Pullman is Lockhart was Re: The Hidden Key to Harry Potter

[Kia]

No: HPFGUIDX 60371

Penny wrote:

>Well, throwing in an "IMO" here and there above might soften 
>your words a bit. It *is* rather a matter of *opinion* whether 
>JKR's books are Inkling-level, is it not? It's a matter of 
>interpretation and subjective taste. Yes?  Disagreeing with 
>Granger's conclusions is obviously fine and a good many 
>people would. I don't agree with everything in his book myself. I 
>think some of it is a stretch. But, that doesn't mean he doesn't 
>have anything worthwhile to say. And, I just can't get my head 
>around the idea that one "predictive" theory being debunked as 
>factually problematic means that the whole of someone's work 
>must be attacked as suspect. But, maybe that's just me.

I always thought that everything we post here, has the automatic 
addition of IMO. I state my opinion, I give some objective 
evidence, but I always state my opinion.

I must say that at first I was intrigued, but after thinking through
it, I guess my problem *is* Granger's conclusion/ premise.

He puts Rowling's Harry Potter books from PS to GoF in the 
same league as Tolkien's Middle-earth stories and Lewis's 
general work in regards of Christianity and there is nothing in HP 
canon which justifies this. Yes, there is possible symbolism, but 
it just doesn't measure up.

In Lewis work - The Screwtape Letters, Til We Have Faces, The 
Narnia Chronicles, there is always God. There are always direct 
and indirect references, there is a description of Heaven, there is 
the affirmation that there is a Heaven, that there is God, that 
not believing is a prison in your mind - it's a gigantic theme, it is 
so gigantic that all of those books look like they have been solely 
written to promote Christianity, because it's that big of a theme, 
it's all over his work.

In Tolkien's work, everything is a little but more obscured, but 
there is Valinor and Tom Bombadil and "heavenly" interventions 
and I am not going there, because better people have written 
better things about that, but there is a God/creator in ME and 
there is Heaven and it's there *in the text.*

And then we have Rowling and there is no heavenly lion, no 
heaven, no belief, nothing but the choice between right and easy. 

So far Harry Potter has been devoid of anything remotely 
resembling God and therefore putting HP in the same league as 
Tolkien or Lewis is just... Either it's wishful thinking, speculative 
interpretation or a very "interesting" attempt to recruit Potter as 
Christian literature. 

IMO.

And I don't like it.


Kia