Literary value and fan interaction - please help with my research!

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162714

klotjohan wrote:
><snip> 
> I'm working on a college paper (about 25 pages) in literature about
the Harry Potter books. The purpose is to establish if and how these
books can be evaluated on a literary basis and, more importantly, if
and how these values are affected by the communities surrounding J.K.
Rowling and the Harry Potter series. What I'm after especially is the
interaction between reader and writer, to see if the feedback from
fans and critics has had any influence on Rowling's work. <snip>
 
> 1. What do you think of the Harry Potter books and why? (I realise
> nearly all of the members are likely great fans, but I'm aiming for
> objectivity here. Don't hesitate to offer literary criticism if you
have any.)

Carol responds:

Help. Even though I'm a copyeditor who critiques manuscripts to make
them more saleable as part of her job, and even though I have a PhD in
literature and am, erm, somewhat addicted to literary criticism, I
prefer *analyzing* a work of literature to *evaluating* it. In terms
of the semiobjective criteria I use in editing, the books are
wonderful. True, there are a few grammatical errors and typos, some
sentences that strike me as awkward, a number of inconsistencies, not
all of which have been corrected (is anyone ever going to tell JKR
that the wand echoes still come out in the wrong order in Harry's
retelling of the graveyard incident?), but compared with the
manuscripts by wannabe authors that I edit every day, JKR's work is,
well, literature. That is, despite the inconsistencies and some
stylistic blunders that jar me when I read them (too much exposure to
Jane Austen's dangling modifiers?), I find the books enjoyable for
their intriguing characters, their humor, and for the emotions they
arouse even on a rereading. I like the questions that remain
unanswered and keep us reading on tenterhooks for the last book, but
that alone is not a criterion for a work of lasting literary value.
What if I don't like the answers provided by the last book? Will I
still want to reread them? Will others? If we're considering the book
as children's literature, will child readers want to reread the whole
series? At this point, it's too early to say. Will the books appeal to
new readers twenty or a hundred years from now? I have no clue. But if
saleability, readability, and enjoyment for readers of all ages are
the criteria we're suing for literature, children's books or
otherwise, then the HP books are literature. Are they good literature?
I suppose that depends on your criteria. I'm not about to pass moral
judgment on the books or the author and only to some extent on the
characters. All that matters is consistency iwithin JKR's moral universe.

My final judgment in that regard will depend on Book 7: If, after
using Barty Crouch Sr. to show what happens when the "good guys" fight
Dark wizards with the Dark side's own weapons, JKR has Harry cast a
successful Crucio or use Avada Kedavra to kill Voldemort, I will
consider the book a moral failure by the standards the author herself
has established. If the moral standards epitomized by
Dumbledore--Love, trust, second chances, mercy, etc.--prove to be
mistaken, if Harry doesn't come to accept Dumbledore's judgment of
snape or does not use Love to defeat Voldemort, I'll again consider
the book to be a failure in terms of its own moral universe. By the
same token, I anticipate some resolution to the problems of inequality
among the magical creatures in the WW. My own feelings have no bearing
on the matter. She's raised the issue; she needs to resolve it, or at
least acknowledge in the Epilogue that it remains unresolve (a bit of
a cop-out). My own feelings (and my politics and educational
philosophy are very different from JKR's) have no bearing on the matter. 

klotjohan wrote: 
> 2. How would you say the series compare to similar books in the
genre (e.g. works by J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Natalie Babbitt,
Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl etc.) on a literary level?

Carol:
As I said, I don't like evaluating literary works. I like to analyze
them. I don't place Tolkien's varied works in the same genre as the HP
books, in any case. LOTR is fantasy/heroic quest on a grand scale;
"The Hobbit" the same genres intended for a younger audience and with
simplified themes--until we get to the Arkenstone and the Battle of
Five Armies, where we see more complex themes emerging and Tolkien
struggling and failing to bring the work back down to what he sees as
a child's perspective. C.S. Lewis has, perhaps, a clearer grasp of his
intended audience and purpose, but I never liked the Narnia books--too
derivative, too overtly moralistic and allegorical. The small taste
I've had of Roald Dahl left me with no interest in his works at all;
no realism, no real moral quandaries, excessive violence and abuse of
children by caricatures of adults. Perhaps I'm judging unfairly
because I stopped reading too soon, but I didn't like what I read.
(The other authors I haven't read and have no opinion about.)

