Defend OOTP against my horribly Muggle mind!

[artcase]

No: HPFGUIDX 76420

(snipped to save space)
--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "evangelina839" 
<evangelina839 at y...> wrote:
> 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.
> ....

Re-read the sentence that begins with "First" and you will find that 
the qualifying phrase is "subscribe to post Joyce mentality". 
Apparently, you do not subscribe to post Joyce mentality and 
therefore the lack of "literary" style does not affect you. I still 
stand by my insistence that GOF was grammatically a nightmare. If I 
hadn't packed the book up yesterday because we are moving in a week, 
I would quote specific lines and dissect exactly what is 
grammatically incorrect about each example. OotP had fewer examples 
of such errors, which means either JKR is becoming aware of her 
writing style, or an editor became aware and is making corrections. 

...
> You're still being harsh! The "-ly" form is one of my favorite
> aspects ...

Let me give you the Tom Mix example of "-ly" usage:
The cloaked man walked haltingly to the corner where he met the 
stunningly beautiful woman. 
"Why did you bring me here?" He said menacingly.
She batted her eyes flirtatiously, and said silkily, "Because I have 
something that will be of interest to you."
He regarded her coolly before speaking gruffly. "I doubt you have 
anything that would interest me."

That is just what came off the top of my head to illustrate how "-ly" 
can be over-used. If you want better examples, read Stephen 
King's "On Writing," he explains it much better than I just did, or 
Sol Stein's "Stein On Writing."

...
> sentences. (Such as "the cloudless sky smiled at itself in the
> smoothly sparkling lake" 
> -- just one example from the top of my head) 
This WILL sound harsh. Every writer gets lucky and slips in 
the "purple prose" that trickles down from the Muse. JKR has 
the "world" of HP beautifully developed in her imagination. For that, 
the series warrants a nod. Her lack of training and experience show 
in her writing, but are improving the more training and experience 
she receives. Almost every beginning writer WILL make mistakes, and 
their work in retrospective improves with age. To qualify any of 
these books as stunning examples of Literature would be an insult to 
Strunk & White for starters. 

I will not disqualify that the world of HP is wondrous and (if I dare 
abuse the pun) "magical," but it is not Literature (with a 
capital "L" as taught in moldy institutions around the globe) in the 
true sense of the word. 

Despite the examples I have listed above, I (and many others as 
evident by this list traffic) still love the books and the world of 
HP. Maybe, just maybe, that helps qualify it as literature.

Art