I will always have a fondness for the Harry Potter books because my daughter was at the perfect age for us to share them as she grew up. Nor should we forget how JK Rowling’s work encouraged millions of youngsters to read: and to read books nearing 800-pages in length! After achieving huge fame and wealth Ms Rowling dipped her toes into politics; and is reaping the consequences of that, and her high profile, now. I guess all I think really is: FFS, they’re just books for children. Some people do indeed need to grow up.
Important question, then: how woke and intolerant is your daughter now?
David Barnett
3 years ago
In “HP & The Order of the Phoenix”, Harry worries that he might be becoming like Voldomort because of various things bubbling up inside him. Sirius Black tells him it is his choices that show he is good. In other words, “wrongthink” thoughts don’t count. It is what you choose to do with them that matters. Whereas the “woke” extremists count “wrongthink” as irredeemable original sin, J.K.Rowling does not. This is further evidenced by the story arcs of Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape.
Often the difference between a virtue and a similar looking evil, is that good promotes the virtue while evil seeks to vanquish the supposed enemies of the virtue. I don’t know if JKR thinks of it this way, but it does seem to be reflected in the contrast between, say, the death eaters’ quest to expunge muggle “impurity” from the magical world, and the ministry’s aim to protect the magical way of life without provoking muggle fears.
Raising enemies (vanquishing, for the purpose of) is quick and easy. Building peace is hard, but the benefits are lasting.
At one point Dumbledore says, “Soon we shall all have to choose between what is easy and what is right.” “Woke” is very easy, but it is not right.
I did mean “raise” in the sense of putting up an image of something tto point at.
shivangkohli09
3 years ago
If you think those books are for children , you are simply wrong… It has attracted all age groups of people.. and please it has become a legend enough to continue on for years upon years.. you don’t have to stop acknowledging the fun of Harry potter just because you are older and mature. Keeping your maturity by having a realistic view of the world and continuing to enjoy Harry potter alongside is something that you probably can’t manage but I believe others can. P.s. For people who say that JK Rowling spoiled Harry potter for them , literally grow up , she is the reason you perhaps even read books , she has done much more good than harm. If you don’t like her views , no problem but that doesn’t make her bad , you can simply enjoy the good she has done and ignore what you think is wrong , you don’t have to berate someone’s works just cuz you think they fail as a person.
They were books intended to entertain and read by children of all ages. JK’s politics or viewpoint on life is irrelevance.
Malcolm Ripley
3 years ago
Erm, they are stories. Sure stories can have some moral element but at the end of the day, especially with magic or time travel, it’s just escapism. Yes some people take it too literally but so what. I get the impression commentators (like the one above) are a little jealous of not being able to “escape”.
I’m 62 but it does not stop me putting on my PS4 VR headset and going off to a land of dragons (killed the main one), giant spiders (kill them easily now I’m immune from the poisin), help a farmer get his amulet back and then sit down in front of a roaring fire in the pub! Well you can’t do the pub bit for real these days can you!
Whiners need to grow up and get a goddam hobby or interest!
chrisjwmartin
3 years ago
There is a bitter irony for Rowling that she was a full-throated identity canceller herself, in her case of anyone who had the temerity to disagree with her feminist identity politics. Now that identity politics has logically progressed onto its latest stage of insanity, she wishes to draw an arbitrary line separating her identity politics from the identity politics that is persecuting her. But the only line here is the arrow pointing from Rowling’s identity politics to the terrorist atrocities of BLM-Antifa and the Orwellian unpersoning perpetrated by the powerful trans lobby. She sowed the wind, and she has reaped the whirlwind.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Yes. I have said for some years that the problem with Harry Potter, Tolkien etc is that they divide everything into Good v Bad with nothing inbetween. Even worse, Good always wins and the real world is not like that – quite the reverse in fact. Thus these books leave people unprepared for the real world.
You are kid if you think that Harry potter is meant to teach you how the world works.. what part of fantasy do you not understand ? If you want how to deal with the world go and watch some documentaries instead , rather than trying to include a How-To-Live-Life-101 in Harry potter or Tolkien … They teach you abt friendships , fellowships and values you need to have all while giving you thrill of the story and twists , what more do you want ?
I am not saying that Harry Potter teaches you how the world works. Quite the reverse. I am more or less agreeing with the main article’s claim that many people read these books and believe that they are a guide to how the world works, or should work.
