Harry Potter and the LJ Fen
What a strange, strange place Livejournal has been these past few weeks, with the widespread anticipation and the elaborate spoiler-policy manifestos and the weird silence Saturday morning as everyone read words inked on paper for a change and the triumphant clocking-in as LJer after LJer proudly announced having finished speed-reading her way through the text...or, alternatively, posted her chapter-by-chapter experience of doing so, complete with late-night pizza cravings and necessity of defending said pizza from the cat (*waves at pandarus*).
And then the reactions...oh, the reactions! From the first bleary-eyed, caffeine-fuelled "OMG, I don't even know what I'm thinking" posts to the next day's all-nighter-headache-exacerbated "OMG, what was JKR thinking?" posts to the current round of rather better-rested and more moderate analyses--in which many LJers still seem to have read a completely different book from the one I did--to the inevitable cataloguing of notable outbursts at Fandom Wank (which I appear to have typed just now as Fandom Wandom): it's all like some grand, bizarre experiment in reception theory, just waiting to be studied.
I've been describing highlights of it to the bemused SO, especially the fierce intensity of the spoilerphobia on my f-list (which seems slightly over-the-top in retrospect, given that the majority of folks on that list seem to have required a mere five hours or less offline in order to swallow the book whole). I recalled the famous story of New Yorkers crowding the docks to ask arriving Londoners whether Little Nell had survived the latest instalment of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop--and I wondered whether we were all a bunch of high-maintenance spoilerwusses by comparison.
And then I recollected that wank is eternal, and that the conversation on those docks probably went like this:
New Yorkers (shouting up to the ship): What has happened to little Nell?
Londoners (weeping): She is dead! The poor sainted child is dead!
New Yorkers (weeping): No! She can't be! The little angel!
First NYer: OMG YOU HAVE ALL SPOILED ME WTF!!!!!!! Er, that is...how can you be so disagreeable as to reveal such a significant development to those of us who wish to read of it at our leisure?
Second NYer: Do not affect such surprise, ma'am! If you wished to remain innocent of the tale's outcome, then why are you standing in the midst of a vast crowd assembled for the purpose of discovering that very news?
First NYer: Why, I proceeded hence simply to keep company with my good friends: I did not conceive that any body here would show such a lack of consideration as to shout to the heavens the serial's denouement. You are as malicious and ill-natured as a bevy of malicious, ill-natured schoolgirls!
Third NYer: I fail to understand why you concern yourself with the fate of Little Nell at all. She is a poor, dull creature, and I much prefer Mr. Dickens's stories of youthful manly affection.
Fourth NYer: Oh, indeed! If only he would write more of Nicholas and Smike! Their manly affection is so beautiful and tragic.
Second NYer: But Smike is dead, madam! What more would you have him write?
First NYer: Smike is dead? OMGWTF!!! I mean to say, this is all so vexatious!
Third and Fourth NYers (ignoring First NYer): Do not say that Smike is dead! We have imaginations, sir, and in that realm of airy fancy we may picture him to be alive and happy and rewarded for his many years of hardship with the tender love of--
Second NYer: *looks narrowly at them*
Third NYer: --his, er, cousin. At any rate, my point is that the women in Mr. Dickens's novels are tiresome.
Second NYer: You yourself are a female and yet you despise your nobly-depicted fictional counterparts, in whom reside all the womanly virtues? It is most unnatural of you!
Fourth NYer: It is you who is unnatural, sir! If I had something vicious enough to which to compare your words--say, for example, the actions of some future totalitarian nationalist regime--I would do so. As it is, I am dumb with outrage.
Second NYer: Oh, why don't you go home and die of consumption in your parlours like proper gentlewomen, you insufferable bluestockings?
Dockworker: Come now, why abuse each other so indignantly over something so trivial? Why not shift your zeal to some worthier diversion?
All: TROLL!!!!
Or something along those lines. ;-)
*
And then the reactions...oh, the reactions! From the first bleary-eyed, caffeine-fuelled "OMG, I don't even know what I'm thinking" posts to the next day's all-nighter-headache-exacerbated "OMG, what was JKR thinking?" posts to the current round of rather better-rested and more moderate analyses--in which many LJers still seem to have read a completely different book from the one I did--to the inevitable cataloguing of notable outbursts at Fandom Wank (which I appear to have typed just now as Fandom Wandom): it's all like some grand, bizarre experiment in reception theory, just waiting to be studied.
I've been describing highlights of it to the bemused SO, especially the fierce intensity of the spoilerphobia on my f-list (which seems slightly over-the-top in retrospect, given that the majority of folks on that list seem to have required a mere five hours or less offline in order to swallow the book whole). I recalled the famous story of New Yorkers crowding the docks to ask arriving Londoners whether Little Nell had survived the latest instalment of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop--and I wondered whether we were all a bunch of high-maintenance spoilerwusses by comparison.
And then I recollected that wank is eternal, and that the conversation on those docks probably went like this:
New Yorkers (shouting up to the ship): What has happened to little Nell?
Londoners (weeping): She is dead! The poor sainted child is dead!
New Yorkers (weeping): No! She can't be! The little angel!
First NYer: OMG YOU HAVE ALL SPOILED ME WTF!!!!!!! Er, that is...how can you be so disagreeable as to reveal such a significant development to those of us who wish to read of it at our leisure?
Second NYer: Do not affect such surprise, ma'am! If you wished to remain innocent of the tale's outcome, then why are you standing in the midst of a vast crowd assembled for the purpose of discovering that very news?
First NYer: Why, I proceeded hence simply to keep company with my good friends: I did not conceive that any body here would show such a lack of consideration as to shout to the heavens the serial's denouement. You are as malicious and ill-natured as a bevy of malicious, ill-natured schoolgirls!
Third NYer: I fail to understand why you concern yourself with the fate of Little Nell at all. She is a poor, dull creature, and I much prefer Mr. Dickens's stories of youthful manly affection.
Fourth NYer: Oh, indeed! If only he would write more of Nicholas and Smike! Their manly affection is so beautiful and tragic.
Second NYer: But Smike is dead, madam! What more would you have him write?
First NYer: Smike is dead? OMGWTF!!! I mean to say, this is all so vexatious!
Third and Fourth NYers (ignoring First NYer): Do not say that Smike is dead! We have imaginations, sir, and in that realm of airy fancy we may picture him to be alive and happy and rewarded for his many years of hardship with the tender love of--
Second NYer: *looks narrowly at them*
Third NYer: --his, er, cousin. At any rate, my point is that the women in Mr. Dickens's novels are tiresome.
Second NYer: You yourself are a female and yet you despise your nobly-depicted fictional counterparts, in whom reside all the womanly virtues? It is most unnatural of you!
Fourth NYer: It is you who is unnatural, sir! If I had something vicious enough to which to compare your words--say, for example, the actions of some future totalitarian nationalist regime--I would do so. As it is, I am dumb with outrage.
Second NYer: Oh, why don't you go home and die of consumption in your parlours like proper gentlewomen, you insufferable bluestockings?
Dockworker: Come now, why abuse each other so indignantly over something so trivial? Why not shift your zeal to some worthier diversion?
All: TROLL!!!!
Or something along those lines. ;-)
*