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

[thinmanjones1983]

No: HPFGUIDX 162759

>
> Betsy Hp:
> Hemmingway?  I think he's an author who made much of sparsity, IIRC.
> Mary Renault also springs to mind.  I do agree that JKR is a good
> story-teller (for the most part, see below), and I think she's a
> master of puns.  But I've never felt moved by a sentence of hers, by
> a simple, spare, perfect bit of writing that shows the power of the
> English language.  But keep in mind, I'm comparing her to an awfully
> grand pantheon.  It's not really fair treatment of a writer on her
> very first set of books.  I'll also add that it's very rare I hit
> upon a writer that I think meets that sort of standard, even while
> I'm completely enjoying the story being told.
>

klotjohan:
I feel the same way, I very rarely reflect over the actual words used,
the layering or the structure. Mostly I just engulf the text to get
further into the story.

> > >>klotjohan:
> > I'd say mainstream means, at least in the context of Zipes'
> > book, a conventional and somewhat broad piece of pop culture
> > that panders to a large crowd. There's also an implicit
> > association made I feel between mainstream and commercialism,
> > and further down the road between the popular and the
> > "lowbrow". <snip>
>
> Betsy Hp:
> Well, I do know for a fact that JKR had a very hard time finding
> a publisher for SS because it was set in a boarding school (a
> major "no-no" at the time <g>).  So she certainly didn't start
> out by pandering.
> <snip>
>
> So the question is, why did these books become so popular?  They
> weren't created to be, obviously.  <snip>

klotjohan:
You touch upon something vital here, namely that the first book
was far from a commercially produced commodity. In that aspect
it's hazardous to label HP as mainstream, so I guess it's more
a question of popularity and that its broad appeal make it
"low-brow".


> > >>klotjohan:
> > <snip> Would you care to elaborate on why you dislike her
> > views of women? I'm very curious about this.
>
> Betsy Hp:
> Eek!  I just got *out* of a thread on this very topic. <g>
> Here's a link to an earlier discussion.  Hopefully it'll give
> you enough to work with.
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/160350
>

Fair enough, I won't drag you into something like that again ;)
Thanks for the link.

> > >>klotjohan:
> > <snip> Am I wrong in guessing that you're more inclined towards
> > the innocence and purer sense of magic in the first books? Very
> > understandable, if that's the case.
>
> Betsy Hp:
> I'm 34.  And it's not the innocence of the first books, it's the
> clarity.  Because while JKR may have attempted to make her later
> books more adult and complex, I don't think she's done a great
> job on that front.  Remember the discussion about language at the
> beginning of this post and the suggestion that JKR's strength lay
> in her simplicity?  I think her story-telling skills lie in the
> same thing. And as she's gotten more complicated I think the story
> has become more needlessly padded and repetitive.
> <snip>


klotjohan:
I understand your sentiments, it's been a couple of years since
I read the first three, so I'm more into the newest ones. It's
only natural that complexity doesn't necessarily lead to increased
quality or "value".


/Klotjohan