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

[thinmanjones1983]

No: HPFGUIDX 162757

Greetings Carol, nice to see a pro joining in :)

Carol:
<snipping>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.

klotjohan:
You bring up many important aspects here. My evaluation of the books are more of an experiment than anything else, but I'm using it as means finding new approaches both to the literature at hand and the theories I find applicable.  The consistency is, as you say, the deciding factor when it comes to any lasting qualities in this case.

Carol:
> 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:
That's very insightful of you, and I fully concur. Still, that last
sentence has piqued my interest. Is the discrepancy between your
philosophies not a drawback to your enjoyment of the books? I'm just
curious, and I can understand if it isn't.

Carol:
> 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:
You're probably right about HP being one of a kind. Good analogy there
about the comparison of Rowling and Tolkien.


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:
Thanks, I'll look into this.

> 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:
I'm guessing you're wondering about his use of the term homogenization.  Though it's difficult to find a suitable quote, here's an example: "Perhaps you will now expect me to lament that we have failed our children and to begin developing a moral critique of American society à la William Bennett calling for the return to the virtues of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the basic values of the family. But I do not want to preach about absolute or essential American values that we have lost and that may never have really existed in the first place. Nor do I want to pretend that there is an answer to the  present predicament of cultural homogenization. What I should like to explore with you is how certain cultural practices play a role in homogenizing American children and send contradictory messages that are bound to undermine their capacity to develop a sense of morality and ethics and to recognize that their autonomy will be governed by prescribed market interests of corporations that have destroyed communities and the self-determination of communities."
Zipes argues that commercial media and consumer culture are conforming
children and that this seriously affects their freedom of choice. He
claims that this is the case with some of the literature aimed at
children as well. I hope this answers your question, although the
subject matter is complicated and I haven't quite gotten my head around it yet.


> Carol:
> <snipped character examples from GOF and OOTP> 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:
Well I very much agree with you on this. I'm guessing Zipes either
ignored those parts of GoF, or simply didn't understand their significance. His arguments about the sexism is admittedly weak,
especially considering the series has yet to be completed. Besides,
political correctness and homogenization could easily be conceived as
going hand in hand with eachother. It may be a case of simply flinging
some dirt in Rowling's direction to go with the other criticisms.

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

> Carol:
> Which formula? Please clarify.

klotjohan:
To paraphrase Zipes:
Part 1. Prison, where Harry the chosen one is held by materialist
Muggles (the Dursleys).
Part 2. The Noble Calling, where Harry is summoned to Hogwarts and must break out of his "prison".
Part 3. The Heroic Adventures, where Harry travels to Hogwarts and is
tested in various ways, fights against Voldemort and other sinister
elements, with the help of his sidekick Ron and cheered on by Hermione
and Ginny. "Whatever happens - and the plots always involve a great deal of manly competition and some kind of mystery - you can be sure that Harry wins."
Part 4. The Reluctant Return Home, where Harry must return victorious,
exhausted but enlightened, to the Dursleys.


> 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:
Yes, I adressed this in my first answer to zgirnius. I think this should classify as a substantial enough digression from the formula, but of course it's possible to argue against this.


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."

klotjohan:
Well put, those kind of assessments could easily drift to far into the
area of the subjective. I appreciate your analytical viewpoint though.

> 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

Klotjohan, who thinks that's a valid criticism of most criticism ;)