I have read Tolkein, but not Harry Potter (I was too old). I watch a lot of documentaries on YouTube (I don’t have a TV) and read a lot of very serious non-fiction. I know how the world works and it ain’t nice. But at least I understand that.
How old is “too old” to read Harry Potter? My daughter and I both read them and went to the local bookshop at midnight for at least one. We were aged around 30 and 60 at the time. (Both educated to degree level) Perhaps you need to use your imagination and temporarily leave the world occasionally.
Fair point. Having just read a collection of Neil Gaiman’s speeches and introductions etc I was thinking of giving him a try. Perhaps American Gods. Can anyone recommend that?
The problem is that I always find these ‘fantasy’ things to be so silly and lacking in any real nourishment.
I found Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal” and “Making Money” to be wonderfully satirical fantasy. I don’t know that they were particularly nourishing, but none the worse for that….personally prefer Pratchett to Gaiman…
Terry Pratchett, The best writer of satirical comedy ever. Taken far too soon, Going postal, making money…and the best of efforts..raising steam….he just seemed to be getting into his stride. Sadly missed.
If you have read Tolkien then you will know that although ‘good’ may win, there is always a price to pay. Middle Earth was irreversibly damaged in the process, and Rivendell was effectively destroyed. But as a child, I simply enjoyed the story. I think it’s a mistake to try to read too much in to stories that are written as – well, stories.
Yes, with the destruction of the One Ring, the magic of the three elven rings dwindled. That’s one of the things that makes Tolkien’s Middle-Earth particularly poignant – the fact that victory is bitter-sweet. As a child when I read it, I certainly didn’t find it a simplistic story of good vs. evil.
Actually the whole point of good story telling is precisely to resolve some or other real human conflict in the world (internal or external) with imagination. Children’s stories serve exactly this function otherwise they would be meaningless and unappealing -they would not connect with anything. That is why books like the hungry caterpillar -an allegory about growth, taking in good things and transformation retain such worth in the canon of children’s literature.
The Hungry Caterpillar is for very young children and I doubt if any of them see an allegory – even subconsciously! I read it to my grandsons when they were about 18 months old
I’m afraid you are quite wrong. You hold to quite a narrow belief about the imaginative capacities of small children.
If what you say is correct, why not just read them extracts from the ‘phone directory? Because it would be meaningless to them -which suggests they know and understand the meaning of the text.
Why do we have allegories? Why are they intuitively understood? Young children are quite capable of symbolic thinking from very early on -this is well established by developmental psychology and neuroscience. Children are born to relate.
Of course young children do not have the language to describe the book as ‘allegorical’ -that is not my point. There are many things, even as adults, and to coin a line of Dennis Potter’s ‘that we knew, but we didn’t know‘ . Children know there is something good in the tale a long time before they are able to articulate precisely why or what. That is why they gravitate towards such stories.
Learning does not always take place in the conscious mind; it is absorbed through good experiences and when something meaningful resonates inside…
As Yeat’s wrote about learning:
‘God guard me from those thoughts men think In the mind alone; He that sings a lasting song Thinks in a marrow-bone.’
Anyway, I am glad you read this to your grandchildren! They will have got more out of it than perhaps you appreciated.
I’m with Julian on this. Especially when I recall my mother, primary teachers and much later me reading to kids and breaking the story with comments such as, ‘and why do you think he did that?’ Or. ‘Now wasn’t that a silly thing to do?’ etc. Reading to others can be interactive and expand imagination when done this way.
I read The Hobbit (to my children) & enjoyed it. However, a little way into The Lord Of The Rings I realised that I couldn’t stand Hobbits; smug, self-satisfied little creeps, &, most of all, completely sexless. I told my wife (who loves them) that if I ever met one I’d tread on it. We no longer live together.
This notion is explored more fully in ‘Bored of the Rings’; a 70s parody that can still amuse, despite its age. I have lent my copy out, so cannot quote from the opening chapter, ‘Concerning Boggies’.
I know what you mean, but I think hobbits were supposed to represent pre-industrial, somewhat simple, rural English folk. As such sex wasn’t as easily discussed as it is today.
Yeah, no – good perhaps always “prevails” though not until after substantial sacrifice and outright loss. The movies are great, but you should probably read the books.
unconcurrentinconnu
3 years ago
I really cannot believe adults are writing about and discussing a series of kids’ books. Sign of the (mad) times.
