I Love CoS, too!--stuff about Evil--Lewis and JKR

[linman6868 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19834

Caius wrote:

> I too have been curious that CoS seems to be regarded as the ugly 
> duckling by so many on this group.
> 
> It was CoS that really made me an HP fan.  I first read PS/SS in 
> December 1999 - while I enjoyed the book, I was ("with shame it is 
> written, with sorrow it is read") really not blown away by it. It 
> wasn't until May 2000 that I finally picked up CoS. I read the 
entire 
> book in a single day, and then rushed out to get Azkaban the next 
> day. 

I can tell a similar story.  I liked PS/SS: but didn't seek out the 
second book until the summer after PoA came out.  It was because of 
CoS that I reached for PoA and devoured it...and the rest is 
history.  

However...till I read the poll I thought I was alone in having an 
unidentifiable grudge against CoS, and think I might have identified 
what it is.

> I feel that, enjoyable though PS/SS was, it was really in CoS that 
> JKR came into her own as a writer.  It's here that we first start 
to 
> get a better picture of the wizarding world <snip>

I agree with this.  But I think I like CoS much the same way I like 
THE GOOD EARTH:  the book compels me but I hate what happens to O-
lan.  CoS compels me but I hate what happens to Ginny.  <gives a Jack 
Nicholson grimace> I am using the word *hate* here.  Oh, I concede 
that it makes the plot very satisfying at its resolution.  I even 
concede that it drags Ginny into the spotlight in a sort of macabre 
way.  But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Why then, you will say, don't I equally *hate* what happens to Harry 
with the dementors? Or to Cedric at the Riddle grave?  Well...I don't 
know.  I didn't say I'd figured it *all* out.

Now going back a little to the discussion about good vs. evil.  I 
paid particular attention to an exchange between Rebecca and I think 
Susan and Pippin about whether or not evil is bigger than good in 
JKR, whether or not the Narnia books are formulaic, and whether or 
not Aslan is the deus ex machina.

I think what set *my* bells off is when McGonagall says to Dumbledore 
in the first chapter of PS/SS that Voldemort was only afraid of Albus 
Dumbledore.  "You flatter me, my dear...Voldemort had powers I never 
will."  "Only because you're too *noble* to use them," McGonagall 
shoots back.  Well, wouldn't this imply that people who break the 
rules are the ones with the real power?  That even the best among us 
can't stand up to the potency of those who go outside the pale of 
humanity?  But Dumbledore himself limits that idea in his several 
talks with Harry ("if someone resists him again, and again, why he 
may never come back to power"; and the famous "it's our choices that 
make us who we are").  Not to mention the famous gleam.  And instead 
of calling it pragmatic, I'd call it heroic, like the star dying in 
WRINKLE IN TIME.

It's true that the Ministry makes use of Dementors and (along with 
the rest of the wizarding world) gives more credence to Voldemort by 
refusing to say his name; but I think JKR writes it more to criticize 
it than, as Blake says of Milton, be "of Satan's party without 
knowing it."  Blake makes an amusing and sometimes pretty good case 
out of PARADISE LOST; I doubt you could make as good a case of the HP 
books.  Not to compare JKR with our Great English Epic Poet or 
anything <eg>.

And as for the Narnia books, I wouldn't call them formulaic either.  
Nor would I consider Aslan the deus ex machina of the stories, or 
even in particular of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE.  The 
stories may appear to be about the children, but they really *are* 
about Aslan; and the main character of a story can't be deus ex 
machina.  That would be like saying that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn 
showing up at their own funeral is deus ex machina.  You can 
criticize it for other things, but not for that. <g>

JKR's stories are different because they *are* about people like us 
muddling through the world, not knowing any Aslans or if there even 
are any, uncertain that good will triumph but determined to do their 
part -- and meanwhile sorting out what their part actually consists 
of.  It's different stuff: but it's good different stuff.

Going to bed now.

<yawns and kicks off imaginary carpet slippers>

Lisa I.