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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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EVERY author here writes better than J K Rowling. NO spoilers here, please.
But what shoddy work. This is Emperor's New Clothes, and they are worth a King's Ransom.
Book 7, of which I have finished half, is designed pretty much solely for movie special effects. Those will be spectacular, if done right.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I think you have to read the book in its entirety before making an overall pronouncement on it.
The middle section (the second act in cinema parlance) really is pretty slow. The principal characters spend a lot of time sitting in a single location, not doing much at all except occasionally having lengthy exposition and 'dei ex machinis' thrown at them. In previous books there was something similar, but in that case it was hidden inside the structure of the school year. Not so in this one because the premise is different.
There are quite a few subplots that could and should have been pruned; the impression is that the are included to give a final whistle-stop tour of magical locations, rather than because they are actually key to the story. It's also very episodic: this is not always bad for a novel, but it will certainly make it difficult to render as a movie, because the threads don't connect very well.
The book gets much better towards the end, however. There is still constant and unrelenting exposition that sometimes gets in the way, but also some genuinely emotional moments (well, I was emotional, anyway!).
You've got to remember this is a children's book. 'Shoddy'? I wouldn't have said so. There are many, many children's books that are less fun to read. Her style, while not original, is better than the vast majority of amateur writers (I'm not talking about this site, but more about Harry Potter fan fiction; it's remarkable how bad most of it is). 'Emperor's New Clothes'? Well, who cares what everyone else is saying? If you enjoy it, read it. If you don't, don't. I would have read it regardless.
I do wish she'd left out the last chapter. It was rather facile, and I had difficulty retaining my suspension of disbelief.
David
[Updated on: Fri, 03 August 2007 23:03] |
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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As a long term Harry Potter fan I agree wholeheartedly with "I do wish she'd left out the final chapter." (if by that you mean the epilogue?) and "the impression is that the are included to give a final whistle-stop tour of magical locations". I definitely felt that she tried to include every single character and location that had existed in the series and while it was definitely fun to revisit some, I do feel that it was largely unneeded.
I think the final book was without doubt satisfactory and it would have been hard for her to resolve the loose threads in any other way than she did. And the book definitely has a clear meaning to it. It is a bit dull and episodic through the middle, but there's not much I would have wanted done differently.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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She says "it is not a children's book". So I am judging it by her own product positioning.
It was long, dull, and with much irrelevance. The epilogue was as fitting as any other chapter in it.
It did seem very much "cowboys and indians". So, "Pull the indians into a circle, the wagons are going to attack!" was the theme of the day.
It seemed to me to be a mixture of LoTR and The New Testament. At least some of the plot was stolen from each. Add to that "Remember the Alamo" and there you have it.
This was written for the movie special effects team.
Give me Enid Blyton any day.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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When did she say it was not a children's book?
Yes ... every so often descriptions and reviews have trotted out "more adult themes" ... "darker storyline" ... "suited for an older audience" (though comments of that sort have almost exclusively come from other people, not Rowling herself). But I think no-one knows better than Rowling that her audience consists mainly of children, those who were children when Potter first came out, and adults who know perfectly well it's a children's book but read her books simply for fun.
So if the rest of your comments rely on it being "an adults' book" then you are missing the point (perhaps deliberately). It's obvious you didn't like the book, but if you pretend it is for adults then of course it won't have the substance or quality of prose that many of the great adult novels do. That is not why its core audience reads it.
It is true that it needs a good editor. I suppose that Rowling must be so famous now that she can get away without having one forced upon her.
Oh, and find me an epic fantasy novel that doesn't in some way "steal" elements from another. The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, any number of superhero stories/comic books/films. the New Testament. There are only a certain number of elements that "work" together in these sort of stories -- life and death, and stress and ambiguity between the two is a staple of fantasy.
Enid Blyton? Well, there you do have quintessential children's books. No-one could possibly say with a straight face that they have "adult themes" because they unambiguously don't. But they are hardly tightly-plotted either. They are just shorter.
[Updated on: Sun, 12 August 2007 11:34] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Shorter is good.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I read an interview with Enid Blyton once in which she said that, with most of her books, she would just start writing with little idea where it would all lead. Doing so sometimes works, if a story is intended to have an unstructured, dreamlike construction, but it leads to ultimately unfulfilling finales. There is no opportunity for character conflict/resolution because the conflict would be manufactured just before the resolution. In some books, the resolution was necessarily a 'deus ex machina' (police arrive, save the day) because nothing had been set up in advance, and there was no other way for the story to end happily.
