Which way?

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 101860

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dan" <darkthirty at s...> wrote:
> 
> But really, it's not a "genre" at all. It's a rather finely wrought 
> method for Rowling to inscribe her social critique in the widest 
> possible arc, and directed toward those who will appreciate it most, 
> whether they are young or old. I read Dickens when I was in senior 
> public school (ages 10 - 12 or so), a time when we, as human beings, 
> start developing real self-consciousness. The Potter books really re-
> enact that process. The trappings of a magical world, the chrome, as 
> it were, provide just enough distance from the quotidian for the 
> critique to be effective. What is strange, though, is how some of 
> that critique doesn't make it through, as if readers were able to 
> pick and choose how thorough a critique they read. 


Kneasy:
There's not much doubt, in my mind at least, that HP is stuffed with 
allegory and allusions to social attitudes and mores leak from every
volume. 

I, too, like most of my generation read Dickens when young, 
Unfortunately that no longer seems to be common practice, or at
least  not in this area. An aquaintance - a bookseller specialising in
childrens books, supplying schools as well as the public - told me that
Dickens is considered "too complex" and not really suitable for teens.
Did you ever hear anything so daft? But it was this intelligence that 
prompted me to use the Dickens classics as examples.

And if this is  true then hopefully JKR and writers like her will be able
to circumvent the idiocy of "experts" by appealing to the younger
reader directly.

Mind you, we are making assumptions. We haven't yet seen the
finished product, though most of us have little doubt that these threads
will continue and may even be re-inforced.

> Dan: 
> As the series draws closed, maybe these questions won't all be 
> solved. Rowling's project doesn't seem focused on solving - the 
> witchwizard/muggle world balance, the ethical implications of memory 
> erasure, for instance - the state of the house elves - the house 
> system of Hogwarts etc. etc. But even if it does, there are those for 
> whom these questions have little to do with their own reading. That 
> is what I don't understand. For me, the 1700 pages so far (or more, I 
> forget) don't stand as foreplay to some vast orgasmic conclusion, but 
> are, from start to finish, a creative act, a finely balanced, even 
> enchanting (in offering ways out when there seem to be none) method 
> for maintained social critique.
> 

Kneasy:
It's a commonplace that what you get out of a book depends to a great
extent on what you bring to it. Different readers will approach books in 
different ways, responding to themes and nuances in a different manner.
That is one of the joys of a well-crafted book; that we each take want we
want and gloss over the rest. It's the old "You  can take a horse to water"
conflict. Folk tend to get disgruntled when they suspect that conclusions 
or interpretations they don't really hold look as if they are being imposed
on them.

As to the climax - it could be anything, frankly. Or almost.
There is no ineluctable path to a conclusion. Suits me fine.
But I do  have hopes.