“The question not was it the right argument, but were they the right people?”
Well, yeah, what did you think identity politics meant?
Someone’s identity, and how it can be categorised, is the only point that matters in such a schema. For many years now, people who are unfortunate enough to have SJWs in their lives have been nagged about the identities of the authors on their bookshelves, the leads in their movies and games, the singers and bands on their playlists. The actual content is given scant notice, if any.
Giulia Khawaja
3 years ago
The original readership, of a wide variety of ages, will have grown or moved on but there is always another readership to take their place. This article seems to be looking for problems where there are none.
nick harman
3 years ago
I admired the way JKR carefully analysed past children’s books and with HP created a collage that had every chance of selling well and did. That’s a professional author.
But they were children’s books all the same, and I left the children to read them on their own.
How I would have hated ‘mummy and daddy’ reading the same books that I read at that age.
I did once try to explain to my mother why I was rolling around the floor gasping with laughter at Molesworth, but she didn’t get it and I was pleased about that,
the molesworth books are sardonic satire as any fule kno even gilibrand who is uterly wet and a weed.
Basil Chamberlain
3 years ago
The influence on Rowling which goes unmentioned by Mr Leith above is The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper – quite the finest fantasy story I read when I was a child, and the only one which (to paraphrase Mr Bailey’s comment below) really did do something, I think, to prepare me for the moral complexities of the real world. I recommend Cooper now to every one of my friends who has a son or daughter of eleven or twelve.
Whether such books are still readable in adulthood is, I suppose, a matter of opinion (though I glanced at my old copy of The Dark is Rising a few months ago and was struck by how beautifully it was written). However, I personally think a children’s author has truly done his or her job if the child grows up into an adult who reads George Eliot, Henry James and Tolstoy.
There is truth in what you wrote. I assume you meant they read for enjoyment. I’ve never read any you mentioned. But I do read eclectically. Trashy cop procedurals to the seven pillars of wisdom in the last month for example. My first non Janet and John style book was HMS Ulysses at age nine on a wet caravan holiday in Cornwall. Until I had kids of my own, I never read another so called kids book because it was solely for kids, if you get me?
Yes, and this is always my point about people saying ‘J K Rowling got kids to read’. There is no point in them reading Harry Potter if they don’t go on to read those authors you list, and many others of course.
A pertinent quotation by Christopher Beha on this subject: “Much is taken from us as we pass out of childhood, but other human beings who have suffered these losses have created great works of art, works that can only be truly appreciated by those who have suffered the same losses in turn. These works are among the great recompenses that experience offers us. Putting down “Harry Potter” for Henry James is not one of adulthood’s obligations, like flossing and mortgage payments; it’s one of its rewards, like autonomy and sex. It seems to me not embarrassing or shameful but just self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child.”
Wonderful quotation from Christopher Beha on this topic:
“Much is taken from us as we pass out of childhood, but other human beings who have suffered these losses have created great works of art, works that can only be truly appreciated by those who have suffered the same losses in turn. These works are among the great recompenses that experience offers us. Putting down “Harry Potter” for Henry James is not one of adulthood’s obligations, like flossing and mortgage payments; it’s one of its rewards, like autonomy and sex. It seems to me not embarrassing or shameful but just self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child.”
aelf
3 years ago
It’s unlikely the ‘woke’ mob obsessing over J. K. Rowling were ever fans of Harry Potter – they’re a fundamentally dull lot with the imagination of a sea cucumber.
Alex Camm
3 years ago
Why would you make such a sweepingly dismissive statement regarding the Torah? ‘The Torah was a straight remix of Babylonian creation myths and all the better for it.’
OMG grow the hell up U KNOW SOME KIDS READ THIS u really all gotta get a life of u agree with this live wtf is wrong with you like for real though ppl have grown up with that now we are basically getting told to stop watching the think we grew up with go get a life like for real what did my eyes just tell read and also GO . TO . HELL BISH PEIRODT
See Gilgamesh. It is not a criticism. The Torah, the bible and the Koran… and even the Book of Mormon are variations on a theme as old as humankind.
kittenfacedgaming2
3 years ago
I’ve never seen such bullshit. You’re the one who needs to grow up, and be mature enough to realise that those books are more than just evil bad Hogwarts good or whatever.
