Small (OK, long) rant on Children's Lit, with the sharp edges knocked off

[L. Inman]

No: HPFGUIDX 29546

Amy Z wrote, brilliantly as usual:

> Cindy C. wrote:
> 
> > Is there "good" adult fiction in which children are the 
protagonist?
> 
> I've never read The Tin Drum (Grass) but it's about a 
> child, no?  Lord of the Flies, A High Wind in Jamaica, Oliver 
Twist, 
> David Copperfield--but all in all, very few books come to mind.  
With 
> deference to Heather, most of the books on that list get pegged as 
> "young adult."  Who reads Catcher in the Rye or A Separate Peace 
after 
> American Lit class?
> 
> If we really took children seriously, we'd accept them as the 
> protagonists of adult fiction.  Maybe most people just like to read 
> about people who look like themselves.  And, a la Pullman, if we 
took 
> stories seriously we wouldn't fuss about who the protagonists are 
> (thanks for the great link, Luke!).

Exactly.  As for adult books with child protagonists, TO KILL A 
MOCKINGBIRD stands out as a nonpareil.  However, we are supposed to 
read it as adults who can see things Scout Finch can't -- who, for 
example, already know what rape is.  One can, and was meant to, read 
MOCKINGBIRD with a slight distance from Scout-as-child and a slighter 
closeness to Scout-as-adult-narrator.  But when we pick up HP we have 
to take Harry and his world on the exact terms that Harry himself has 
to do.

Which makes me think that a lot of objections that come from the 
likes of William Safire have their root in -- well, two things.  One 
is this.  When I was a child I thought that Adults received a little 
handbook or experienced a change in the hard-wiring of their brains 
that made them able to know what was going on, to be aware of other 
people's points of view, and to not be selfish.  Well, I'm turning 
twenty-six on Monday and my handbook hasn't shown up yet. *puts fists 
on hips*  And I know now that it won't.

All that really means is that I can't be lazy and expect to be 
mature, but many writers of "adult literature" seem to let this 
frustration spiral into a slick pessimism about life and other 
people.  John Grisham, for example, writes as if he hated all his 
characters -- and he's supposed to be a liberal beacon of hope.  
(Mark Twain, however, belies himself.  I'm pretty sure, for all his 
vaunted pessimism, that he likes at least some of his own 
characters.)  Even so, most of the adult fiction I pick up, 
especially that of the modern era, is licked all over with a scorn 
for trust in Goodness of whatever sort.  I'd like to say to the 
pundits who abuse HP, "Well, *excuuuuuse me*.  I didn't know optimism 
about people and faith in Goodness wasn't real and only fit for 
children and savages.  I always thought it was more real than our 
celebrated 'adult' realism.  I bow to your superior knowledge -- NOT."

For IMO, the HP books *are* optimistic about people and full of a 
faith in Goodness -- that is, a trust that it's really there and 
doesn't need to be defined by what's Not Evil.  Sure, the people all 
have foibles, dangerous ones, too.  JKR's books "don't lack realism" 
in that respect.  But there's something chivalric in them (Harry 
determining to come out from behind the tombstone and die like his 
father, standing up) that modern people sneer at because they are too 
timid to espouse it.

The other thing is just the basic perverse human determination to 
dislike whatever other people like.  Oh, the canaglia, reading 
something delicious and fun.  It must not be Serious.  *flips through 
the first book*  Yep, I was right.  Let's relegate it to the 
Children's Lit Public Housing Projects (LOL, Heather!) where it 
belongs.  

So much for the pundits.  As for us who love HP, whatever genre we 
think it is, we fall back on arguments about complexity of syntax and 
content of themes and usually get snarled in it.  I tend to take 
Penny's view that Children's Lit is something that one knows when one 
sees -- but that appears to differ amongst us.  My own view is that 
it falls into that shadowy dimension that all really good fairytales 
tend to fall into.  George MacDonald, a great writer of fairytales 
himself, writes an excellent essay about defining such things:

http://home.earthlink.net/~kcarmody1/FantasticImagination.html

Well, I'd better wrap this up.  Ten points to your house if you made 
it this far!

Lisa