The conflict was always between the 'good' characters and the 'bad' characters -- the good never had selfish motives (except where discovered, afterwards, to have been bad all along) and the bad were never torn between good and evil. The protagonists were wide-eyed children who, most improbably, constantly found themselves involved by sheer coincidence with 'bad, rough men with revolvers' (Famous Five, Secret Seven, half a dozen almost identical series) who were up to no good (kidnapping, forging, stealing, smuggling -- but never anything really 'serious'). The children were also stereotyped, in appearance or in ability: character traits, where they existed (boldness, meekness, responsibility, recklessness) were set according to character (usually by sex and age) and never changed.
Whether you enjoy it or not, Rowling's work is definitely a step above this. Characters don't always ring true, and they are often caricatures or stereotypes, but at least in the case of Harry Potter Rowling had an idea of the plot in advance. She could spread character development over time, make key plot points well in advance so as to make later revelations work smoothly and naturally, foreshadow other events (well, try to), and generally give an impression of self-consistency and grand scope -- something entirely missing from Blyton's work.
It's sometimes possible to see the plot-manoeuvring machinery in action (especially in the longer books: 'character needs to get from point A to B: introduce a character or subplot to provide the necessary exposition') but, given the length of the work, not nearly as frequently as one might expect from a comparison, well, say, with Blyton. In Blyton, it's actually far more obvious: a character is introduced and almost immediately serves his or her purpose to the plot, a question is raised and almost immediately answered, good characters simply do the obvious "right thing" rather than being affected by self-interest. Character development in Potter was often clunky and overdone, but at least it was *there*.
You say 'shorter is good'. I guess that you mean it a little tongue-in-cheek: the comment itself is very short. But I don't agree with that principle, and I certainly don't agree if you mean that Blyton is better for being shorter. You could read all 21 Famous Five books and feel that you've gained nothing, and (worse in my eyes) that the characters gained nothing. The fact that the stories were short means that they were probably easier to get through and discard. It doesn't mean that there's any more depth to them -- the precise opposite, in fact.
I used to love Enid Blyton when I was little. I read one of the Famous Five books a year or two ago and found it rather boring and unlikely. Whereas, though I never had a chance to read Potter when I was young. the books have at least captured my attention for the time I have spent reading them. Are you comparing Harry Potter, as you read it now, to Enid Blyton as you remember it from childhood, or Enid Blyton as you read it now?
David
P.S. Has anyone seen this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Go_Mad_in_Dorset I must try and find it somewhere -- it sounds jolly amusing!
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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HP is as unmemorable as any of Blyton's characters. Why did the ginger one have to ride the knight in wizard chess? How pointless was that?
I watched the parody. Calling it a satire is flattery. It was poor.
[Updated on: Sun, 12 August 2007 14:30]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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It's no more pointless than if he "rode" the pawn. And it was hardly a crucial part in the books. It was given far more attention in the movies, which seem to have coloured your perceptions of the books.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Yup. The movie of book 7 certainly coloured my opinion of it 
My point is that much of her alleged action is contrived and irrelevant.
Oh pass me a better wand.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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There are scarcely any narrative works that will stand up to every conceivable plot criticism. All stories, particularly fantasy ones, require suspension of disbelief for at least the time it takes to read them. Otherwise, you're right -- it would certainly waste less of your time to read something shorter.
"The ginger one" -- you don't say you managed to read the entire of the last novel in the series (and presumably at least some of those that came before it) and didn't even learn the name of one of the principal characters? Cripes.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I remember his name now.
Suspension of disbelief is one thing. I can accept Quidditch happily. But a contrived plot with huge irrelevances is quite another. This was written by the ream, not by any quality yardstick.
People like the concept, but the execution is primitive.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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I feel obligated to point out in the beginning that I have not read the Harry Potter books; my comments will be about Timmy's reaction and the article that David referenced.
What I DO know about the books and a comment in the article, "...they are written from inside a child's-eye view", convince me that their target audience certainly is children. That being the case, why bother with "tight" editing? The target audience generally is not sufficiently educated to spot the "errors" and those who are are in too much of a hurry to dwell on them.