They’re special to people. It’s like saying “your pet dog was beloved, yes, but it’s dead now, so f**k it and man up. It’s not beloved anymore.” No. You’re wrong. Just because you didn’t enjoy the books as much as some people did, doesn’t mean you have to shit on them out of jealously.
Believe it or not, I’m not a fuming 40 year old cosplayer. But the books were special to me. A hell of a lot of people around the world feel the same. So once again, no. I’ve read some BS articles in my time but jesus.
Christopher Chantrill
3 years ago
See, I would have thought that the moral universe of Harry Potter is bland compared to the fierce moralism of the woke crowd.
And, by the way, myth has been promoted into the front rank ever since Jung asserted that myth is the working out of our collective human unconscious.
shamandalie17072017
3 years ago
Harry Potter will always be a masterpiece of art in terms of worldbuilding, some characters that shine for their greyness (Regulus Black, Draco Malfoy and others) and tangle of the plot, but I can recognize the flaws and the one that always bothered me is the fact everyone is simply often divided into good and bad. I detached myself from J.K.Rowling a long time ago, but I still cherish Harry Potter Saga.
Kay
3 years ago
Excellent article. Speaks, for me, to the unhappy polarisation of our times. Has the bonus that, unless it is thoroughly read, it will not be understood and so will not, unlike JKRowlings recent article, excite a barrage of abuse.
I am entertained and intrigued by many comments here. I do however take umbrage at the expectations of the woke, and their criticism of racial imbalance … JKR is white. Of a generation subject to less interaction in both time and frequency with other races. Given my similar age and having grown up in a massive city, much further south, even I with teen involvement in anti Nazi and equality issues and protests, still had less interaction with other races than is usual today. As for using other races in one’s writing; it is said that one should write about what one knows. There again, is there a risk of charges of tokenism or misappropriation of culture if a writer does this? The subject and people’s motivations are too complex to discuss in text, short of a series of similar length to HP.
Juilan Bonmottier
3 years ago
The best rebuttal of all things Harry Potter was surely provided by the comedian Stewart Lee.
I will always have a fondness for the Harry Potter books because my daughter was at the perfect age for us to share them as she grew up. Nor should we forget how JK Rowling’s work encouraged millions of youngsters to read: and to read books nearing 800-pages in length!
After achieving huge fame and wealth Ms Rowling dipped her toes into politics; and is reaping the consequences of that, and her high profile, now.
I guess all I think really is: FFS, they’re just books for children. Some people do indeed need to grow up.
Important question, then: how woke and intolerant is your daughter now?
In “HP & The Order of the Phoenix”, Harry worries that he might be becoming like Voldomort because of various things bubbling up inside him. Sirius Black tells him it is his choices that show he is good. In other words, “wrongthink” thoughts don’t count. It is what you choose to do with them that matters. Whereas the “woke” extremists count “wrongthink” as irredeemable original sin, J.K.Rowling does not. This is further evidenced by the story arcs of Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape.
Often the difference between a virtue and a similar looking evil, is that good promotes the virtue while evil seeks to vanquish the supposed enemies of the virtue. I don’t know if JKR thinks of it this way, but it does seem to be reflected in the contrast between, say, the death eaters’ quest to expunge muggle “impurity” from the magical world, and the ministry’s aim to protect the magical way of life without provoking muggle fears.
Raising enemies (vanquishing, for the purpose of) is quick and easy. Building peace is hard, but the benefits are lasting.
At one point Dumbledore says, “Soon we shall all have to choose between what is easy and what is right.” “Woke” is very easy, but it is not right.
Are you Old Harry? I just wrote and am awaiting my article’s appearance regarding the woke.
Honorary uncle on Harry’s father’s side.
Love what you wrote here, but didn’t you mean to say ‘razing enemies’?
Didn’t you mean to say ‘razing enemies’?
No – the enemies are raised so that subsequently they can be razed.
I did mean “raise” in the sense of putting up an image of something tto point at.
If you think those books are for children , you are simply wrong… It has attracted all age groups of people.. and please it has become a legend enough to continue on for years upon years.. you don’t have to stop acknowledging the fun of Harry potter just because you are older and mature. Keeping your maturity by having a realistic view of the world and continuing to enjoy Harry potter alongside is something that you probably can’t manage but I believe others can. P.s. For people who say that JK Rowling spoiled Harry potter for them , literally grow up , she is the reason you perhaps even read books , she has done much more good than harm. If you don’t like her views , no problem but that doesn’t make her bad , you can simply enjoy the good she has done and ignore what you think is wrong , you don’t have to berate someone’s works just cuz you think they fail as a person.
