Theoretical boundaries

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 120353


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> 
><SNIP>

> Carol responds:
> While I absolutely agree that all posters should read the fantastic
> Posts and Recommended Posts and that knee-jerk, emotion-based
> responses to the books and characters are out of place here, I
> certainly hope that the discussion won't end when Book 7 is 
published.

<SNIP>

Hmmm.  Well, that depends, now doesn't it?  What is the purpose of 
fiction after all?

I agree that it can be an intellectual puzzle.  But is that the heart 
of fiction?  Speculating about narrative technique and the uses of 
plot and character and all that can be interesting, but is that the 
main way one should approach a story?

In that fiction tells us something about the human condition, an 
emotional response is, perhaps, the most appropriate response.  Human 
beings are deeply emotional creatures, and it is on the level of 
emotion that most people interact with, and respond to, a story.  
Therefore, to be genuine about your reaction, you must be emotional.

I certainly disagree that emotional responses to plot and character 
are out of place here.  This is not an academic discussion of the 
mechanics of JKR's writing, nor is it an exercise in applying one 
literary theory or another, or in arguing which literary theory is 
most appropriate for analysis of canon, or in constructing formal 
arguments according to any particular rules of evidence or procedure.
It is a forum for discussing how this piece of fiction affects our 
human lives.  Now, if you happen to find all those things (theory and 
mechanics and formal rules of evidence) to be powerful and 
meaningful, then employ them by all means.  However many of us aren't 
particularly impressed with such approaches, as we find interacting 
with this story to be primarily a human response to human characters -
- i.e. an emotional and even, to use an admittedly vague and 
sometimes maligned word -- a spiritual experience.  Our responses 
will be emotion based, and we aren't very interested in "criticism" 
as such.  If you are, more power to you!  But don't make the mistake 
of thinking that is the only appropriate way of approaching HP, in 
this forum or anywhere else, or that the tools and methods and 
language of the literary critic will impress everyone, or make any 
dent in the way we approach the sotry.  So we *will* continue to 
excoriate the Dursleys, and to argue about why Dumbledore allows 
Snape to be abusive, and to decry any pernicious/morally outrageous 
themes we see.  You are more than welcome to participate in the 
threads or sail right past them, just as we will likely sail past 
threads trying to view the Dursleys as a plot element, or arguing 
about Snape's place in the narrative arc, or relating the 
moral/ethical structure of Hogwarts to the practices of the Edwardian 
public school.

Lupinlore