Book Review: The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter (long)

[Caius Marcius <coriolan_cmc@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49052

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Penny Linsenmayer 
<pennylin at s...> wrote:
> Hi all --
> 
> > 8. "Crowning the King: Harry Potter and the Construction of
> > Authority" by Farah Mendlesohn - <snip> She paints Harry as a 
> > passive hero  who is successful largely due to "inherited" 
talents 
> > and assistance from others, a "gentleman scholar" (a star on the 
> > playing field and passably bright).  She argues that the Sorting 
> > Hat reinforces the destinarian nature of elitist Hogwarts and is 
> > not at all about personal choices.

These attempts to explicate Canon upon the holy altar of Race-Class-
and-Gender put me in mind of a recent volume devoted to an analysis 
of another British children's classic.  

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865476268/qid=1041398065/sr=2-
1/ref=sr_2_1/002-5070723-3712021

   - CMC (refraining from further comment lest I draw a howler onto 
myself)