Reference or Fiction? ~ JKR's Scottish Book
Something occurred to me last night, and maybe librarians out there can help me understand this. Is JKR's future encyclopedia going to be classified as Fiction or Reference?
We know that Steve Vander Ark's book is a straightforward "Lexicon" by any definition of the word, and cannot be "fiction" because it merely refers to JKR's books. In fact, it is criticized in the court papers for being "alphabetical" as if that is a flaw. However, in JKR's statements, she mentions having already written two "Companion Books," implying that her future "Scottish Book" would be in the same genre. Yet, a quick check of my local library website shows that Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages are listed as "Juvenile Fiction," not reference. They are fictional due to the format - being Harry Potter's school textbooks, written by fictional writers - and each has an introduction written by Albus Dumbledore, a fictional character. Quidditch is totally made up from JKR's imagination, while Fantastic Beasts has mythical beasts from human history listed alongside "invented" creatures, with JKR'sown fictional "spin" on them. So these "companion" books are not just reference, but new works of fiction in their own right.
JKR states that her future book is to be "definitive" and filled with details from her own notes, and she has stated in interviews that the backgrounds of all the characters will be revealed. In that respect, it sounds alot like The Silmarillion, the posthumous book of J. R. R. Tolkien, into which his son Christopher put not only stories, but a glossary of the Elvish language, maps of Middle Earth, and family trees of the Hobbits and Men. Fans use it as a reference book, yet once again, in my library it is classified as "Fiction." Books written by other people which merely "refer" to Tolkien's Books, such as A Tolkien Bestiary or A Complete Guide to Middle Earth are found in Reference, in the 828 section. Even The Annotated Hobbit which is simply the book with footnotes written by Douglas Anderson, is found in 828 and not fiction.
So my point is, how can Steve's Lexicon be compared to the future Scottish Book, which may be classified as "Fiction"? One of the arguments made in the Court papers is that the Lexicon is not scholarly enough, but will JKR's book be scholarly at all? Won't it just be her own literary vision once again - a fictional view of the HP World that she "invented" (to use her own word)? So how can these books be compared? They might not ever be on the same shelf in the library anyway, so what's the problem?
We know that Steve Vander Ark's book is a straightforward "Lexicon" by any definition of the word, and cannot be "fiction" because it merely refers to JKR's books. In fact, it is criticized in the court papers for being "alphabetical" as if that is a flaw. However, in JKR's statements, she mentions having already written two "Companion Books," implying that her future "Scottish Book" would be in the same genre. Yet, a quick check of my local library website shows that Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages are listed as "Juvenile Fiction," not reference. They are fictional due to the format - being Harry Potter's school textbooks, written by fictional writers - and each has an introduction written by Albus Dumbledore, a fictional character. Quidditch is totally made up from JKR's imagination, while Fantastic Beasts has mythical beasts from human history listed alongside "invented" creatures, with JKR'sown fictional "spin" on them. So these "companion" books are not just reference, but new works of fiction in their own right.
JKR states that her future book is to be "definitive" and filled with details from her own notes, and she has stated in interviews that the backgrounds of all the characters will be revealed. In that respect, it sounds alot like The Silmarillion, the posthumous book of J. R. R. Tolkien, into which his son Christopher put not only stories, but a glossary of the Elvish language, maps of Middle Earth, and family trees of the Hobbits and Men. Fans use it as a reference book, yet once again, in my library it is classified as "Fiction." Books written by other people which merely "refer" to Tolkien's Books, such as A Tolkien Bestiary or A Complete Guide to Middle Earth are found in Reference, in the 828 section. Even The Annotated Hobbit which is simply the book with footnotes written by Douglas Anderson, is found in 828 and not fiction.
So my point is, how can Steve's Lexicon be compared to the future Scottish Book, which may be classified as "Fiction"? One of the arguments made in the Court papers is that the Lexicon is not scholarly enough, but will JKR's book be scholarly at all? Won't it just be her own literary vision once again - a fictional view of the HP World that she "invented" (to use her own word)? So how can these books be compared? They might not ever be on the same shelf in the library anyway, so what's the problem?