They were books intended to entertain and read by children of all ages. JK’s politics or viewpoint on life is irrelevance.
Erm, they are stories. Sure stories can have some moral element but at the end of the day, especially with magic or time travel, it’s just escapism. Yes some people take it too literally but so what. I get the impression commentators (like the one above) are a little jealous of not being able to “escape”.
I’m 62 but it does not stop me putting on my PS4 VR headset and going off to a land of dragons (killed the main one), giant spiders (kill them easily now I’m immune from the poisin), help a farmer get his amulet back and then sit down in front of a roaring fire in the pub! Well you can’t do the pub bit for real these days can you!
Whiners need to grow up and get a goddam hobby or interest!
There is a bitter irony for Rowling that she was a full-throated identity canceller herself, in her case of anyone who had the temerity to disagree with her feminist identity politics. Now that identity politics has logically progressed onto its latest stage of insanity, she wishes to draw an arbitrary line separating her identity politics from the identity politics that is persecuting her. But the only line here is the arrow pointing from Rowling’s identity politics to the terrorist atrocities of BLM-Antifa and the Orwellian unpersoning perpetrated by the powerful trans lobby. She sowed the wind, and she has reaped the whirlwind.
Yes. I have said for some years that the problem with Harry Potter, Tolkien etc is that they divide everything into Good v Bad with nothing inbetween. Even worse, Good always wins and the real world is not like that – quite the reverse in fact. Thus these books leave people unprepared for the real world.
You are kid if you think that Harry potter is meant to teach you how the world works.. what part of fantasy do you not understand ? If you want how to deal with the world go and watch some documentaries instead , rather than trying to include a How-To-Live-Life-101 in Harry potter or Tolkien … They teach you abt friendships , fellowships and values you need to have all while giving you thrill of the story and twists , what more do you want ?
I am not saying that Harry Potter teaches you how the world works. Quite the reverse. I am more or less agreeing with the main article’s claim that many people read these books and believe that they are a guide to how the world works, or should work.
I have read Tolkein, but not Harry Potter (I was too old). I watch a lot of documentaries on YouTube (I don’t have a TV) and read a lot of very serious non-fiction. I know how the world works and it ain’t nice. But at least I understand that.
How old is “too old” to read Harry Potter?
My daughter and I both read them and went to the local bookshop at midnight for at least one. We were aged around 30 and 60 at the time. (Both educated to degree level)
Perhaps you need to use your imagination and temporarily leave the world occasionally.
Fair point. Having just read a collection of Neil Gaiman’s speeches and introductions etc I was thinking of giving him a try. Perhaps American Gods. Can anyone recommend that?
The problem is that I always find these ‘fantasy’ things to be so silly and lacking in any real nourishment.
I found Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal” and “Making Money” to be wonderfully satirical fantasy. I don’t know that they were particularly nourishing, but none the worse for that….personally prefer Pratchett to Gaiman…
Terry Pratchett, The best writer of satirical comedy ever.
Taken far too soon,
Going postal, making money…and the best of efforts..raising steam….he just seemed to be getting into his stride.
Sadly missed.
My friend’s husband did his English degree with Tolkien and occasionally his bedtime reading is Just William
If you have read Tolkien then you will know that although ‘good’ may win, there is always a price to pay. Middle Earth was irreversibly damaged in the process, and Rivendell was effectively destroyed.
But as a child, I simply enjoyed the story. I think it’s a mistake to try to read too much in to stories that are written as – well, stories.
Yes, with the destruction of the One Ring, the magic of the three elven rings dwindled. That’s one of the things that makes Tolkien’s Middle-Earth particularly poignant – the fact that victory is bitter-sweet. As a child when I read it, I certainly didn’t find it a simplistic story of good vs. evil.
The point was to tell a story not prepare children for the real world. What an unimaginative point of view.
Actually the whole point of good story telling is precisely to resolve some or other real human conflict in the world (internal or external) with imagination. Children’s stories serve exactly this function otherwise they would be meaningless and unappealing -they would not connect with anything. That is why books like the hungry caterpillar -an allegory about growth, taking in good things and transformation retain such worth in the canon of children’s literature.
The Hungry Caterpillar is for very young children and I doubt if any of them see an allegory – even subconsciously!
