The Politics of Nostalgia (was Nel #10: Class)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 41675

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <skelkins at a...> wrote:
> I wrote, about Rowling's use of stock characters and 
conventions:
<snip>
  Both Lilac and Darrin have, in 
> the fairly recent past, cited the books' "old-fashioned" qualities 
as  one of the very things that made them like them so much.  I 
am  personally convinced that the nostalgic qualities of JKR's 
writing are one of the main reasons for the series' tremendous 
popularity.  
> 
> There is nothing wrong with that.  Nostalgia *is* appealing.  It 
> also, however, tends to come complete with a whole lot of 
political  baggage that sits somewhat less comfortably with 
contemporary  progressive values, and that's precisely where I 
see the  inconsistency, and even a certain degree of authorial 
ambivalence,  slipping through the cracks of the text.<<

Wait a minute! Part of what Rowling accomplishes with 
characters like Stan is to show us exactly how convenient it is to 
rely on those old-fashioned cultural clues and how uneasy we 
are without them. 

  We all admit that it makes not the slightest difference as far as 
the outcome of PoA where the heck Stan Shunpike (not 
Steerpike, are you a Mervyn Peake fan, Elkins?) went to school. 
But we are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that we don't 
know.  We *don't* know how to class Stan or Ern or the trolley 
witch, and it bugs the heck out of us, progressive ideals or no, 
just as much as it would bug Uncle Vernon.

Pippin