Snape didn't kill DD with AK!! And here's the evidence

[lolita_ns]

No: HPFGUIDX 138777


> Julie says:
> Ah, but JKR has said before that she wants to turn the genre on
> its head (something like that). She's deliberately twisting the 
genre
> a bit, which to me can be a way of improving something that's
> gone a bit stale rather than a betrayal of expectations. 
>  
> I guess it all depends on your POV ;-)

No, it doesn't depend on POV. JKR is not a revolutionary writer, her 
approach is rather conventional (she is a great plotter, but a poor 
stylist) - third person selective omniscience with occasional 
excursions to neutral omniscience is nothing new, far from it 
actually. As for the betrayal of the genre's expectations - it 
doesn't have to mean that, if genre is betrayed, the book is 
worthless. If you have dealt with literature and literary theory on a 
more serious basis, you would understand that I am not speaking in 
derogatory terms. Let me explain the whole genre thing on a couple of 
examples from trivial literature (which is usually discussed among 
theorists when genre analysis is concern, for it is rather 
straightforward). When reading a James Bond novel, do you expect Bond 
to have great gadgets, sexbombs falling into his arms and his 
triumphing over bad guys with a smirk? Of course you do. How would 
you feel if Bond decided to go celibate or didn't have the latest 
model of a car or whatever? That is the betrayal of the genre. Or, in 
detective novel, the mystery always has to be solved. You can have it 
revealed only after the villain has ecsaped or died or whatever, but 
the puzzle must always be solved. Otherwise, the genre is betrayed. 
You can try some genre experimenting, but it usually renders poor 
results when not properly handled. For instance, X Files was highly 
successful because the characteres were, in a way, two-dimensional. 
You didn't know anything about Mulder's or Scully's private lives 
apart from what was obviously necessary for the story. The moment the 
characters started to develop, the series' quality started to 
dissipate. You just don't want to see Scully as a wife and a mother - 
and when you eventually did, the series went stale and eventually 
stopped. Nabokov was a genre experimentator, he turned genre on its 
head. A more recent example is that of Julian Barnes (Flaubert's 
Parrot, anyone?). THAT is the improvement of the genre. JKR is a 
highly conventional wrietr when genre and style are concerned.

>  
> Julie:
> There are a lot of ways to define a great writer.  JKR may not have
> the greatest prose, but she's captivated an  audience of a size and
> to a degree rarely known with the story of Harry Potter. And the 
> complexity of her plotting is pretty exceptional. Her imagination 
> also matches those of the best. All in all, I think her legacy will 
> speak very well for her indeed.
>

I agree that she is and will be widely read. That does not make her a 
great writer. That makes her a popular writer. A couple of decades at 
least will have to pass until we can look at HP in any historical 
context. The books will undoubtedly remain highly popular. But then, 
so are Conan Doyle's. And his plotting was exceptional. I don't hear 
many people calling him a great writer nowadays. Litearray theory is 
not a relative thing. Popularity, OTOH, is.  

Lolita.