Harry PotterA Worthwhile series??

[katilian]

No: HPFGUIDX 33654

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "kimballs6" <kevinkimball at h...> wrote:
> Much debate is swirling around the Harry Potter books versus 
> C.S. Lewis's and Tolkien's stories.  Many argue that these 
> books are all similar--just fantasy, pure and simple.  I disagree.  
> They are fantasies (Lewis going into allegory), but that is where 
> the similarity ends.

I don't think you can ignore, either, the differences in subgenre.  While they are all fantasy, the Narnia books are, as you say, allegory, and LotR is epic fantasy.  While there are differences in those subgenres, they do have in common a tendency to paint a somewhat black and white picture of the universe in which the story is set.  They also tend to have 'flatter' characters (in the literary sense of not having as many fully developed character traits as a real person would).  

Harry Potter is more of a children's fantasy set in modern times.  Like most modern tales (whether for children or adults) the lines between right and wrong are blurred, much like they are in the real world.  Also, because it is a children's tale, the focus is necessarily on the children, who live a life where adults are often only of peripheral concern (which, IMO, reflects the thought processes of real children in their preteen and teenage years).

Comparing the three books effectively would require, IMO, not only a consideration of the traditions of the different subgenres, but also the time period in which the stories were written and the backgrounds of the authors.  Both Lewis and Tolkien were writing in the '40's and 50's, while Rowling is writing in the '90's/00's.  Differences in world view are to be expected, given the generational gap and the changes in the world itself over that approximately fifty year span.  If those differences aren't considered, then I don't believe that the books can fully be understood in comparison to one another.

<snip> 
> MS. ROWLING'S WORLD VIEW:
> Rowling presents an arbitrary world in which good and evil are 
> simply two sides of the same sorcery--the "Dark Side" and the 
> other side, although no name is ever given for it.

I personally don't see this in the series.  Admittedly, at times one doesn't know what side a character is on, but using suspense as a writing technique is not something I can see faulting an author for.  There is a very distinct 'good' side (represented by Dumbledore, McGonagall, etc. as adults and by Harry, Ron, Hermione, etc. as children) and a distinct 'bad/evil' side (represented by Voldemort, Quirrell, Draco, etc.).   

>  Harry and his 
> friends must choose which side they're on, but of course the line 
> between the two is always moving.  Determining where the line 
> is between good and evil becomes an individual choice, leaving 
> the reader wondering why something is okay for this person and 
> not the other. Sometimes breaking rules is honorable, 
> sometimes it must be punished.  Sometimes a lie is bad, 
> sometimes it is good. 

Oddly, this sounds like my life :-).  More seriously, this is simply a reflection of how the real world works.  Speeding through a stop light is wrong, except when you have a person bleeding to death in your passenger seat.  Lying is wrong, but what if you're lying to the irate and abusive husband of your best friend so that he doesn't find out she's hiding in your bedroom?  The real world contains a lot of relativity, as does Harry's world.  Anyone who tries to write about a realistic or semi-real world must take that into consideration.  (And I would argue that allegories and epic fantasies are not, by definition, attempts at writing a semi-real world, although they might be realistic in and of themselves.)

> And finally, adult authority is attacked 
> harshly, leaving ultimate authority in the hands of the kid who 
> can grab the most power.

While I'm not sure this statement holds up in the books, I do think that a look at any children's adventure literature will show that most of the children are 'in control' far more than they are--or than adults like to think they are--in the real world.  It's a convention of the genre.

> 
> First, breaking rules is glorified:

Someone else pointed out that the rules Harry and co. usually broke were broken in an attempt to help others, and therefore weren't punished (or not severely).  That, to me, is the key point.  It's not arbitrary at all, but rather fair, in an admittedly simplistic way.  If your intentions are good, you're rewarded; if your intentions are bad, you're punished.

