"Harry Potter and the Childish Adult" AS Byatt's take on HP and his adult fans

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 68328

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Peter Shea <bebche2 at y...> wrote:
> The Leaky Cauldron directed me to this article in todays NY Times. 
AS Byatt, the acclaimed author of novels like Possession, analyzes 
the appeal of Potterdom for adults.
>  
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/07/opinion/07BYAT.html?8br
>  
> It's an interesting analysis which seems particularly relevant to 
this list. Byatt is generally respectful but she doesn't pull her 
punches when discussing what she sees as the shortcomings of JKR's 
writing--or the shortcomings of the adults who read her.
>

Excuse me while I roll my eyes with childish extravagance...

Byatt's main complaint about Rowling seems to be that she doesn't 
fantasize about some "numinous" connection with primordial forces 
that she seems to think is a requirement of 'fantasy' authors.  It's 
precisely her refusal to write that kind of claptrap and engage with 
the world as we live in it, that I love about Rowling-- in fact, 
Byatt points it out herself:

"The important thing about this particular secondary world is that it 
is symbiotic with the real modern world. Magic, in myth and fairy 
tales, is about contacts with the inhuman — trees and creatures, 
unseen forces. Most fairy story writers hate and fear machines. Ms. 
Rowling's wizards shun them and use magic instead, but their world is 
a caricature of the real world and has trains, hospitals, newspapers 
and competitive sport. " (she thinks this is a bad thing, in case 
that's not clear)

I suppose Byatt would prefer some ersatz stuff about the romanticized 
psychological lives of primitive people untainted by modernity, just 
as she seems to prefer ersatz Romantic poetry to actual modern 
poetry.  That is my idea of real "comfort pap" and escapism.

Sydney-- who, no offence to Byatt fans out there, couldn't 
believe "Possession" was the twenty-first century's idea of a great 
novel.  That was a heck of a lot closer to Georgette Heyer than 
Rowling is.  Grrrrrr....