The way we read HP (long)

Thu Nov 29 13:13:07 UTC 2001

No: HPFGUIDX 30356

This post is in response to posts 29843 and 29930 by Ebony, entitled Re: Hermione and power (touches on SHIPping) and SHIP/FF: Growing up with Harry (WAS:Social skills) respectively.  I have not included any of the material, because the choice was to snip all or none, and this is a long post already.  I am not replying to any one point but rather what I see as the outlook that informs them.  This post is not a SHIP post, though it touches on those debates.  It does not relate in any way to the discussion on OT-Chatter about fanfic.

Ebony: please comment if I have misunderstood anything you have said.

These posts raised for me what is a very profound question:  How do we read the books: analytically or imaginatively?

A number of subheadings are relevant:

1) Identification with the characters
2) The role of fanfiction
3) The definition of a shipper

1) Identification.  I had never really considered this before, but I had always seen identification as immature, and the grownup approach to be objective detachment.  I believe that implicit in Ebony's approach is the opposite assumption: objective detective-story style analysis (including analysis of character and themes, of course) is a sterile dead end, and the reader needs to engage with the story for a full appreciation, by identifying with a character and imagining their own reactions and decisions in the book situations.

This is very interesting and I want to learn from it, but I do have one difficulty when it comes to a list like HPfGU: how can we really debate any conclusions we draw?  If Ebony, identified with Hermione, concludes that H/H is the 'answer', what can I say?  Mere dry evidence, based on textual (or do I mean critical?) analysis, will have been subsumed into the imaginative interpretation.  The alternative is that I do my own imagining.  I might then have a fruitful offlist dialogue with Ebony about what we have discovered in our respective worlds - but we won't have advanced a collective conclusion about what is going on in the books one little bit.

Let me illustrate a bit from the shipping debate.  Ebony refers above to the 'subtext'.  My initial understanding of this statement was to see shipping as a bit like the way Snape and Quirrell are handled in PS.  There is apparent evidence that Snape is the villain, but the attentive reader should be able to deduce that Quirrell is (I am not sure how far this is really true, as JKR doesn't really IMO follow the rules for detective writing - I don't think you can reasonably deduce Quirrell is the *only* possibility until they see the knocked out troll in the series of tests.).  Similarly, there is in-your-face evidence that Hermione favours Ron, but there is other evidence that the attentive reader will see as showing she favours Harry.  But I'm not sure that's what Ebony means, or at any rate only what she means.  The alternative way to see the 'subtext' is to identify with Hermione, and deduce from that that she favours Harry.  I'm not convinced you can mix the two approaches - once you have gone the imaginative route, the likelihood is that *all* the evidence will bear an interpretation that favours your conclusion, and be cited in support of that conclusion.  When it is cited by others as opposing the conclusion, the alternative interpretation will be used to dismiss it and state that opposing evidence does not exist or is scanty.

2) Fanfiction.  The role Ebony ascribes to fanfiction takes the above approach even further.  The analytical approach to the books treats them as a Muggle portrait: fixed, showing a lot of interesting stuff, but the same yesterday as tomorrow.  The imaginative approach, as I understand it, is more like a wizard portrait, which moves and reveals different sides of the subject, and background that was concealed.  The movement, and the new material revealed, is provided by writing (*not* reading - I am not implying anyone thinks fanfic is an extension of canon) fanfiction.  The fanfiction illuminates the author's understanding of canon, and provides insights that analysis never will. (Fanfic has many other roles, of course, not least the pleasure of writing; this post really is only about the way we read in interpret canon.)

Again, interesting, and again, I have a but.  The wizard portrait moves, but its life is not JKR's, it is the author's.  How can I debate any conclusions drawn about canon from the above process?

3) Finally, definition of shipping.  You can almost predict what I'm going to say by now.  I regard an H/H or an R/H shipper as someone who has weighed the evidence - analytically - in the books, and decided that, on balance, Hermione favours one or the other.  In practice, people such as that (I include myself) are likely to describe themselves as 'no-shippers' on HPfGU, because, by the standards of imaginative interpretation, they are.  I have no view about the suitability of Ron in future for Hermione, for example.  I regard the suitability arguments cited in the Romantic Pairings FAQ as irrelevant (and the argument that JKR will favour H/H because she identifies with Hermione as slightly insulting to her as an author - surely she is capable of rising above that?) to the analytical debate, just as the analytical evidence is at best secondary for the imaginative debate.

The problem is, how to live together?  In theory, no problem - we just each do our own thing.  In practice, I want to engage with other list members in debate (who *does* Hermione favour?) and we fall over because of the radically different terms of the debate, and, I believe, ways of reading literature.

Some final comments.

One thing that worries me is that someone will pipe up and say 'we covered all this in English at 10th grade, where have you been?'.  All I can say is I did English to OWL, and issues like this were never brought up.

A final cry of anguish - when I wrote Lucius Malfoy's election leaflet (contest #15, see message 27566) I found that he apparated into my mind and helped write it.  I wanted to put jokes in and his ego was offended. This experience suggests that, possibly, if I could have my life over again, I could make a reasonable fist of the imaginative and creative side of things.  I reach retirement age in just over twenty years' time - perhaps I might have time to have a go then?

David
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