> 
> Second, Rowling leaves the option of lying up to the individual, 
> and even glorifies it.  If Harry needs to lie, he simply will:  "When 
> facing a magic mirror, Harry thinks desperately, `I must lie,..I 
> must look and lie about what I see, that's all.'"  And yes, he is 
> rewarded with the Sorcerer's Stone.

Context is everything, isn't it?  IIRC, Harry was trying to avoid getting the Stone, and the lying was an attempt to save the world.  I find it hard to fault him for his actions.

>  Yet later, when he asks 
> Headmaster Dumbledore questions, Dumbledore says, "...I 
> shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason 
> not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me.  I shall not, or 
> course, lie."  My immediate response was, why not?  It works for 
> Harry.

Perhaps because any lie would be made for a wrong purpose?

>  Maybe Ms. Rowling meant this as a teaching point, but it 
> doesn't go anywhere.

Or maybe it's just a characterization point.  Dumbledore won't lie about something so important to Harry because there's no good reason to.  If lying to him would, for example, save his life, perhaps Dumbledore would have lied to him, but since there was no purpose to it, Dumbledore didn't.  I see the passage as very revealing about Dumbledore's character.

> Does Dumbledore never lie, or maybe 
> he'll just never lie to Harry, or maybe he just won't lie to Harry at 
> this time, or maybe this is itself a lie....  Rowling sometimes 
> glorifies lying, and other times doesn't  consider it as an option.   
> Rowling appears confused on the issue of lying.

I think she simply understands that 'good' and 'bad' depend somewhat on the context of the situation and aren't absolute values.


<snip some points discussed by others>

> C.S. LEWIS'S AND J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S WORLD VIEW:
> 
> In contrast, Lewis and Tolkien present a world where truth is 
> absolute and transcends the individual.  Because the world has 
> absolute truth, it is also a world in which order is upheld as an 
> honorable characteristic for which to strive.

It's easier to present such a world when you're not trying to create a facsimile of the real world.  Both Narnia and Middle Earth are fantastical worlds, so absolutes can be set by their creators.  Harry Potter lives in a version of our world, and as such his world needs to reflect ours to a certain extent.

I'd also question the assumption inherent in this statement that 'order' is to be valued above and beyond independence (which I consider to be a 'positive opposite' of order, as opposed to anarchy being a 'negative opposite').  Order taken to an extreme stifles all creativity and ingenuity, just like order avoided in the extreme leads to chaos.  It's true that Harry Potter doesn't necessarily advocate order above and beyond all else, because order isn't inherently *good*.  It's all in what you make of it, as Rowling shows over and over (see the whole intention discussion above).

>  Good and evil are 
> two distinct things, with the rewards and consequences for the 
> characters' choices reflecting absolute values.  And finally, 
> adults can be good or evil, and the good are presented with 
> nobility of character.
> 

Leaving aside the absolute values for the moment, the 'good are presented with nobility of character' in HP, as well.  Dumbledore, Sirius, Harry, etc. are all presented as noble; Sirius is even presented as a martyr.

> First, C.S. Lewis presents truth as absolute and transcendent.  

Which he can do, since he's writing an allegory.  If he were writing realistic (or semi-realistic) fiction, he'd have to deal with a world that wasn't quite so simplistic.

> 
> Second, respect for order is a part of a Judeo-Christian world 
> view.  

So, at its worst, is prejudice and discrimination.  That doesn't necessarily make either prejudice or discrimination something to value.

>Consider the general anarchy encouraged at Hogwarts, 
<snip examples>

Where you see anarchy, I see creativity and acceptance of others' differences.  I personally see that as at least as valuable, if not more so, than order.

<snipping more points discussed better than I can>

> At the beginning of Harry Potter, Harry hates his family, laughing 
> at their stupidity and dreaming of revenge <snip examples> 
> Contrast that with Edmund and Bilbo.  