I read it to my grandsons when they were about 18 months old
I’m afraid you are quite wrong. You hold to quite a narrow belief about the imaginative capacities of small children.
If what you say is correct, why not just read them extracts from the ‘phone directory? Because it would be meaningless to them -which suggests they know and understand the meaning of the text.
Why do we have allegories? Why are they intuitively understood? Young children are quite capable of symbolic thinking from very early on -this is well established by developmental psychology and neuroscience. Children are born to relate.
Of course young children do not have the language to describe the book as ‘allegorical’ -that is not my point. There are many things, even as adults, and to coin a line of Dennis Potter’s ‘that we knew, but we didn’t know‘ . Children know there is something good in the tale a long time before they are able to articulate precisely why or what. That is why they gravitate towards such stories.
Learning does not always take place in the conscious mind; it is absorbed through good experiences and when something meaningful resonates inside…
As Yeat’s wrote about learning:
‘God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.’
Anyway, I am glad you read this to your grandchildren! They will have got more out of it than perhaps you appreciated.
I’m with Julian on this. Especially when I recall my mother, primary teachers and much later me reading to kids and breaking the story with comments such as, ‘and why do you think he did that?’ Or. ‘Now wasn’t that a silly thing to do?’ etc.
Reading to others can be interactive and expand imagination when done this way.
I read The Hobbit (to my children) & enjoyed it. However, a little way into The Lord Of The Rings I realised that I couldn’t stand Hobbits; smug, self-satisfied little creeps, &, most of all, completely sexless.
I told my wife (who loves them) that if I ever met one I’d tread on it. We no longer live together.
This notion is explored more fully in ‘Bored of the Rings’; a 70s parody that can still amuse, despite its age. I have lent my copy out, so cannot quote from the opening chapter, ‘Concerning Boggies’.
I know what you mean, but I think hobbits were supposed to represent pre-industrial, somewhat simple, rural English folk. As such sex wasn’t as easily discussed as it is today.
Yeah, no – good perhaps always “prevails” though not until after substantial sacrifice and outright loss. The movies are great, but you should probably read the books.
I really cannot believe adults are writing about and discussing a series of kids’ books. Sign of the (mad) times.
Well said. They’re crap.
“The question not was it the right argument, but were they the right people?”
Well, yeah, what did you think identity politics meant?
Someone’s identity, and how it can be categorised, is the only point that matters in such a schema. For many years now, people who are unfortunate enough to have SJWs in their lives have been nagged about the identities of the authors on their bookshelves, the leads in their movies and games, the singers and bands on their playlists. The actual content is given scant notice, if any.
The original readership, of a wide variety of ages, will have grown or moved on but there is always another readership to take their place.
This article seems to be looking for problems where there are none.
I admired the way JKR carefully analysed past children’s books and with HP created a collage that had every chance of selling well and did. That’s a professional author.
But they were children’s books all the same, and I left the children to read them on their own.
How I would have hated ‘mummy and daddy’ reading the same books that I read at that age.
I did once try to explain to my mother why I was rolling around the floor gasping with laughter at Molesworth, but she didn’t get it and I was pleased about that,
the molesworth books are sardonic satire as any fule kno even gilibrand who is uterly wet and a weed.
The influence on Rowling which goes unmentioned by Mr Leith above is The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper – quite the finest fantasy story I read when I was a child, and the only one which (to paraphrase Mr Bailey’s comment below) really did do something, I think, to prepare me for the moral complexities of the real world. I recommend Cooper now to every one of my friends who has a son or daughter of eleven or twelve.
Whether such books are still readable in adulthood is, I suppose, a matter of opinion (though I glanced at my old copy of The Dark is Rising a few months ago and was struck by how beautifully it was written). However, I personally think a children’s author has truly done his or her job if the child grows up into an adult who reads George Eliot, Henry James and Tolstoy.
There is truth in what you wrote. I assume you meant they read for enjoyment. I’ve never read any you mentioned. But I do read eclectically. Trashy cop procedurals to the seven pillars of wisdom in the last month for example.
My first non Janet and John style book was HMS Ulysses at age nine on a wet caravan holiday in Cornwall.
Until I had kids of my own, I never read another so called kids book because it was solely for kids, if you get me?
Yes, and this is always my point about people saying ‘J K Rowling got kids to read’. There is no point in them reading Harry Potter if they don’t go on to read those authors you list, and many others of course.
