[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry *wasn't* abandoned

[T.M. Sommers]

No: HPFGUIDX 69057

D.G. wrote:
 >
> but 
> I'm told that the Dursleys are portrayed, more or less, as 
> ineffectual, almost slapstick cartoon villains. That does not jibe 
> with what I see going on in the books themselves.]

Not cartoon characters, but fairy-tale characters.  The Dursleys 
are, or start out as, standard-issue fairy-tale step-parents. 
They could have walked right out of Cinderella.  But as the books 
have progressed, the Dursleys have become more realistic, as the 
general tone of the books has gotten bleaker (At the rate things 
are going, Strindberg will look positively cheery in comparison 
to book 7).

> Nonetheless,  it remains very hard 
> for me to get through the opening chapters of most of these books.

I don't think it pays, especially in the first few books, to read 
them as one would read a naturalistic novel.  Rather they should 
be read more as fairy tales.