Le Guin's Potter bashing

[mnaper2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 90638

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tim Regan" <tim_regan82 at h...>
wrote:

> > Another great author joins the ranks of those who don't get the fuss 
> > about HP. In The Guardian on Monday February 9 Ursula LeGuin wrote:

<snip>
 
> > Answer: I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics 
> > were carrying on about the "incredible originality" of the first 
> > Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, 
> > and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid's fantasy 
> > crossed with a "school novel", good fare for its age group, but 
> > stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically 
> > rather mean-spirited.
> 
> Let me start with LeGuin's 'ethically mean-spirited' comment, 'cause 
> it got me fired up: LeGuin represents a passivist New Age philosophy 
> that denies the existence of Voldemorts, of whom there are many in 
> the world.  Maybe LeGuin would like to try conflict resolution on LV, 
> or find out what Lucius's real needs are. Bah.  People in the 
> Potterverse do get comeuppance sometimes, something LeGuin probably 
> doesn't believe in. JKR hasn't got a problem with it, apparently, and 
> neither do I.  You don't see Harry, Ron, Heremione, or the twins 
> bullying, do you?

See - the ethically mean-spirited thing is the only portion of the 
commentary that I could see a point to.  I'm not familiar with 
LeGuin's writing, so I can't comment on what she means by ethically 
mean-spirited.  From what you've written, it doesn't sound like she 
and I would agree on too many things.

But when I read her comment, what came to my mind was the somewhat 
elitist house-division in the books.  I think there's an argument to 
be made (and I'm not yet sure where I fall on that argument) that the 
books are ethically mean spirited because of that.

Either you're a good and noble-hearted Griff or a nasty and 
untrustworthy Slytherin - now, granted JKR has not maintained this 
division rigidly - but she hasn't mixed it up very much either.  The 
idea that you're predetermined to be one thing or the other and that 
one is always ethically or morally superior to the other is not 
exactly what you'd call egalitarian.  I could see how the house 
separation could be read as something not unlike class or ethnic or 
racial divisions, with one group always being superior to another.  

As much as I love the books, this has always been sort of in the back 
of my mind.  I don't put too much stock in it, b/c I don't think JKR 
really intended to be elitist in her writing, and who knows how much 
the lines will be blurred by the end of the series?  And like I said, 
I don't know if that's what LeGuin meant, but I can see how some  
might find at least that aspect of the books problematic.

mnaper