Harry Potter names - tribute to Roald Dahl?

[feetmadeofclay]

No: HPFGUIDX 76727

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Wanda Sherratt" 
<wsherratt3338 at r...> wrote:
>  I could never get into the sombre discussions about the 
> sort of psychological effect Harry's upbringing would have on him, 
> or if he's suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  His life 
> is just too farcical in its blackness.  Yes, yes, I know that 
things 

It is played like a Punch and Judy show.  Am I really to believe that 
Judy is traumatised by the death of her child.  No!  It is all 
surface and that is where farce lives and breaths.  

I have to agree entirely about this... Toothpick and kleenex???! I'm 
supposed to make some sort of deep psychological connection when with 
that kind of stuff.  Harry doesn't seem tortured to me.  Not one bit. 
Even his teen angst is nothing more than moderate to heavy ordinary 
teen behaviour. He sulks but that is hardly an expression of a 
tortured soul.  If it was I'm much deeper than previously thought.  

Well, if you want to see what Harry would really look like a good 
book is A Man Named Dave.  This is the story of one of California's 
worst abuse cases.  And Dave Peltzer is very Harry-like in that he is 
a very kind and gentle man who grew up to be a fighter. He didn't let 
his past destroy him. Very inspirational man. One of my heroes. This 
book gave me nightmares.  Also good are his previous ones, but A man 
Name Dave covers the same ground the other two did in less detail and 
extends into his adult life.

The difference btween him and our dear brave Harry is his story as an 
adult is filled with the struggle to put his past behind him and deal 
with the abuse and its aftermath.  His post abusive childhood is 
filled with atypical behaviour.  He didn't behave like a snotty 
teenager; he expressed his pain and damage in the way many people 
express pain and damage - by being damaged and different.

I just can't believe that Rowling is some brilliant novelists 
exploring the psychology of childhood pain and the teenage mind.  
She's simply not that good.  She should have stuck with the fairytale.

> it's a fairy-tale novel (or it was, in 
> the earlier books) and I feel sure that Rowling meant her 
> description of the Dursleys to be a black comedy, not a serious 
> expose about the things that go on behind the doors of neat 
suburban 
> houses.

Absolutely.  Though frankly I never found it THAT funny.  She's witty 
but truly dark humour isn't her strength either. Compare her iwth 
Lemony Snicket's inexhaustible stock of horribly delightful adults. 
Or Lewis Carrol's Queens.  Or Edward Gorey (the prince of dark kiddie 
humour).  Even Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is better in its adoption 
of this tradition.  (I recommend Johnny highly to anyone who loves a 
dark story - but it is a comic...)

 JKR is better in the middle ground dealing with her good 
characters.  Her strength is in pleasantness IMHO rather than the big 
good and evil drama.  The Burrow is a hundred times funnier, than the 
our first meeting with the Dursleys.  That tumbledown house, shirts 
hanging everywhere, the chickens in the front and Molly's rages. 
Molly greeting Harry so sweetly in CoS always makes me laugh.  I can 
just hear her soft loving tone. JKR's just generally better with the 
goodies than the baddies.  

Snape being the notable exception.  But I think that might be 
explained by the fact that she knew and still knows that Snape is a 
better man than he sometimes comes off as. With characters like Draco 
she seems incapable of not reminding us how pathetic he is .... It 
keeps it from being as funny as it could be.

But JKR's mystified why kids would want to dress up as Draco.  Well 
if you can't understand why kids would want to play at being the bad 
guy or why women would want to play at dating Serverus Snape, you 
don't understand the dark side of people.  The Brontes knew that 
much... She should read Whuthering Heights (or read it again).  Emily 
Bronte had full faith in the ability of darkness to be attractive and 
facinating.  Heathcliff's the most horrible romantic hero I have ever 
seen. Yet you pull for him! 
  
Golly