(no subject)
All I hear from this article is "WAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAH! JK ROWLING IS SO POPULAR!"
So let me say that I’ve read the first three Potters and quite enjoyed them. Wholesome, decently paced and occasionally dark; you can easily while away a rainy hour or two in their company. What they lack is any feel for language, character and - crucially for a children’s book - the unexpected weirdness you find in, say, Alice in Wonderland.
I don't call myself the biggest fan of the Potter series, but I find his argument of judging Harry Potter as a whole from the first three books to be incredibly flawed. Is he not aware that the HP series kind of um, crucially change their tone somewhere before the end of Goblet of Fire? (And no, just knowing about the "concluding plotline in the Potter books about searching for Voldermort’s Horcruxes" doesn't count) Starting with Order of the Phoenix, the latter HP books aren't... quite as fun and fluffy as the first three, and deal with more "adult" subject matter as Harry Potter is getting older and Voldemort's power increases.
Judging HP by the first three books is like judging Lord of the Flies by its first chapters; it's like saying, "I read the first chapters of The Lord of the Flies. While I can understand its appeal as an adventure story, it can never hold up to 'true' stranded-on-an-island classics like Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson." Or watching the beginning of "Ringing Bell" and calling it "your typical cutesey animal story" without acknowledging that the second half of the movie is GRIMDARK AS FUCK and has no happy ending.
Yeah, kinda ruins the point you're trying to make, article writer.
Annnnnnnnnd my LJ icon pretty much explains how I've been feeling all week.
This post has been crossposted with Dreamwidth at http://shamanicshaymin.dreamwidth.org/19934.html. Pick your poison. Mwoiiiiiiiing~!
So let me say that I’ve read the first three Potters and quite enjoyed them. Wholesome, decently paced and occasionally dark; you can easily while away a rainy hour or two in their company. What they lack is any feel for language, character and - crucially for a children’s book - the unexpected weirdness you find in, say, Alice in Wonderland.
I don't call myself the biggest fan of the Potter series, but I find his argument of judging Harry Potter as a whole from the first three books to be incredibly flawed. Is he not aware that the HP series kind of um, crucially change their tone somewhere before the end of Goblet of Fire? (And no, just knowing about the "concluding plotline in the Potter books about searching for Voldermort’s Horcruxes" doesn't count) Starting with Order of the Phoenix, the latter HP books aren't... quite as fun and fluffy as the first three, and deal with more "adult" subject matter as Harry Potter is getting older and Voldemort's power increases.
Judging HP by the first three books is like judging Lord of the Flies by its first chapters; it's like saying, "I read the first chapters of The Lord of the Flies. While I can understand its appeal as an adventure story, it can never hold up to 'true' stranded-on-an-island classics like Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson." Or watching the beginning of "Ringing Bell" and calling it "your typical cutesey animal story" without acknowledging that the second half of the movie is GRIMDARK AS FUCK and has no happy ending.
Yeah, kinda ruins the point you're trying to make, article writer.
Annnnnnnnnd my LJ icon pretty much explains how I've been feeling all week.
This post has been crossposted with Dreamwidth at http://shamanicshaymin.dreamwidth.org/19934.html. Pick your poison. Mwoiiiiiiiing~!