Surmises on Book Five

[feliciarickmann]

No: HPFGUIDX 41438

Like many I am impatient for the arrival of The Order of the Phoenix, 
wondering what on earth was keeping JKR. The Independent on Sunday 
(U.K newspaper) has published an article about the delay, and offered 
what author, Brandon Robshaw, thinks is its cause. It does have a 
bearing on the construction of canon, and comments interestingly on 
several points raised over past months on HPfGU concerning character, 
construction and overall direction of the books.

After commenting on the initial regularity of the books' publication, 
and longer wait for Book Five, Robshaw surmises that she isn't 
finding the new book easy to write and that this is understandable. 
We must recognise the reasons for Harry Potter's success in a field 
where other books have many similar characteristics.  "The real 
secret of J K Rowling's success is something else, and it's something 
quite simple, to explain, I mean, not to achieve: a combination of 
predictable characters and unpredictable plots." 

This isn't a new discovery he comments, Charles Dickens did it 150 
years ago.  He then draws the parallel with Frank Richard's 
Greyfriars stories in The Magnet, a school full of predictable 
characters including schoolboy Billy Bunter, "perpetually involved in 
unpredictable escapades."  

He comments that while we demand to be told the same story 
repeatedly,  we simultaneously, have a restless desire for novelty, 
and then pinpoints what must be JKR's problem in writing The Order of 
the Phoenix.  "This two-fold appeal carries within it the seeds of 
its own difficulty."   It must get harder and harder to think of 
sufficiently twisty plots when the characters are so fixed.  And 
JKR "
.. has set herself the task of ageing the characters throughout 
the series
.  so far little has been done."   He wonders how JKR will 
retain the charm of the characters as they approach an age where 
children can often be at their most charmless, and keep the books' 
continuing novelty.

Finally, I  was prompted to wonder if, while JKR may have an overall 
plan for the series, the actual construction of detailed plot lines 
might, possibly, not have been addressed. There was a rumour 
(unconfirmed) that GoF was longer than originally anticipated, due to 
a plot flaw and subsequent rewrite which, if true, would also account 
for her reluctance to submit the manuscript until it was watertight 
and perfect, especially with so much else going on chez Rowling.

Felicia