Defend OOTP against my horribly Muggle mind!

[evangelina839]

No: HPFGUIDX 76380

Art wrote:

> First, I would like to say that what JKR is doing is not
literature, in a true sense of 
the word if you subscribe to post Joyce mentality.

My god. That was harsh. IMO, everything that's written is literature.
But then, I'm just 
really uneducated and choose books by subject rather than impressive
language.

> However, she does weave a good yarn. And THAT makes the series
good. 
> Gramatically, they are amatuer at best with subject/verb agreement 
> problems all over the place, prepositional phrases that meander,
and 
> basically poor sentence structure. That said, one must remember,
she 
> did not graduate from Oxford with a masters or equivalent in
English. 
> I find many occasions where I explain to my children (while
finishing 
> GOF) exactly who did what in a sentence. She remedied this to some 
> extent in OOP, but still clings to unnecessary adverb (think "-ly") 
> words) useage. In time that will change as she grows as a writer.

You're still being harsh! The "-ly" form is one of my favorite
aspects of the entire 
english language though (except the "-ing" -- so much easier than
swedish), and I 
can't really object to things like poor sentence structure regarding
a language that is 
not my first, but I *never* found OotP that gramatically awful! In
fact the Swedish 
translations seem really poor to me now that I've read one HP book in
its original 
language. Oh, I know that every one of my arguments can be trashed in
an instant, 
but several times during reading I was completely entranced by some
of the 
sentences. (Such as "the cloudless sky smiled at itself in the
smoothly sparkling lake" 
-- just one example from the top of my head) And no, I never had to
wonder who did 
what.

> One last word about the depth and power behind the magic. OOP made 
> me "live" in the HP world in my imagination. That warrants a
thumb's 
> up. While JKR is no Tolkien (when comparing mastery of the English 
> language) she is IMO gaining ground on Mark Twain.

Again, I'm too uneducated to discuss quality of literature
convincingly, but I've always 
found Rowling better than Tolkien. No, I have not read Tolkien in
english, and not all 
of his books either, and yes, I admit that the older a book gets, the
harder it gets for 
me to relate to it (I think I've read too many books with poor and/or
over pretentious 
dialogue), but... when it comes to characterisation, Rowling is *way*
above Tolkien 
IMO. I feel like I could read any piece of dialogue, just pulled
completely out of 
context, and know which one of Rowling's characters who said it. To
me, that is really 
impressive actually. Every single one of her creations have
individual ways of 
speaking. I could never tell one speaker from another when reading
Tolkien.

But then, what you said about "living" the HP world, I completely
agree with. And 
honestly, that matters more to me than mastery of language. I believe
that what you 
have to say is more important than the way you say it. I always get
an image of 
anything Rowling writes; Tolkien honestly confused me too much with
details I never 
needed (such as the points of the compass - too little cross-country
running for me, I 
guess).

I feel like I will either recieve a bunch of Howlers or be completely
ignored with this 
post. :)

evangelina (always overestimating her chewing abilities)