unicorns and religious references in HP (was checking out the library book / Love -- massively OT, mostly)

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Penny & Bryce" <pennylin at s...> wrote:
> 
> And, lastly, to Kneasy: Apologies for mis-reading your post.  I still think that it's not 
clear that you were referring to Johnson's History of the English People when you told 
Pippin to "go read the book," but I'm perfectly willing to take your word for it and call it 
"my bad" since Pippin doesn't seem fussed about it.  
> 

Kneasy:
No problem.
Since (IIRC) no mention of a specific HP book had been made for a
significant number of posts in the thread, and since I'd been littering
the board with substantial quotes from and references to a quite
different work, and the discussion was centred on differing opinions
regarding the points raised in those quotes, I was somewhat surprised 
when your post mentioned HP.
 
> Incidentally, is this Paul Johnson the same author who wrote "The History of the 
American People"?  Also wondering why you're so sure that Pippin has never read it -- I 
can see from amazon that it's out of print, but if it's the same guy, his other works are 
readily available and fairly well-known over here.  Ah, yes, it is the same guy -- it appears 
from a quick skim of amazon reviews and other sources that the author is considered 
highly biased and selective.  So, why ought we to trust this as source for the assertion that 
the English have never been particularly religious as a people?  That's honestly counter to 
my own perception, though of course I know that modern Britain is more secular than not.  
>

Kneasy:
Ah, there was quite a few grumblings heard when the book was first 
published (1972) because although he'd read history at uni, his job
was as an editor of The New Statesman magazine. There were some
professional historians who didn't like him poaching on their private
preserves, though he had previously published a volume of historical
essays. Indeed, the preface begins "Why should a journalist, early in
the decade of the 1970s, sit down to write a history of the English
people?"
He then gives his rationale and draws parallels between the two 
professions.

Since then of course he has written many more history texts, including
the "American People" you allude to, histories of Christianity, the Holy 
Land, the Jews, Modern Times (1920s - 1990s) and Birth of the Modern
(1815 - 1830) - I'd recommend the last two particularly. 

As to partiality, I'm not certain where it lies or what form it takes, can't
say I've detected it myself. Maybe it's his religious views (he's very much
a practicing Catholic and has written a volume on his personal quest
for God) though in the History of the English he shows no partiality
no matter what intellectual and military atrocities the Brits visited on his
co-religionists. Might in fact be the other way round - there's an
appendix that discusses the historical relationship between Cromwell
and Ireland (plus much on the relationship between the countries in 
the main text) that some may be slightly surprised by. 

> If I've read the thread correctly, the original contention was Kneasy saying that Rowling's 
novels are entirely secular and Pippin has pointed up many examples of religious 
references that are, in the minds of many readers, replete throughout the novels.  I added 
in that there are a number of authors who've found strong Christian currents running 
through the books.  Somehow or another we got bogged down in whether nuns, 
cathedrals, souls, friars and the like could have other non-religious connotations and are 
merely "background color."  It again gets down to whether Rowling herself would agree 
that she used those references in an entirely off-hand secular way.  I personally don't 
think so, but I'm sure we can all concede that we don't know her intent in that matter and 
so it's possible.  There seem to be a number of questions in the same ilk being suggested 
for the Leaky/Mugglenet interview with Rowling next month.  Perhaps we'll learn more!  
> 

Kneasy:
It's a bit more convoluted than that, I think.
It started (so far as I'm concerned, others may view it differently) with
the 'power'. Lots think it's love (which I think is trite) and then sort of
slipped over into love as an aspect of religion and from there into (as
I saw it) a weakish argument. Power = love; love = religion; therefore
HP is a Christian book, so let's look for the symbols and anything 
vaguely connected with Christian mythology or history will do.
Highly simplified precis and many won't agree with it expressed this
way, but the thread can be traced, I think.

Me, I just dug my heels in.
It's not a convincing argument IMO, to be convincing it would need
to persuade an objective non-Christian, not just those that appear
to want it to be so, so I took up the cudgels. 
Bloody-minded as usual. 
But to be fair, I expressed *doubts* about religious content to counter  
what appeared to be expressions of the near/actual certainty of its precence
by others. So far as I'm concerned they *could* be right but they have
by no means proved their case with references to existing canon.