Should JKR shut up? (was Re: I am so happy...

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 178583

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lee Kaiwen <leekaiwen at ...> wrote:
Someone recently posted here a 
> portion of a quote from Douglas Adams which JKR really does need to 
> read, involving him refusing to answer a reader's question about 
> Arthur Dent's computer. A fuller rendition can be found at 
> http://religion.beloblog.com/archives/2007/10/dumbledore_is_gay.html
> 
> "The book is a work of fiction. It's a sequence of words arranged to 
> unfold a story in a reader's mind. There is no such actual, real 
> person as Arthur Dent. He has no existence outside the sequence of 
> words designed to create an idea of this imaginary person in 
> people's minds.  There is no objective real world I am describing, 
> or which I can enter, and pick up his computer, look at it and tell 
> you what model it is, or turn it over and read off its serial number 
> for you. It doesn't exist....  It's not that I chose not to reveal 
> it - it actually, really and truly doesn't exist. ...  'What kind of 
> Apple Mac did Arthur Dent have?' is a completely unanswerable 
> question. ... It can't be done. He doesn't exist."

Mus is grateful: 

Thank you for (re)posting that.  It stands in some contrast to the
words of JKR last week in Toronto, reported in #178482:

' "He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say
what I say about him," she said.'

No, Ms Rowling - you had seven books to say what you wanted to say. 
You can *think* whatever you like, and you can share what you think, ,
but you simply can't attempt to manage your story when it's already
been published by telling us "he is what he is".  He's not your
character any more.

There's actually nothing to stop her from telling us that Voldemort
was really innocent, the patsy for an even nastier Evil Overlord who
is an undetectable presence in the book, but really at the root of all
the shenanigans.  <eg>

Nothing, that is, apart from the recognition of the relationship
between the author, the reader and the text.  She does recognise that,
doesn't she?

Mus, who has hir doubts.