[HPforGrownups] Re: Mental Discipline in the WW: A Comparison (long) (was:Snape the Zen Master...)

[Wilson, Bruce]

No: HPFGUIDX 130365

>> Betsy Hp, who googled A.S. Byatt and isn't quite sure how she 
>> applies

Nora wrote:
> Google a little harder.  She wrote a rather snide essay about the 
> whole phenomenon, and what she really doesn't like is the lack of the 
> numinous in HP.  The magic is 'ersatz', for her.


[Wilson, Bruce]:
I found the essay.  Although she has some points, she lost me when she said that the Wood is 'dangerous only because [Rowling] says it is.'  The books clearly show the dangers of the Wood and the creatures that live there.   I wouldn't want Byatt or anyone else to say that she likes the books when she does not, but her essay misses the point.  Rowling is not trying to write the same sort of fantasy that LeGuin was; comparing the two is 'apples and oranges.'
 
BAW