The HP books are in some respects almost sui generis because they
combine so many genres: fantasy/heroic quest with detective story and
Bildungsroman/boarding school tale. The "secondary world," to borrow
Tolkien's term, is set within the primary world, invisible to ordinary
people, as in, say, "The Borrowers" and the Narnia books, not a long
ago, mythical world that is and isn't our own like Tolkien's Middle
Earth. Comparing Tolkien and Rowling is like comparing Dostoevsky and
Louisa May Alcott. I don't think it can be done, at least not with any
degree of fairness to Alcott.

klotjohan:
> 3. Do you have any experience, personal or otherwise, of interaction
> with J.K. Rowling? If so, what was the nature of the interaction?

Carol:
No. 

klotjohan:
> 4. Have you had any indications that Rowling changed something in
her books because of outside influence? If so, what kind of influence
and by whom?

Carol:

I'm not sure. I think she may have responded to complaints that Frank
Longbottom was an Auror and Alice wasn't in GoF by making Alice an
Auror in OoP. Otherwise, I see no way to account for the
inconsistency. It's possible that Dumbledore's scolding of the
Dursleys for mistreating Harry in HBP is the same sort of thing. I'd
have been more comfortable if that scene had been omitted, but maybe
it was planned all along. I can't think of any other examples. I'm
sure that she planned the female baddies Bellatrix and Umbridge all along.
>
klotjohan wrote: 
<snip> Most of you have probably encountered some form of criticism
against Rowling and/or her books, more or less constructive and
sensible. I've recently read parts of a book by Jack Zipes (Sticks and
Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly
Peter to Harry Potter) where he argues that children's literature
represents one of the most significant sources of commercial
homogenization. <snip>

Carol:
Define, please? Can you quote him to save me the trouble of looking at
Zipes to figure out what he means by this postmodern-sounding term?

klotjohan:
what interests me is his labeling of the Harry Potter series as
sexist, conventional, and too mainstream. However, he bases his
arguments on the first four books <snip> and points to the similarity
of the plot points in the different stories, as well as the lack of
real female heroes or villains. Hermione is categorized as more of a
helper,which is fair, but the appearance of Bellatrix Lestrange in
OotP renders this argument invalid.

Carol:
any judgment of a seven-book series based on its first four books is,
if not invalid, at least premature. And Bellatrix appears in GoF as
the spokeswoman for the four DES arrested for Crucioing the
Longbottoms, clearly foreshadowing her larger role in later books.
Umbridge, as I said, appears in OoP as the main villain of that book
(with Voldie in the background plotting the theft of a Prophecy and
Crucioing his own DEs). Harry's HoH, and one of the sterner figures in
the books, is female; she's also the assistant headmistress. JKR has
taken care to have equal numbers of male and female students and
teachers (not to mention a scattering of nonwhite students treated as
absolute equals of all the other students). What is Zipes complaining
about? The only real inequality in the books, despite all the fuss
about purebloods and "Mudbloods," is between Wizards and Muggles, a
situation peculiar to the WW that can't really mirror the RW except as
the mind of the reader chooses to see applicability. But JKR has to
create her own world, and sexual equality is not a prerequisite for
imaginary worlds, especially those that are as medieval in some
respects as the WW. I personally deplore film adaptations of, say,
"Little Women" or "Huckleberry Finn" or the 1990s(?) TV series "Dr.
Quinn, Medicinewoman," which make the characters' attitudes more
politically correct than they were in the books or would have been at
that time period in RL. If the standard of literary value is sexual
equality or any other form of political correctness, we'd better burn
all the classics, including Jane Austen's works.

klotjohan:
> The stories diverge more from the formula in the latest two books as
well, interestingly enough; 

Carol:
Which formula? Please clarify.

klotjohan:
> especially important is the death of major characters at the end(s).

Carol:
Possibly Cedric isn't a major character, but his death certainly
foreshadows others to come, as both Firenze ("Always the innocent die
first") and Draco point out. (Though I could be wrong about the
specific Centaur and specific book.)

klotjohan:
 So, what I'd like to hear is what you think of Zipes assessments and
also whether you think Rowling's less conventional stories (i.e. in
OotP and HBP) is an improvement or not. <snip>

Carol:
Since I don't judge by Zipes's standards, I can't comment on this
point. The last two books are more complex and OoP is perhaps flawed
by trying to cram in too many plots and themes, but unless we examine
characterization and plot structure and foreshadowing and narrative
technique and other aspects of literature, as opposed to books as
indoctrination or reflections of a culture, I really have nothing more
to say regarding their respective "value."

Carol, who thinks that any form of literary criticism that imposes its
own standards on what a book "should" be misses the point of analyzing
the work in the first place