some replies which are direct but off topic

[sartoris22]

No: HPFGUIDX 186198

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
>

Carol:

JKR has, I think, deliberately avoided creating a similar impression. The voice telling the story is someone other than JKR who knows only what Harry knows, while JKR herself through that persona is deliberately withholding information and occasionally misleading us. But who is that persona? Could we guess from the opening words of SS/PS, or from any other clues, that the author, identified not as Joane Rowling but as J.K. Rowling, is a woman?

Comments, anyone? Does JKR's narrator sound male or female or neither?

Sartoris22:

I've read crticism about Rowling having a male protagonist and indulging in the whole English public school thing, but I've never considered the narrator's gender. Does the narrator have a female "voice" or personna? When I think of male writers, few, such as Henry James and perhaps a few others, create "realistic" or complex female character. Although the Potter books are fairly male- dominated, the female characters are sensitively and thoughtfully portrayed--and they are very different, very round. Moroever, and I'm not being sexist here, the narrator seems particuarly aware and understanding of people's feelings, their emotional motivations. The depth and importance of human relationship, not magic or even the struggle between good and evil, is, to me, the touchstone of the books. The narrator's sensitivity to and understanding of relationships conjure, in my mind, a woman's voice and sensibilities.