[the_old_crowd] Re: Whatever happened to nostalgia?

[ewe2]

On 5/13/06, Barry Arrowsmith <arrowsmithbt at ...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

> I have to concur with Lyn. That Leaky interview was puke-making. Sheer
> adolescent huggy crap. It makes any reasonable person cringe.
> And frankly, who really gives a shit about SHIPs?
> Are they integral (or even influential) to the plot arc?
> No. They're a bolt-on extra that allows the romantically-minded to indulge
> in fantasies that are unlikely ever to blossom fully in the books.
> And it's pretty jejeune stuff anyway. Just about right for 12 year olds.
> But the extra-canon hints (hints, hell; they're bashes over the head with a
> sand-filled sock) have been very useful from Jo's point of view in that they've
> kept a fair proportion of fandom occupied on the trivial.

Woah. Now the floodgates are well and truly open. But I was pretending
to myself it was just just silliness. Now I think it's worse: a large
section of HP fandom are being laughed at. Jejeune (ah, a long-missed
word!) is bullseye-thwackinginly correct.

> Nope. Sorry.
> I foresee an awful lot of ropy explication coming up.

I'm still leaning on my Agatha Christie excuses, it worked for her, it
could work for JKR.

> I don't think so. She claims never to have read LotR.
> Not sure about the Narnia stuff, but I'd be surprised if she were a Lucas buff.
> IMO her influences are more likely to be straight mythology and traditional
> folk-lore. After all, those are the elements that are presented with a twist in HP.

Narnia I can believe. Even a decent talking lion can't disguise
half-plagiarized crap, so owls are the least of the problem.

> But frankly, influences are a comparatively minor matter, the truly important
> question is "Will this tale fulfill its earlier promise?"
> That's something I now doubt very much and is (will be) deeply disappointing.

Depends on the promises you think she is supposed to be keeping. With
20/20 foresight hindsight and sidesight I predict much disappointment,
pleasure and a lifetime of demands for Harry reprises. I refer to the
Agatha Christie problem as above.


> Yup.
> Best part of the book.
> I considered Sam a half-wit and Frodo a wanker.
> I'd have made 'em suffer even more, with the addition of a patronising bloody
> elf spouting platitudes over them as they over-acted their way to a nasty death.
> Nothing was too bad for them.
> LotR is a very popular book, but it's an error to think that it is universally admired.
> It isn't. Some find pseudo-epic dialogue tedious, the characterisations wooden
> and predictable - and it's unforgiveable that no important character on the side
> of good dies - on a permanent basis, anyway.
> Even worse, it's the proximal excuse for uncountable fifth-rate three volume
> fantasy epics. Now for waking that pestilence Tolkien deserves to be burnt in
> effigy every mid-summer.

Post-modern literature bollocks. Wouldn't know an epic tale if it bit
them on the posterior. It's a bit weak to blame rampant commercialist
fantasy-fodder on a tale noone thought would sell the way it did.
There IS room for new universes, it's a failure of imagination, not
necessarily of commercial opportunity.

> Getting close to that stage with HP. It no longer engages, the characters
> seem less real than before, and I don't care what happens to any of them.
> Now that's something I never believed that I'd say.
> Unfortunately it's true.

Do I dare eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel and stroll along the beach
I have heard the mermaids sing each to each

I do not think they will sing to me.

-- 
Emacs is an alright OS, but it lacks a decent editor.