Why Do You Read the HP Books?

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 142762

Wow, what an interesting thread!
> 
> I would like to start by stating that I am not a literary expert.  
> Other than the required high school classes and required college 
> courses in composition and literature while obtaining my engineering 
> degree, I have no formal training to be classified as a literary 
> expert.  

I'm not exactly a literary expert, but I was working in the story
development department of a film studio when "Sorcerer's Stone" was
plunked down in front of us and we were ordered to figure out what the
heck exactly was the mysterious power this book had over audiences. 

>I have read that some feel that the plot 
> follows the standard fantasy / hero's quest storyline too closely and 
> that she should be more original. 
 

They're not crazy-- I read through the first book thinking, well, duh,
wish fullfillment and by-the-book classical structure.  I don't
remember thinking it was amazing, but I was impressed by the author's
utter fearlessness in the face of cliche.  Avoiding cliche trips a lot
of people up because they start second-guessing their instincts, but
this book just blew right past such timidity.  If the kid was going to
be an orphan with mean step-parents, by god it was going to be the
orphaniest orphan and the meanest stepparents she could make 'em. 
When I got to end and Snape wasn't the bad guy, I though, cool, adding
a little spice of complexity, a little layering of something like
depth to the mix.. she wasn't going to gratify every reader impluse,
she was ready to trip people up.  The second book left me, I suppose,
with the same sort of feeling, that there was liveliness, boldness,
and ambiguity there, but although I admired the books the prose left
me too cold to really love them.

Of course then PoA came out and I thought, prose, what prose?  Who
cares about prose!?  Give me more of this crack cocaine! ;)

I think Steve/bboy hit it on the head with this:

>Here is a very odd and very personal test of how good I think a Harry
>Potter book is. If my mind wanders while I am reading, then it is a
>good book. I know that seems odd, but it is specifically what my mind
>is wandering to that is important. If my mind wanders to other
>interesting Potter storylines and various chapters of my own fan
>fictions, then that's an indication that the book is very stimulating
>and inspiring to me.

To me the strongest thing about JKR's writing as STYLE, as opposed to
the content which I'll cover in a moment, is that she's an open-loop
writer-- she wants the reader to meet her half-way, so she'll sort of
go half-way out and then wait for you to cross over the rest yourself.
 Does that make any sense?  This goes for descriptions of things-- you
have to do most of the picture-painting yourself-- but it also goes
for plot points, such as the vast off-stage drama of the Crouch
family; and for details implied as opposed to stated, such as
Neville's toad being an unfashionable pet given by an out-of-touch
older relative.  She does this a lot too by rooting so many of the
conflicts in the imperfectly understood past.  By making you
participate in the reading, she sort of addicts you to the world.  

Most critically, she does this with the moral universe-- some loops
will never be closed, such as 'are the twins bullies?', or 'is Snape a
good teacher?', or 'how do you deal with someone like Umbrige?'. 
These issues are as unresolvable in the books as they would be in real
life, and we can argue about them till kingdom come.  I never get the
sense that there is a 'correct' reading that the author is shepherding
us to, like, well, pretty much every other writer out there
(*cough*Pullman*cough*).  To me this is the most original and exciting
aspect of the books, because you can't squeeze them dry.

In terms of content, the particular genius of HP is the balance of
wish-fullfillment and mundanity, and also of metaphoric fantasy and
the humanity of the characters acting out their parts in the
psychodrama.  You can have a flying hippogryph, but you have to feed
it bags of dead rats. Ron is the ideal sidekick, but he breaks out of
his prescribed role with his jealousy and struggle with his own
inadequacies.  Anybody could recognize Snape as an archetypical
Shadow, but he's so convincingly drawn that different readers can make
the same guess at his favorite band (Pink Floyd ;-) ).   And the great
thing is, she doesn't compromise either end.  Hollywood ditches
anything that would complicate the fantasy, but I think the tendency
of 'literary' writers is to short-change the wish-fullfillment and the
classical structure, which IMO misses the point of stories altogether.

That's what I think anyhow!

-- Sydney, whose favorite HP moment is the mix of cringing and
nostalgia at Hermionie's Righteous House-Elf campaign.  You get the
fantasy: elves to do all your housework! the complication:  but
they're slaves! the humanity (oh the humanity..) that was SO ME in
high school! and the ambiguity:  is she right?  was I right?  What IS
right, anyways?