Rating: 4/5, good
A.K.A. The Book Series That Won’t Die by She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
I listened to Lily Simpson’s 10-hour long video critique of HP a while ago and I started to wonder what I would think of the books now. I recently reread Harold Bloom’s (much shorter) critique as well.
As much as I think HP will eventually become irrelevant, it keeps sticking around. It’s become controversial because of the anti-trans views and actions of its author, but I don’t think it’s just controversy keeping it alive. I’ve seen people who are otherwise pretty liberal and open-minded make HP references, visit the theme parks, buy merch, and continue engaging with the franchise despite what we know about JKR and her legal crusade against trans people in the UK. What is the honey that keeps the flies coming despite the odor of the rotting corpse nearby (pretending for a second that flies dislike the scent of rotting corpses)?
I read the first couple of chapters of HP TCOS (it was my favorite one as a kid, so I picked up a used copy on Ebay). It was nostalgic—I remember I was so into reading it (I think it was the second book) that I missed a whole section on the standardized testing we had to do in third grade. I recently saw a home movie of myself playing in the backyard as a kid. My Mom asked me, “How do you think you did on the standardized testing?” and I looked stressed for a moment before saying, “I think I did well..” I’m guessing that was the same year lol
I remember liking TCOS best of the series because I thought GL was really funny. I watched a summary review of the book on YouTube and was reminded that it has awesome spiders and snakes, a journal that talks back to you, and a brainy girl solving problems, so those elements may have also drawn me to preferring the second book. On top of that, I think JKR is responding to the popularity of the first book with a lot of satirical comments on fame in this volume. Harry is made a big deal of everywhere he goes and he’s super uncomfortable with it. I wonder if JKR felt similar being lauded for the first book and wrote her discomfort into HP’s experience.
I think TCOS is pretty good. The action moves along quickly with punchy, funny prose. The characters are very well-defined and iconic. Most chapters end with cliff hangers that make you want to keep reading. I think it’s leagues better than Eragon, mostly because the characters are unique and easy to picture mentally and the writing is much more spare. It’s very clear what each character is experiencing at any given moment; JKR does a good job of conveying the characters’ emotions to the reader.
If you like the punchy, funny style, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series might be a good one to check out. It reads easy, it’s funny, it’s probably good for young reluctant readers. I don’t think either HP or DWK are trying to be LotR the way Eragon is trying to be and I think they both succeed by having snappy and involving plots and prose and entertaining their readers.
I think Harold Bloom discounts the entertainment value of literature too much in his essay. Isn’t that a large part of why people read, to entertain themselves and pass the time? Maybe the written word started with the Bible in the West and therefore had a bent towards improvement, but it can be a medium for fluffy entertainment on par with film and TV.
Lily Simpson had some interesting critiques of HP, especially when it comes to economics. She asks why HP doesn’t just give money to RW if he has so much and RW’s family has so little. That’s a good question. In TCOS HP watches Mrs. W scrape the little bit of coins out of her vault and she sees him surreptitiously grab a few of the piles of coins out of his. HP buys ice cream for himself, RW, and HG afterwards, but he doesn’t offer to pay for Ron’s school supplies or anything. I don’t remember if she had many aesthetic critiques, I mostly remember her pointing out logical issues with the lore and subtle ideological points of JKR’s that come through in the novels.
I know some people who have never liked HP or never gotten the hype. Some were adults when it came out and couldn’t get into a children’s book, others it just never appealed to them that much.
I think it’s actually better than a lot of similar fantasy-ish children’s books that were releasing around the same time. I read about the first ten volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events and I thought HP was better. I didn’t like the conceit of including difficult words with definitions, it felt condescending and repetitive. The characters also weren’t quite as interesting to me and the plot was overly convoluted and unfocused.
I did like a lot of horse books—Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Black Beauty, The Black Stallion. And adventure books—The Hobbit, Tom Sawyer, The Magic Treehouse books. And some humor—Roald Dahl and Wayside School.
I don’t know if horse books would appeal to today’s kids… they might be a little too slow. Adventure books have some staying power. And humor books are pretty timeless.
Finding alternatives to HP isn’t terribly hard. There are plenty of fantasy books for children and teenagers to choose from. The edge that HP has is that it coined a lot of terms that are referenced in general culture. It also has a defined visual brand that there are a few books that have (The Hobbit, Tom Sawyer), but it’s not as common or as popular. The visual brand might mostly come from the movies, though… everybody remembers that scene where the camera flies over the dining hall and there are floating pumpkins. It has such a cozy Halloween/dark academia vibe.
The Redwall series is kind of similar aesthetically. There are ancient castles, puzzles and secrets, swords and sorcery, and elegant feasts. I haven’t read it in so long, but I remember it being really good. It’s not as difficult to read as LotR, but it’s a little more advanced than HP, so it’s kind of a nice middle ground for middle-school-age kids.
HP does “cozy but not boring” very well. There are lots of dangers in its world, but one gets the sense that nothing really horrible can ever happen to the main cast. There are many interesting items and locations to interact with in fanfiction (similar to LotR). It’s easy to think of good children’s books, but it’s harder to think of ones that build a sandbox for readers to play in. It’s especially inviting because the items and the rules of the sandbox aren’t too complex or difficult to comprehend, so more people can play.
One alternative I can recommend (albeit for teens 15+ and adults) is the Fate/Stay Night series of visual novels and anime. It has a big sandbox of worldbuilding, magical rules, tons of content, and type sorting (classes of servants, magical families, skills). I could see people who enjoy the HP fandom possibly getting into the Fate fandom (unless they don’t like anime).