Since Edmund was the 'bad guy' and Harry never was, I'm not sure how you can make a comparison.  Edmund had to get back into the good graces of his relatives, who were all on the side of good.  The Dursleys aren't, by any definition, 'good'.

<snip>All the characters--
> Harry, Bilbo and the children--are presented as heroes, yet only 
> Lewis's and Tolkien's live in a world that has true 
> consequences for right and wrong, and thus only they can truly 
> grow in excellence.

Aside from the consequences that do exist in Rowling's universe, why is it that it requires 'true consequences for right and wrong' for someone to 'grow in excellence'?

<snip>In handing any book to a 
> child, one must know if the child can discern the world views and 
> not be swept into a view that is counter to the truth being instilled 
> in him.

I prefer to discuss the differences between the desired world view and the presented one, so that the child can better understand the world view I'm aiming for.  

<snip>
> 	Pronoun and Antecedent disagreement:
> 	"Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching.  
> They weren't."
> 	"Someone was knocking to come in.  BOOM.  They knocked 
> again."
> 	"Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return 
> to power, who has 		clung to life, awaiting their chance?"
> 

Someone said this already, but: in informal writing, there is nothing wrong with mixing a singular pronoun with a plural antecedent.  It would be incorrect in formal writing (essays, for example), but in common speech or informal writing (such as fiction), it's acceptable.

> 	Subject confusion:
> 	"The dark shapes of desks and chairs were piled against the 
> walls,..."
> 

While it's probably not the shapes that are piled, there is the possibility that Rowling meant exactly that.  If you picture the scene in your head, it's possible to 'see' the stacked shapes, and this sentence conveys that the desks and chairs weren't clearly seen.  Since the meaning is clear, I don't really see a problem with the word choice.

> 	Analogy and Simile struggles:
> 	"...weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals."  (How big 
> are glowing coals?)

Most of them are a couple of inches in all directions (charcoal, anyone?).

> 	"The mountains around the school became icy gray and the 
> lake like chilled steel."


I'm not seeing the problem . . . 

> 
> 	Improper verb construction:
> 	"He had just thought of something that made him feel as though 
> the happy balloon (?)		inside him had got a puncture."
> 	"...so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back."
> 

I assume you're objecting to the 'had got'?  There's nothing wrong with that usage, although 'had gotten' is used in the US more frequently.  I believe 'had got' is more common in Britain, though.  If that's not what you're objecting to, then again, I'm not seeing the problem. 

> 	Run on sentences - they are virtually everywhere:
> 	"It [ice pop] wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they 
> watched a gorilla 		scratching its head who looked remarkably 
> like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond." - 		The head looked 
> remarkably like Dudley, or the gorilla?  Whose hair is blond?
> 	"The idea of overtaking Slytherin in the House championship 
> was wonderful, no one had 		done it for seven years, but would 
> they be allowed to, with such a biased referee?"	
> 	And my favorite one:
> 	"Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in 
> its beak, went to the 		door, and threw the owl out into the storm." 
> - who went to the door?
> 

Those aren't actually run-ons.  They're complex sentences.  Perfectly 'legal'.

> Lewis and Tolkien both write with an impeccable understanding 
> of and a rightful submission to the English language.  

As it was used at the time.  Grammar and usage change.  
	
<snip>  Rowling's world view is 
> not one to immerse a child in if you are seeking to raise him in a 
> Judeo-Christian ethic.

Good thing I'm not.


> Beyond that, encouraging a child to read 
> poorly written yet "sensational" literature may produce a child 
> who can read Harry Potter stories, but it will not produce a 
> reader.

On that, I beg to differ.  Many of my students who are virtually non-readers have started with Harry Potter and moved on to other works.  They are now definitely readers.  

Perhaps more importantly, *anything* a person reads has the potential to strengthen their reading skills and make them a better reader.  Quite frankly, it's more important that children learn to comprehend what they're reading, whatever it may be, than that they read *only* literary greats.

Katie