[HPforGrownups] Re: Readers in the WW (was: JKR and "Think of the Children!")

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162083

Neri:
So Tom Sawyer is allowed to read fiction because his adventures take place 
in a RL setting, but Harry Potter is not allowed to read fiction because his 
adventures take place in the WW fantasy setting. It might confuse the 
reader. The sense of what is "real" and what is fictional in the WW might be 
lost. So Harry is only allowed to read fiction when he is in the RL setting, 
in the Dursleys house. But he is only present there for a short time each 
book, and besides, the fantasy setting creeps into the Dursleys' too: snakes 
talk, house elves and flying cars and dementors appear.

Magpie;
I disagree.  The point is that one of the many digs at Dudley is that 
although he's broken everything else in his room, the books are untouched, 
yet Harry himself doesn't touch books much either, except for one that is 
about what he does like, Quidditch.  Harry lives his first 11 years in the 
Muggle years and does not turn to literature as an escape as another 
character in that situation very well might have done.  There would be 
nothing unusual in starting off Harry's story by making him a reader before 
he finds out he's a wizard.  We do hear that he likes to watch television, 
something Dudley also enjoys.

I would also suggest that loving books is the character point. I just read a 
book where the hero goes on a tangent about how the library smells and how 
books smell--he admits he mostly likes Civil War books because of the gory 
pictures, but there's no doubt the author is describing a book lover--going 
out of his way to do so.  It seems a bit of a cheat to suggest that if 
reading is important to the plot it's not really a character trait--I'd say 
Tolkien makes it very clear that both Bilbo and Frodo are book lovers, and 
the fact that they read myths based on legend doesn't change that, 
especially since they seem to relate to the stories the same way we relate 
to fiction.

(And while another poster covered many of the characters mentioned 
originally, I seem to remember one of the problems with Eustace Scrubb's 
upbringing was the lack of the kind of books the Penvensies liked, but maybe 
I'm misremembering.)

So to me the important point isn't that one doesn't much read about fantasy 
adventures when one is in one--that's true.  But establishing one's 
character as a book-lover is something else.  Harry doesn't happen to be 
that.

Lynda:

Now that's an interesting assertion. We know from later in the book (SS that 
is) that Harry at least reads enough to have looked over his schoolbooks.
The text when he's in his first potion's class tells us that. And since the 
narrator doesn't give us blow by blow of Harry's every activity I cannot say
"Harry doesn't read". I can say, "The text doesn't state that Harry reads," 
and apparently he doesn't come from a household that models reading as a
leisure activity. He doesn't belong to the library, but usually, children in 
primary grades are taken to the library by their parents and apparently, 
this isn't someplace Harry was taken by the Dursleys. So perhaps Harry's 
lack of reading is more of the neglect from the Dursleys than anything else.

Magpie:
I think Harry is cheerfully and unashamedly presented as a boy not much 
interested in reading--never was, never will be, and we've got a very 
detailed picture of his activities.  He's not illiterate and has gotten 
interested in certain books in his life--he looked over books of spells for 
his new school, reads a Quidditch book and likes looking at the Prince's 
notes.  This doesn't seem connected to the Dursleys. (Harry doesn't follow 
their lead in anything else, so their not reading wouldn't be a deterrant.) 
It would have been simple to say Harry liked to read (unlike Dudley) or 
liked school.  JKR made him a slightly different boy. He's not a booklover, 
didn't like school etc.

-m