On rereading HP TCOS, what stood out to me a lot was how strong of a fantasy of personal importance HP is. The hobbits are pretty important in LotR, but it really feels like HP is the most important person in his world and everything would totally go dark without him specifically. Dob comes to HP’s house over the summer and tells him he’s too important to risk going back to Hog. When HP tries to demur that he’s not important, Dob says HP is “humble and modest,” praising him further (lol, I liked that line). I think the fantasy of personal importance in HP is stronger than in most other media. It is a heady idea for kids to identify with a character who is literally the most important person in a fantasy world.
I guess in Narnia they’re kings and queens and in His Dark Materials Lyra saves the world (or destroys the world? I don’t remember exactly), but I’d have to reread them to see if they’re equally fantasies of personal importance.
The personality test/sorting aspect is a draw as well. People love sorting themselves and trying to understand others through types. And HP’s is very simple and easy to remember: good guys, bad guys, smart guys, and nice guys. It does make it a little awkward for people who get sorted into “bad guys”, though…
Camille Paglia basically said that aesthetic beauty justifies immorality. I don’t agree with that. But I also don’t believe in denying one’s aesthetic sensibilities because of morality. A thing can be both evil and beautiful; one does not unmake the other. I recognize HP’s beauty and its author’s immorality simultaneously.
In this case, I think the author’s immorality trumps the work’s beauty. It doesn’t feel right for me to engage with it in any way (I’m doing something a bit sketchy talking about it but I’m trying my best to do it in a way that is just expressing my opinion of it and not recommending it). It’s a bummer. It’s a nice thing that was ruined by the author’s actions.
I kind of hope that it doesn’t survive the ages. It takes a lot to ruin as shining a success as HP, but JKR did it.
It’s important to be aware that it’s not just her opinions that she and her work are being “cancelled” for, it’s that she’s using the money she earns from her franchise to disenfranchise trans people of the freedom to change their sex and gender.
What about enjoying HP without financially supporting JKR?
I feel kind of mixed about that. I feel like engaging with the work in a public way is helping promote it, which could end up financially supporting her if somebody sees you engaging and gets inspired to buy something officially licensed. In private, that depends on how you feel about it. It feels a bit too icky for me, but I can’t think of a way it would hurt anyone to enjoy the books in private.
Anyway, this Ebay copy will be going off to my local thrift store… I got up to about Chapter 3 and then lost interest. It’s good, but I already know what’s going to happen, so it’s hard to stay invested all the way through. Also the whole anti-trans thing just makes it feel weird.
And I have too many things competing for my time and attention… I’ve been reading the Pita-ten manga in Japanese and I’m getting close to the end of volume 2! (Pray for me, it’s been months and there are 8 volumes… but it’s been a long-standing goal of mine a) to finish all of Pita-ten and b) to read it in Japanese… we’ll see if I’m able to combine those goals lol)
So I ended up not donating it and using it as a bathroom book which I’ll recycle afterward and I have more thoughts…
I’m really impressed with how many new things JKR can introduce so quickly, it’s like fireworks or sparks from a wand. I’m also noticing how many dark jokes there are in TCOS – NHN not being able to get in the headless club because his head isn’t fully detached, MM trying to commit but already being dead, Prof B continuing to teach without realizing he’s dead (that’s dedication!). There are a lot of ghosts in this one.
Also the basilisk sounds like intrusive thoughts, “rip…tear…kill.” There’s something erotic about a giant snake in the walls whispering stuff like that that only the main character can hear. I think child me found it fascinating and scary and my perverted adult brain is like, “Don’t threaten me with a good time. *winks at basilisk*”
I’ve been trying to pay attention to any political messages and social themes JKR is embedding in this book. Is it woke? I would say yes, but it’s liberal, not leftist. There’s a lot of anti-bullying, anti-classist, and anti-racist messaging, but there’s also a lot of accepting the natural order of things. F and G torture small magical creatures and nobody objects and HP does not buy a new wand for RW or new broomsticks for F and G even though he has the ability to.
HP being bullied by Mal, Crab, and Goy is taken seriously, but MM being bullied is portrayed in a joking way and as though she causes it by being too sensitive. I actually had a trio of boys in middle school who would call me names that reminded me of Mal, Crab, and Goy and the one who reminded me of Goy was actually a huge HP fan. I wonder if he saw himself as HP when he read the books? Do bullies recognize themselves in portrayals of bullies, or do they see themselves as the heroes?
I also felt really differently about two characters: Dob and GL.
When I was a kid, I thought Dob was creepy and pathetic, but as an adult I think he’s funny and a badass. He’s acting against his master’s will even though he’s literally been conditioned to punish himself every time he does so and he’s doing it all to save magical boy Jesus. I think JKR has some fun with irony in his dialogue as well, with Dob praising HP to the degree of absurdity. That kind of self-conscious humor went over my head as a kid, but as an adult, I can appreciate it more.
GL is the reason I remember liking TCOS the best (him and the basilisk), but he doesn’t strike me as funny as he used to be. It could be because I’ve seen so many similar characters who are over-confident and under-competent. It may be because there’s something a little misogynistic about the way his female, mostly middle-aged fans are portrayed as if their attraction to him makes them gullible and able to be duped by him (Is the joke middle-aged women having libido, implying that they shouldn’t at their age? Or is the joke that women are stupid and the things they like are shallow?).
Though I think it’s mainly because, after 6 years of Donald Trump being in office, it’s hard to laugh at a person in power who is over-confident and under-competent. It’s partially that the joke has been repeated over and over and hasn’t had much (if any) negative impact on its subject, but mostly that a person like that is not a joke but a legitimate danger to everyone under their administration. GL puts HP in danger twice (so far) due to his own incompetence. I can’t laugh at that anymore. I’m just like, “somebody needs to get this man out of power before he hurts somebody.” It’s so important to nip these types of leaders in the bud before they gain so much power they become hard to remove.
Post a Comment