Theoretical boundaries / Dursleys' abuse

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 120689


Carol earlier:
> <snip>> 
> Quite possibly, unlike Melville, she isn't even aware of the 
> problem. I'd venture to say that most readers don't notice it, 
> either, except to be vaguely bothered by the change in "tone." How 
> much of it derives from Harry's state of mind in OoP, I can't say 
> without rereading the book and choosing some representative 
> passages. If the book as a whole is deliberately dark and the 
> darkness reflects Harry's POV, perhaps it isn't the flaw that it 
> seems to be.
> Maybe Books 6 and 7 will have the same "voice" and it will seem more
> appropriate as more people die. Or maybe it's a fluke, reflecting
> Harry's anger in OoP. Ask me what I think on this topic when HBP is
>  out. :-)
> >
> 
> Alla responded:
> 
> Here is my question. Am I understanding you correctly that you are 
> undecided yet whether the change in the narrative tone in OOP was 
> warranted or not?
> 
> Because I am of the opinion that she did it quite deliberately.
> 
> Do you think it hurts the quality of the book or not?

Carol replies:
To be frank, I'm not sure that JKR's sophistication as an author
equals her imaginative genius. My *feeling* (which I can't in any way
support with facts) is that her narrative voice "grew with the
telling" (to borrow Tolkien's description of his own book). IOW, it
developed in part through the conscious decision to use Harry as the
POV character for most of the books but also in part *unconsciously*
as she gained more of a grasp on her characters, especially Harry, and
as events grew darker. Also, I think she attempted to raise the
reading level a little with each book to match the age of the
characters. A fifth grader reading at grade level is going to find GoF
difficult and OoP perhaps impossible. But I'm not sure that the
decision to force the reader to see the action through Harry's eyes so
that his identity is almost merged with that of the third-person
narrator (who still is not Harry but has no objectivity, no
observations other than those colored by Harry's emotions and
preconceptions) was deliberate. She must know that the narrator's
voice in chapter 1 of GoF is different from that in the rest of the
book, but did she think that readers wouldn't notice? Or that it
didn't matter because she had to get that information in and there was
no other way?

I'm curious as to how she'll relay the events at Godric's Hollow.
Whose viewpoint could she possibly use except Voldemort's--or an
objective narrator different from the narrative voice that relates the
story from Harry's POV? And what about the chapter that focuses on
Draco? Will she find that the narrative voice used for OoP will no
longer work?

Again, to be honest, I think she considers plot developments (planting
her clues and red herrings) as of primary importance, showing growth
and development in her main characters (consistent with their ages and
experiences) second, the readers' supposed intellectual development
and sense of humor third--and not much else. Her awareness of style
and narrative technique seems, well, limited. Not to be overly
critical--I love the books. But genius rises above flaws in style and
narrative techinique, as "Moby Dick" supremely illustrates. (And
Melville could have used a modern editor, too, to fix those
paragraph-length sentences. He actually asked his editor to "sprinkle
in a lot of commas" because he didn't know where they went.)

So the short answer to your question is "I don't know" whether the
changes are deliberate (a factual question which only JKR can
truthfully or fully answer) or whether they're warranted (a matter of
opinion on which readers will always be free to disagree). I didn't
enjoy OoP nearly as much as GoF (except for the Snape scenes). I hope
JKR can distance *herself* from Harry in HBP so the narrator can see
him more clearly and objectively. But that probably won't happen.
We're too firmly entrenched in the unreliable third-person limited
point of view. The only hope, then, is that *Harry*, and hence the
narrator, will see more clearly with less subjectivity and emotional
distortion in the next two books. At least that's what I'm hoping to
see in HBP. 

Carol