* key thing (e.g. a murder) that 
they are trying to sort out. Also, HP and friends are curious and get into a 
lot of trouble, but they aren't "detectives" in the sense that they drop 
their books and broomsticks to spend all their time hunting down clues. 
Since the reader knows no more than they do, s/he is ill-equipped to become 
an extra-narrative "detective" him- or herself. And while things do get 
"solved" at the end of each book, the individual puzzles are less 
significant than the progressive unveiling of what is turning out to be a 
very complex historical story. HP actually reminds me more of the "thriller" 
genre, in that there are constant realignments of friend and foe (or rather, 
misidentifications of who's on what side), and a good-guy/bad-guy 
war-related back-story.

But in the end, it doesn't really matter what genre these books remind me 
of, because I think they are actually unique. I've read them many less times 
than most of you have, though, so I wonder if you think my comments are 
on-target or newbie-ish. :)

Emily
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