Lupin quotes was Re: Never again

[pippin_999]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "naamagatus" 
<naama_gat at h...> wrote:
> 
> Pippin (previously):
> Rowling has described Nabakov's Lolita as one of her favorite 
> books and  "a great and tragic love story", so she has no 
> problems with making an unsavory character  sympathetic.
> 
> Naama (previosly):
> Aren't you jumping here from favorite book to favorite 
character? 
> <snip>
> 
> Pippin:
> But I wonder if Nabakov felt that way? He had to spend an 
awful
> lot of time in Humbert's head.
> 
> Naama:
> Wait. You used Lolita to demonstrate something about JKR. 
How did we  end up talking about Nabokov? 

Pippin:
Sorry. I was thinking about the full quote. Here it is.


Speaking in a rare interview for a new Radio 4 series about 
famous people's favourite books, she confides: "There are two 
books whose final lines make me cry without fail, irrespective of 
how many times I read them, and one is Lolita. There is so 
much I could say about this book. 

"There just isn't enough time to discuss how a plot that could 
have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in 
Nabakov's hands, a great and tragic love story, and I could 
exhaust my reservoir of superlatives trying to describe the quality 
of the writing."

If JKR doesn't care about the characters, why would she 
consider their story a tragedy that moves her to tears? It seems 
to me one of the things she is admiring is the authorial 
tour-de-force of getting the reader to feel pity and sympathy for a 
person who has done repulsive things.

> Naama:
> 
> I'm not arguing at all against normal people being capable of 
evil -  in the real world or in the Potterverse. Nor am I arguing 
against a  Lupin-like person in the real world succumbing to evil. 
There are  plenty of examples. 
> 
> What I am saying is that JKR couldn't love (a word she uses) 
Lupin,  if, in her head, she knew he had betrayed his best friends 
and their baby son. She wouldn't include him in a list of favorite 
characters, or describe him as a wonderful teacher etc. <

Pippin:
I'm not comfortable assuming that. Dumbledore says that 
James would have saved Pettigrew. ESE!Lupin has many more 
redeeming qualities than Peter.   Whether JKR believes, as a 
Christian, that even a soul stained by murder and treachery is 
beloved by  God and could be redeemed if only its owner would 
seek salvation, I don't know, but it isn't out of the question, is it?

Pippin