A pertinent quotation by Christopher Beha on this subject: “Much is taken from us as we pass out of childhood, but other human beings who have suffered these losses have created great works of art, works that can only be truly appreciated by those who have suffered the same losses in turn. These works are among the great recompenses that experience offers us. Putting down “Harry Potter” for Henry James is not one of adulthood’s obligations, like flossing and mortgage payments; it’s one of its rewards, like autonomy and sex. It seems to me not embarrassing or shameful but just self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child.”
Wonderful quotation from Christopher Beha on this topic:
“Much is taken from us as we pass out of childhood, but other human beings who have suffered these losses have created great works of art, works that can only be truly appreciated by those who have suffered the same losses in turn. These works are among the great recompenses that experience offers us. Putting down “Harry Potter” for Henry James is not one of adulthood’s obligations, like flossing and mortgage payments; it’s one of its rewards, like autonomy and sex. It seems to me not embarrassing or shameful but just self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child.”
It’s unlikely the ‘woke’ mob obsessing over J. K. Rowling were ever fans of Harry Potter – they’re a fundamentally dull lot with the imagination of a sea cucumber.
Why would you make such a sweepingly dismissive statement regarding the Torah?
‘The Torah was a straight remix of Babylonian creation myths and all the better for it.’
Are you not aware of the counter arguments to this minority view?
For example
https://biologos.org/articl…
OMG grow the hell up U KNOW SOME KIDS READ THIS u really all gotta get a life of u agree with this live wtf is wrong with you like for real though ppl have grown up with that now we are basically getting told to stop watching the think we grew up with go get a life like for real what did my eyes just tell read and also GO . TO . HELL BISH PEIRODT
Oh dear. Written English? I hope it’s a joke but I couldn’t understand, too old!
Me neither!
“The Torah was a straight remix of Babylonian creation myths and all the better for it.” Pah! Idiot comment!
See Gilgamesh. It is not a criticism. The Torah, the bible and the Koran… and even the Book of Mormon are variations on a theme as old as humankind.
I’ve never seen such bullshit. You’re the one who needs to grow up, and be mature enough to realise that those books are more than just evil bad Hogwarts good or whatever.
They’re special to people. It’s like saying “your pet dog was beloved, yes, but it’s dead now, so f**k it and man up. It’s not beloved anymore.” No. You’re wrong. Just because you didn’t enjoy the books as much as some people did, doesn’t mean you have to shit on them out of jealously.
Believe it or not, I’m not a fuming 40 year old cosplayer. But the books were special to me. A hell of a lot of people around the world feel the same. So once again, no. I’ve read some BS articles in my time but jesus.
See, I would have thought that the moral universe of Harry Potter is bland compared to the fierce moralism of the woke crowd.
And, by the way, myth has been promoted into the front rank ever since Jung asserted that myth is the working out of our collective human unconscious.
Harry Potter will always be a masterpiece of art in terms of worldbuilding, some characters that shine for their greyness (Regulus Black, Draco Malfoy and others) and tangle of the plot, but I can recognize the flaws and the one that always bothered me is the fact everyone is simply often divided into good and bad. I detached myself from J.K.Rowling a long time ago, but I still cherish Harry Potter Saga.
Excellent article. Speaks, for me, to the unhappy polarisation of our times. Has the bonus that, unless it is thoroughly read, it will not be understood and so will not, unlike JKRowlings recent article, excite a barrage of abuse.
If you need news from grown-up world of Harry Potter – http://www.spew-review.com
I am entertained and intrigued by many comments here.
I do however take umbrage at the expectations of the woke, and their criticism of racial imbalance … JKR is white. Of a generation subject to less interaction in both time and frequency with other races.
Given my similar age and having grown up in a massive city, much further south, even I with teen involvement in anti Nazi and equality issues and protests, still had less interaction with other races than is usual today.
As for using other races in one’s writing; it is said that one should write about what one knows.
There again, is there a risk of charges of tokenism or misappropriation of culture if a writer does this?
The subject and people’s motivations are too complex to discuss in text, short of a series of similar length to HP.
The best rebuttal of all things Harry Potter was surely provided by the comedian Stewart Lee.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Ahhh. Harry Potter and the glove of wool. Lol.
Well I suppose that was moderately amusing by Stewart Lee’s standards.
Very moderately