Distance and perfection
Ok, I guess now I can no longer deny it: I'm no real author. And I'm no real fan of Harry Potter. At least if I understand JKR correctly.
As most of you will know: yesterday she wrote in her Diary on her site:
I always knew that Harry's story would end with the seventh book, but saying goodbye has been just as hard as I always knew it would be. Even while I'm mourning, though, I feel an incredible sense of achievement. I can hardly believe that I've finally written the ending I've been planning for so many years. I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric.
Some of you have expressed a (much more muted!) mixture of happiness and sadness at the prospect of the last book being published, and that has meant more than I can tell you.
Well, with whatever I wrote, as far as I can remember: once I had it out: I just felt relieved (and sometimes even happy), not mournful: something had been accomplished, and the text I had been dealing with now had grown up enough to get out of the house and to lead a life of its own, living or dying according to its readers, no longer under control of its author. This is probably due to the fact, that any I publish manifests just one way I could have written about a certain issue, a variant chosen for more or less contingent reasons, some sort of capriccio that helped me to learn and to think clearer about some issues while researching and writing it, but that had fulfilled that mission and usefulness for me when I finished it, and which now was/is on a different mission: to (perhaps) permit its readers to think thoughts they would not have thought had they nor read (and discussed and/or criticised and/or rejected and/or refuted) said text. Once finished/published the burden is on the (prospective) readers: it's their text now. It's no longer my text. It is a text written by somebody who I was yesterday, and who I am no longer having finished it: I'm free again, and that's a good thing.
Besides: probably I've dealt far too long with some interpretations of Aristotle not to believe that what is completed is generally better than what is not completed. And: According to Averroes (Commentum Magnum super Metaphysicam Aristotelis, liber X, commentum 29 (at least according to Marcus Antonius Zimara's Tabula dilucidationum, in dictis Aristotelis, & Averrois : Venetiis apud Iunctas 1562 (that's the octavo edition), f. 311a)) f. 311ra: perfect is that which has an end (Perfectum est habens finem, cf. etiam 3 Phys. t.c.64: Perfectum autem nullum est finem non habens: nothing that's unfinished is perfect).
Such differences in attitude probably are not the only reason why my texts have a few fewer readers than JKR's texts, but, they might be an indication that I am no true author. I'm somebody who (sometimes) writes (something), but I'm no writer. I create texts, but I don't author "works" (although the German librarians' rulebook, the Regeln für alphabetische Katalogisierung think differently).
All this probably shapes my approach to reading and interpreting texts too.
I was, to be honest, neither happy nor unhappy about the publication date for DH. I'm not happy nor unhappy about the hour of sunrise either. Publication of HP7 is not exactly an unexpected event. It's a month later than I had expected it to be. That's all.
This attitude obviously shows that I'm no model fan of JKR's. But as I have been somehow moving out of mainstream HP fandom for probably something like a year (yes, there were some events in February last year …) - or mainstream fandom has gone more mainstream than I'm willing to swim - I'll have to live with that. And I don't even suffer.
DH will be published a month later than I had expected it to be. That's all. No it isn't.
JKR continues to write:
If it comes as any consolation, I think that there will be plenty to continue arguing and speculating about, even after 'Deathly Hallows' comes out. So if you're not yet ready to quit the message boards, do not despair...
I admit: I'm a bit puzzled: arguing certainly: plenty of arguments: certainly. JKR's books are good enough to be open to various interpretations and thus to argumentation and even arguments. But speculating? Speculations about what? Once DH is published the HP series is closed, finished, perfect: none will come thereafter: we then have the texts and we'll interpret them. From July 21st onwards: All interpretations will have to be based on the texts we have by then. Any hint or information JKR might give after that date would be either in the genre of commentary (which, in spite of the authority of JKR, would have to be considered as commentary, as a possible help for interpretation, but not as a basis for interpretation). If we wonder what house Gilderoy Lockhart was in (some person reading this journal from time to time made a IMO very plausible guess about this) we'll have to discuss it taking the texts as a basis, and no statement by whomsoever could make me accept an answer that does not seem plausible to me from the basic "canon" itself. (I know from my own experience as an author talking to a reader that a critic can have more and better insight into a text - or at least some important aspects of a text - than the person who wrote that text.)
A second edition, with some additional information and perhaps some other changes would be a second variant of the basic "canon", but it would not change interpretations of the first variant of the basic "canon", the one we will have in our hands on July 21st.
From July 21st the HP series (at least in its first variant) will be finished, perfected, completed, complete. Something like an "abgeschlossenes Sammelgebiet": a field were no new additions are possible.
IMO that's a good thing.
Because it permits us to study it as something stable, something complete: the (core of the) Potterverse will have become permanent enough to use it for studies of aspects that were far more difficult to study before.
And I intend to do so: In winter 2007/2008 I intend to teach a seminar on something like "Sorting the Potterverse: HP philosophy according to classical schools" (on whether LV is a "sophist", AD is a "Platonist", whether MoMrule is rule according to a mixed constitution, whether Harry himself is an "epicurean", whether Lucius Malfoy read Cicero's "De officiis" the right way, whether the whole Potterverse is "premodern", "prerinascimental" even, etc.).
So: in spite of being no true author and no true fan of Harry Potter's: I still remain a grateful reader who's looking forward to reading DH.
