Byatt and Rowling (was re: Occlumency and Spies)

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 130704

lupinlore wrote:
<snip>
> 
> In my opinion, she is on the firmest ground when she criticizes 
> concrete elements of Rowling's writing.  For instance, she is 
> correct that the whole explanation about Harry, the Dursleys, and 
> Dumbledore has been poorly done and extremely unconvincing.  She 
is 
> also definitely correct that Rowling is derivative, often 
> extraordinarily so.  Finally, I think she is right that Rowling 
> doesn't do a very good job of conveying sweeping issues of light 
and 
> darkness -- in large part because the chief villain is such a 
comic 
> book moustache-twister and his minions such clumsy bunglers.
> 
<snip>

I completely disagree with that. For one thing it's really funny 
that Byatt, whose own writing after all is an elaborate play with 
quotations and allusions (which is surely a kind of derivation) and 
whose creative method owes its existence to such authors as Eco for 
example accuse someone of being "derivative". Now, 
really. "Possession" and "Angels and Insects" is a derivation par 
excellence. Which is why they are so good and popular.

As for "sweeping issues of light and darkness" -- I am not sure by 
the way that Byatt cares much for them herself. She complains about 
the absence of mystery for the most part. About JKR's complete 
indifference to the supernatural. This much is true I suppose, but I 
for one don't regard it as a shortcoming. 

Byatt says that the HP books are written:
"for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and 
the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of 
soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip. Its values, and everything 
in it, are, as Gatsby said of his own world when the light had gone 
out of his dream, "only personal."
Now, I have never in my life seen any TV cartoons which is why I 
probably fail to see the connection, but it is astonishing why 
someone like Byatt would pointedly ignore the obvious allusions to 
Macbeth, The Tempest, Dr. Faustus to name only few of great classic 
titles. The Order of the Phoenix is not about any "personal values" 
it raises the disturbing questions about the nature of authority and 
power, about the ontology of Evil. You may not like the way JKR 
portrays Voldemort, but his two-dimensionness is deliberate, it is 
not a lack of skill on her part. LV is not a *person* any more. He 
ceased to be one when he chose to become Lord Voldemort. Not 
overnight of course but by the time we made his acquaintance he 
already had been "much more than a man". In this JKR's moral message 
is indeed influenced by Christian ethic. In his search for 
immortality LV rejects his own humanity and embraces non-being 
instead. This is what DD meant by his "There are things worse than 
death". Non-being is surely worse. This is why he stressed the 
importance of Harry's being human. 


a_svirn