Defend OOTP against my horribly Muggle mind!

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 76483

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "feetmadeofclay" 
<feetmadeofclay at y...> wrote:
 
> I have consistently felt that while I like Harry Potter's 
universe, 
> OOTP is not a great or even good novel. (Trust me when I say I 
didn't 
> want to think this.) It is (in my opinion) dully written and 
filled 
> with hackneyed phrases.  This hampers my ability to see beyond its 
> surface. It is undenyably repetative - harping on the same points 
> like Umbridge looking like a toad and clearing her throat.  I 
don't 
> have my book here... (it was so expensive that it is making the 
> rounds with friends) but "hot on his heels" is hardly a phrase I 
> expect during one of the most dramatic scenes in the novel.  And 
> Hensher of the Spectator was right "feathery cannonball" is truely 
> lamentable writing.  Neither really funny nor terribly vivid.  
Also 
> she used a similar allusion with Errol before anyway. 

I entirely agree.  I'm one of those readers who were shocked by the 
big dropoff in Rowling's work with OotP, and thought it read like 
someone else's work.  Describing the alleyway where Harry had 
first "clapped eyes on" Sirius is embarrassingly bad - a highschool 
student wouldn't be able to get away with phraseology that trite.  
It makes me wonder if Rowling has always written so badly, but we 
never realized it until now because this is the first time she's 
been able to get a book in print without having to submit to an 
editor's demands.
> 
> I will say I like things about OOTP (since I have irked people who 
> feel the need to hear the positive...). I think Rowling has 
talent - 
> no question.  Whoever said Snape is great because he has a rough 
> interior to go with that gruff exterior was right... He is great.  
So 
> is Arthur Weasley.  Sweet, good, a little eccentric. But 
> uncomplicatedly decent (in the best way of course). 

I also think that Rowling has talent.  But in OotP she moved away 
from what she was really good at, and I fear that she is not going 
to return to her strengths.  What I really enjoyed about the first 4 
books was the *wittiness* most of all, along with the seemingly 
inexhaustible inventiveness. I loved the way she seemed to have so 
much energy, she could almost afford to throw away brilliant little 
strokes of cleverness, like the titles of books she kept coming up 
with.  "Men Who Love Dragons Too Much", in GoF - that's just funny 
on so many levels, I still enjoy thinking about it.  If Rowling's 
prose was uninspired in the first four books, I didn't notice 
because I was carried away on the thermal currents of her 
imagination.  All that is gone in OotP.  Instead, she seems to be 
labouring for heavy meaning and drama, and she's just not good 
enough to pull it off.  OotP reminds me of the progress of many good 
sitcoms, like "MASH", which start off very funny, then somewhere 
along the line decide that making people laugh is a bit beneath 
them, and it's time to start dealing with *serious* issues, and 
improving people with moral lectures.  Rowling hasn't started 
moralizing yet, but she does seem to have cast off her former role 
as entertainer in favour of something more exalted.  I very much 
fear that she is going to try something that she is not fitted for - 
a lofty tale of sacrifice and redemption.  Unfortunately, she is NOT 
Dante, or Milton, and in trying to reach too high, she is going to 
make a fool of herself.  I'll keep an open mind about the remainder 
of the series, but if the final 3 books are a failure, there is no 
way Harry Potter will be considered literature even 20 years from 
now.  I think they say in the theatre that in order to have a hit, 
you must have a good close to the first half, and a really good 
finale.  A good first half and a lame conclusion won't succeed.  It 
would be a great waste, because the first 4 books ARE good reading, 
but nobody will introduce their children to a series of books that 
they know will peter out in disappointment.

Wanda

>