An interesting question to me is: Why do so many adults read them? I think there are three basic answers to that. Firstly, in this day and age, parents are more apt to monitor what their children read. They are relatively short books and can be quickly evaluated for their appropriateness.
For my second reason I will again draw from the article David referenced, where it says "...a young child, dissatisfied with its ordinary home and parents, invents a fairy tale...". I'm going to alter that slightly to "a person, dissatisfied with its ordinary life and job, reads an adventure novel taking on the role of the lead character". I certaily do that when I read Clive Cussler, Wilbur Smith or a variety of other authors. I'm not at all dissatisfied with my life but I very much tend to put myself in the lead role as I read adventure novels. If I were into fairy tales I might find the Harry Potter saga entertaining.
My third reason is a very unfortunate one; here in the US at least, the primary educational system has failed to properly educate for the last three or four decades. Many of today's adults are poorly educated and find the level of the Harry Potter books appropriate for themselves. Please Timmy, do NOT think that I am putting you into this category; your comments certainly indicate otherwise. Frankly, I see the popularity of these books amoung adults as a condemnation of our educational system.
One last comment regarding serials. I have not read Timmy's comments in this forum regarding the previous books in this series. Did you enjoy them? Did you find the quality of the final book less than the others? I find it not unusual that the third or fourth installment fails to live up to the previous ones. Often it is as if the author feels compelled to complete the saga even though they themselves are getting bored and tired of it.
JimB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I found the early books a pleasant diversion. As they got fatter they became more and more contrived. It was as though the writing expanded to fill the ego.
I disagree about tight editing. The hardest audience to write for is children. The language must be tight as must the editing. The plot must be real within the world that is created. Disbelief may be suspended, but never logic.
An excellent example in the UK is the newspaper "The Sun". It is written for ill educated, short attention span adults (much the same as children in so many ways). It is technically brilliant English writing because of that.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Well, you certainly seem to regard book 7 as little more than a screenplay in prose. On the contrary, I regard it as about as far from a screenplay as it is possible to get. It's got a lot of detail that would be irrelevant in a film, and the core narrative is not nearly tight enough. A few spectacular sequences do not make a film -- the ending, especially, will be very difficult to adapt because the duel is almost all exposition and no physical action.
To defend her use of 'contrived and irrelevant' plot detail a little -- there is more to a novel than the bare plot outline. You also need texture, which other authors might provide through literary prose and intricate description, but Rowling provides through otherwise mundane detail about the magical world and the activities of daily life of its inhabitants. It's tedious if you don't like it but I get the impression that most of her readers *do* like it -- it makes it more real to them, and is just fantastic enough to make it enjoyable. Like watching a soap opera, I suppose, though I don't mean it as uncharitably as that.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Screenplay? not in the true technical sense, no. A blank canvas for special effects people is what I see it as.
Creating 3 dimensions should not be by use of mundane minutiae. Nor should it be by plot sidetracks that lead nowhere and have no literary stratagem purpose.
Seven slim volumes would be fine. But at least we now have all that carbon locked down on shelves. Now, if it goes into landfill we might create coal seams for the future.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Timmy said,
>A blank canvas for special effects people is what I see it as
Hmm -- I don't. The special effects people will come along later, but first the director and the screenwriter(s) will go through hell trying to create a script that is self-contained and includes as many important plot details as possible. The CGI, locations and production design will be defined pretty strictly based upon what they choose, budget and the production design in previous films, so it's hardly a blank canvas.
You are welcome to have your own opinions on excessive and irrelevant detail, plot sidetracks and so on; I personally feel this is Rowling's greatest weakness. However, as a matter of principle, I don't think sideways plotting is *always* bad; the format of episodic television drama, for instance, may positively benefit from it. Of course, there is a slippery slope and I passionately dislike soap opera for that reason -- it's all minutiae and never, ever gets to the point.
On the whole, though, I have no objection to people who like Harry Potter and read Harry Potter -- if that's what they want to do, let them. I regard myself as outside the target audience so when I read it, I enjoy the parts I do, and forget about those I don't. That's the best way to approach a children's book. You don't find a huge number of the target audience criticising technical aspects of it, because it works for them, even though they might find themselves reconsidering in a few years. Like me and Enid Blyton, I suppose. But I regard Potter as better than Enid Blyton because I can actually tolerate reading it, whereas I find the Famous Five nowadays rather simplistic and silly.
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