Admiring the perfection(s) of J.K. Rowling from some distance(s) ….
As most of you will know: yesterday she wrote in her Diary on her site:
I always knew that Harry's story would end with the seventh book, but saying goodbye has been just as hard as I always knew it would be. Even while I'm mourning, though, I feel an incredible sense of achievement. I can hardly believe that I've finally written the ending I've been planning for so many years. I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric.
Some of you have expressed a (much more muted!) mixture of happiness and sadness at the prospect of the last book being published, and that has meant more than I can tell you.
Well, with whatever I wrote, as far as I can remember: once I had it out: I just felt relieved (and sometimes even happy), not mournful: something had been accomplished, and the text I had been dealing with now had grown up enough to get out of the house and to lead a life of its own, living or dying according to its readers, no longer under control of its author. This is probably due to the fact, that any I publish manifests just one way I could have written about a certain issue, a variant chosen for more or less contingent reasons, some sort of capriccio that helped me to learn and to think clearer about some issues while researching and writing it, but that had fulfilled that mission and usefulness for me when I finished it, and which now was/is on a different mission: to (perhaps) permit its readers to think thoughts they would not have thought had they nor read (and discussed and/or criticised and/or rejected and/or refuted) said text. Once finished/published the burden is on the (prospective) readers: it's their text now. It's no longer my text. It is a text written by somebody who I was yesterday, and who I am no longer having finished it: I'm free again, and that's a good thing.
Besides: probably I've dealt far too long with some interpretations of Aristotle not to believe that what is completed is generally better than what is not completed. And: According to Averroes (Commentum Magnum super Metaphysicam Aristotelis, liber X, commentum 29 (at least according to Marcus Antonius Zimara's Tabula dilucidationum, in dictis Aristotelis, & Averrois : Venetiis apud Iunctas 1562 (that's the octavo edition), f. 311a)) f. 311ra: perfect is that which has an end (Perfectum est habens finem, cf. etiam 3 Phys. t.c.64: Perfectum autem nullum est finem non habens: nothing that's unfinished is perfect).
Such differences in attitude probably are not the only reason why my texts have a few fewer readers than JKR's texts, but, they might be an indication that I am no true author. I'm somebody who (sometimes) writes (something), but I'm no writer. I create texts, but I don't author "works" (although the German librarians' rulebook, the Regeln für alphabetische Katalogisierung think differently).
All this probably shapes my approach to reading and interpreting texts too.
I was, to be honest, neither happy nor unhappy about the publication date for DH. I'm not happy nor unhappy about the hour of sunrise either. Publication of HP7 is not exactly an unexpected event. It's a month later than I had expected it to be. That's all.
This attitude obviously shows that I'm no model fan of JKR's. But as I have been somehow moving out of mainstream HP fandom for probably something like a year (yes, there were some events in February last year …) - or mainstream fandom has gone more mainstream than I'm willing to swim - I'll have to live with that. And I don't even suffer.
DH will be published a month later than I had expected it to be. That's all. No it isn't.
JKR continues to write:
If it comes as any consolation, I think that there will be plenty to continue arguing and speculating about, even after 'Deathly Hallows' comes out. So if you're not yet ready to quit the message boards, do not despair...
I admit: I'm a bit puzzled: arguing certainly: plenty of arguments: certainly. JKR's books are good enough to be open to various interpretations and thus to argumentation and even arguments. But speculating? Speculations about what? Once DH is published the HP series is closed, finished, perfect: none will come thereafter: we then have the texts and we'll interpret them. From July 21st onwards: All interpretations will have to be based on the texts we have by then. Any hint or information JKR might give after that date would be either in the genre of commentary (which, in spite of the authority of JKR, would have to be considered as commentary, as a possible help for interpretation, but not as a basis for interpretation). If we wonder what house Gilderoy Lockhart was in (some person reading this journal from time to time made a IMO very plausible guess about this) we'll have to discuss it taking the texts as a basis, and no statement by whomsoever could make me accept an answer that does not seem plausible to me from the basic "canon" itself. (I know from my own experience as an author talking to a reader that a critic can have more and better insight into a text - or at least some important aspects of a text - than the person who wrote that text.)
A second edition, with some additional information and perhaps some other changes would be a second variant of the basic "canon", but it would not change interpretations of the first variant of the basic "canon", the one we will have in our hands on July 21st.
From July 21st the HP series (at least in its first variant) will be finished, perfected, completed, complete. Something like an "abgeschlossenes Sammelgebiet": a field were no new additions are possible.
IMO that's a good thing.
Because it permits us to study it as something stable, something complete: the (core of the) Potterverse will have become permanent enough to use it for studies of aspects that were far more difficult to study before.
And I intend to do so: In winter 2007/2008 I intend to teach a seminar on something like "Sorting the Potterverse: HP philosophy according to classical schools" (on whether LV is a "sophist", AD is a "Platonist", whether MoMrule is rule according to a mixed constitution, whether Harry himself is an "epicurean", whether Lucius Malfoy read Cicero's "De officiis" the right way, whether the whole Potterverse is "premodern", "prerinascimental" even, etc.).
So: in spite of being no true author and no true fan of Harry Potter's: I still remain a grateful reader who's looking forward to reading DH.
Admiring the perfection(s) of J.K. Rowling from some distance(s) ….