Readers in the WW (was: JKR and "Think of the Children!")

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 162057

> Carol responds:
> I seem to recall David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, and the four heroines
> of "Little Women" all taking great pleasure in reading and/or being
> read to. (Jo March also wrote rather trashy, melodramatic novels,
> comparable to some of the fanfic we see these days.) Maybe the
> behavior of child heroes and heroines has changed since the 
invention
> of television and movies, and especially of computers and video 
games,
> but being in a novel certainly didn't excuse nineteenth-century 
hereos
> and heroines from reading them.

zgirnius:
Holden Caulfield's favorite book was "The Great Gatsby", to move into 
the 20th century. And I am always reading about whatever it is 
Spenser is currently reading, in Robert Parker's mystery series.

Carol: 
> Maybe the Muggle
> world is their fantasy world, but they know too little about it to
> make it worthy of anything more complex than a comic book. (Muggle
> studies consists of electrical diagrams and the physics of lifting
> heavy objects without a wand. What a tragic misunderstanding that
> creates!) Possibly the Quibbler could count as fiction (though it's
> not intended to be), and on another level, so could the adventures 
of
> Gilderoy Lockhart. But novels per se don't seem to be available
> outside the Muggle world.

zgirnius:
I can't recall the mention of a single wizarding novel. But there 
is "Helas, je me suis Transfigure mes Pieds", a play by the French 
wizard Malecrit quoted in Quidditch through the Ages. There is also a 
poem by the fifteenth century Norwegian wizarding poet Ingolfr the 
Iambic about Quidditch. And of course, there is Snape's riddle poem. 
Of course, Harry probably did not read the first two examples of 
wizarding literature, but at least some exists.

zgirnius, who wonders whether Malecrit's play was a farce? A tragedy?