[HPforGrownups] Readability (was a really long multi-subject header)

Tue Oct 9 09:05:14 UTC 2001

No: HPFGUIDX 27353

  caliburncy at yahoo.com ha scritto: 
<snip- sorry, it was a bit long!>

<Also, what you consider to be the "lack of description" in HP is more 
<a reflection on the times than it is on the age range.  Modern day 
<books are generally not as weighty on exposition or description as 
<18th/19th century literature was.  Consider it a counter-reaction to 
<what people now perceive as the "bloated" nature of that kind of 
<writing.  You could do it then, but you can't do it now, if for no 
<other reason than because the expectation of the reader is different. 
<The reader knows that he/she is getting him/herself into a more 
<heavily expository read when he/she picks up an 18th/19th century 
<novel.  But he/she would not be as accepting of the same style of 
<writing in a modern novel.  Sometime in the next generation, we will 
<probably cycle back to preferring that same kind of "bloated" writing 
<in our current books.  HP is therefore not completely lacking in 
<description, it is just much more selective in its detail.  And this 
<is not what makes it a children's book, because most modern day adult 
<literature is the same way.
<-Luke, the 'suddenly being very picky' guy

In order not to make this a "me too"-one-liner, I'd just like to say that I cannot agree with what you say about the lack of description in contemporary literature, insofar as you are obviously mainly referring to English and American literature about which I don't know as much as about German and Austrian texts. For them, it is not entirely true. Anyway, what your statement made me think of is that we would feel description as redundant and boring, especially if the setting of a book is our everyday world. Nobody needs a detailed description of, let's say, the Fifth Avenue any more, because we have seen it in so many films, in so many news, TV spots etc. that in a way we know it already. (Whether this form of "knowledge" is a good thing would deserve a lengthy, but very OT discussion.)

This applies also to JKR's writing: She doesn't need to give a detailed description of Privet Drive- everybody knows what a typical middle-class suburban street looks like. Neither can there be any doubts about the London Underground or Charing Cross Road. 

As far as the world of magic is concerned, she uses the far more sophisticated technique of what I'd call "suggestive writing", using her readers' already existing individual ideas of what a wooden cabin, a castle, a powder-blue carriage, a dungeon etc.etc. might look like.And only where entirely new things are presented (the Great Hall or Dumbledore's office), of which she wants to get us *her* picture instead of our own, she gives a detailed description.

Hope it makes sense.

Susanna/pigwidgeon37

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