Some questions

[Talisman]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
Kneasy:
>...whenever there's a set-piece confrontation,
>authorial partiality, protectionism, the requirements of plot
continuation
>always seem to over-ride everyday expectations.

Talisman:
The observation that plot drives all else in the HP series has been
historically cited as an authorial flaw. In actuality, hegemony of
plot is a legitimate feature of the author's chosen genre.

Here, I wish I had managed to finish my response to potioncat
(followed on by catlady) regarding the nature of the Romance genre,
Ela Frye's _Anatomy of Criticism_.

In my defense I'll note that it's a lot less work to say *explain
everything to me* than it is to do the explaining. A fortiori when
what is entailed is a recap of a self-entitled *anatomy,* i.e. an
encyclopedic exploration of a subject.

Add to that the standing formula that my HP posts are subject to my
having time, energy, and an actual sense of entertainment from the
project, and you can see the problem.

(Oh yes, there a lot of you out there who have a few whacks coming.
Beware the day it amuses me to hand them out.<veg>)

In fact I had finished most of the recap when catlady (who, I
believe, has read Frye, at least twice) wrote me to opine that the
HP series actually belongs to the Anatomy genre (which, in fiction,
means satire).

I decided to wrap my rebuttal into the final section of the recap
(where both Romance and Anatomy would be discussed anyway) and have,
in fact, completed that response, albeit on a legal pad, which, not
unlike Ms. Rowling, I have momentarily lost amongst the many
identical yellow pads marked with the same peculiar handwriting that
have come to populate the drawers and surfaces in my home.

I shall devote a reasonable amount of time to locating this errant
essay so that I can get the bugger posted, especially as it seems I
am periodically tempted to reiterate the need to appreciate one's
genre. It had seemed a bit arcane, but I think, in the end, it will
be a useful reference.

Naturally, it would be better for you all if you'd just read the
book.

The short answer, for catlady, is no.

I believed you raised Frye's quintessential example of a fictional
Anatomy: the Alice stories, for comparison to the HP series. On
reflection you might see that, unlike the HP series where plot is a
force majeure, the Alice stories, like all Anatomies, are
practically devoid of plot.

You fall into a rabbit hole and later find yourself out. You slip
through a mirror and then come back again. What passes for plot in
Carroll's works is the thinnest of mechanisms for moving Alice to a
weird place where she can explore his ideological victims with
revealing naivete. (You'll have to provide your own imaginary 
diacritical marks as it seems Yahoo has no use for the umlaut or the 
accent grave, and sucked the affected letters out with them when I 
first attempted to post this.)

Thereafter she simply strolls from one tableau to another where
successive social positions and personalities can be parodied. The
characters are mere mouth-pieces for the ideas being lampooned and
there is no compelling interrelation between the experiences.

The HP series certainly does contain satire, as well as tragedy and
comedy (though, notwithstanding some satiric threads, unlike the
Alice Anatomies, Rowling's humor is neither constant nor confined to
ridicule), but these are all subsumed beneath a canopy of Romance,
which, being the prevailing mode, symbolism, mythos, and genre of
the series, informs the characterization, plot, and eventual
denouement. And, of course it's all wrapped up in a mystery.

Rowling's ability to manage these elements is a testament to her
authorial prowess. It's also a nice bit of art, inasmuch as her
series is about coming successfully to grips with life, and life
itself is a romance, wrapped in a mystery, full of tragedy, comedy
and not a little irony.

Magic is a primary feature of the romantic mode. Therefore, the
inclusion of *fantastic* magical beasts, etc. is not an argument for
Anatomy over Romance.

Moreover, romantic characterization *leans toward* allegory. While
*pure* Romance calls for *idealized* characters, the trend over
literary history has been toward increased realism. Afterall, even
Gawain gets a nick in the neck.

Rowling's characters have sufficient psychological realism to
engage the reader (another evidence of her talent, IMO) but this
quality is only a movement along a continuum whereon they are still
well within the Romantic genre.

Accordingly, I find the eagerness to locate Mary Sues and Gary Stues
sorely misplaced. The characters retain the general idealization of
their respective types in service to the more palpable subtext
expected of the Romance genre.

Understanding this should better allow you to *get* what is going
on. If you stand back a bit, you should be able to see that the
characters act in service of a greater idea--more subtly than pure
allegory--but much less dissolved than novelistic realism.

A better appreciation of genre would save a lot of erroneous
criticism of the author, not to mention misreading of the text.

Conversely, the bully plot is sometimes blamed for characters
behaving *out of character,* when what is really happening is that
the reader has totally misapprehended the character.

Typically this pertains to DD. It really is mystifying how many
times readers can blame Rowling for making DD do something that
*doesn't fit* (or requires the reader to concoct elaborate
explanations) and yet never ask themselves if, instead of DD doing
something odd for the umteenth time, it might not be they,
themselves, who have got the wrong end of things.

Talisman, who was going to comment further on the SK responses, but
sees now that this will have to wait for another time. Also noting
that it's one thing to chant the term *heuristics,* it's quite
another to do the job.