You can’t compare J.K. Rowling’s books to great literature because she hasn’t written like anyone else.And I don’t think a 742-page book was exactly aimed at kids my age; it took me about two hours, just as an example.
JET, that wasn’t very nice. Don’t act my age, act yours.
Yes, it was specifically written for and marketed towards children your age and younger.
I found it sort of amusing and clever in some ways. But not anything that can replace the “Lord of the Rings” (which I read at about the appropriate Harry Potter" age) in the annals of true literature.
-L
HP cannot replace “Lord of the Rings” any more than “A Tale of Two Cities” can replace “Anna Karenina” or “Ivanhoe”. In all cases, the books are written about two very different things.
My implication was that the two works are not of the same caliber. I wasn’t suggesting that one great work of literature was capable of replacing another, but that one mediocre fantasy tale is not capable of being thought of along the same lines as a true work of art.
-L
My implication was that the two works are not of the same caliber. I wasn’t suggesting that one great work of literature was capable of replacing another, but that one mediocre fantasy tale is not capable of being thought of along the same lines as a true work of art.
And in any case…those books are written about THREE very different things.
-L
HP books aren’t great literature, but they’re pretty well written and they’re fun. I think the reason that they’re so amazingly popular, besides the fad hype, is that Rowling has crammed a little of every possible genre into those books. Do you like sports? school stories? friendship stories? animals? adventure? mystery? magic, even? Kids who don’t usually go for fantasy or fairy tales like it because the fantasy isn’t the only element. Smart move on her part–I haven’t seen it done so thoroughly before.
Whatever it is, some people are going to hate it. That’s just how things are. Try to produce something that won’t offend anyone, and you’ll get something virtually everyone dislikes. (The last presidential election is a great example. :D)
Actually, I think to compare the writing, it’d be more reasonable to compare the HP books to authors in the genre (young adult fantasy–my favorite author there is Dianna Wynne Jones).
The problems I have with the HP books are:
[ul][li]The great Prof. Dumbledore (head of the school, great wizard, etc.) is so clueless that he hires an obvious idiot to teach the “defense against the black arts” class in the second book. The incompetent instructor wastes the entire term while Dumbledore completely ignores the situation.the children never go to an adult for help, even when it’d be obvious that the adult should and would help. Though it is common in the genre to separate the adults from the children (geographically, or by casting suspicion on all the adults, etc.), it is really weak in the HP books.[/ul] Alloran, I suggest you read the work of Lloyd Alexander (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, etc.), Dianna Wynne Jones (The Dark Lord of Derkholm, Year of the Griffin, Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicions of Caprona, and many more), Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass), Susan Cooper (Over Sea, Under Stone; the rest of “The Dark is Rising” series), and a few others your librarian can recommend to you. You’ll see good writing then.[/li]
Though not exactly similar, I recommend Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card too.
Yes! I was trying to think of that authors name. I loved those when I was a kid.
As a brief hijack, is this really a “Great Debate”? Seems kind of Un-Great to me. And not much of a debate to boot.
-L
emarkp, I have already read most of the books you name.
[major hijack}
You read Goblet of Fire in 2 hours? 6.2 pages a minute?
:rolleyes:
I am a voracious reader and i run 65-70 pages an hour with a typical trade paperback. That is pretty fast last time I checked.
My sentiments exactly.
During a recent thread in the Pit, I posted this link. I and several other people find this to be truly scary: Fade
If you go to the LBMB, there are a large number of threads about Harry Potter. Most of them start with somebody saying something like “I’ve never read HP, but I’m sure that it is Satanic”. I think the main reason that people spread such ideas is that the mind control of the religious right is largely dependant on convincing people that various massive conspiracies are trying to destroy Christianity. Of course, when good Christian children are in danger, that only makes the threat more effective.
IMHO the Harry Potter series is, so far, nicely written for whatever age group they are targeted at. I assummed them to be children’s books from their good vs bad, not too many gray-area choices for the characters. I enjoyed reading them over my Christmas break—a nice change from all the pathophys and meds, and a gift from my SO. While not poorly written, though, I can’t see Hogwarts the way I can see The Shire, and the Sorting Hat’s poems are pretty forgettable compared to the Lay of Tunuviel.
And reading GOF in 2 hours…120 minutes…my copy has 734 pages…at a minute a page, that’s 734 minutes…that’s over 12 hours…let’s say 30 seconds a page?..that’s around 6 hours…maybe you thought that book was better written than I did because you only spent 10 seconds on a page while I spent more like a minute and a half, maybe longer. Or I’ve read more books than you have?
Leave Alloran alone. It’s just a message board.
It’s a message boards designed for intelligent debate, which he seems to want to interrupt.
Kyo, its a message board based on facts. He’s welcome, but under the stated tone and rules of the board. He wants to play in GD, he needs to be able to back up debates with facts. Not randomly spout opinions. (That’s IMHO, a place close and dear to my heart, admittedly)
The fastest I’ve ever read an entire book is Billy by Whitley Shrieber = 6 hours. Cover to cover in one sitting. 317 pages which equals about 50pg/hr. Smashed the old record held by Dean R. Koontz’s Lightning (14 hours, approx. 35pg/hr) and Stephen King’s IT (30 hours, 36pg/hr). And I’m a pretty fast reader.
The fact someone 1/2 my age can read six times faster than me seems…strange.
alloran, that’s an impressive list of books read for your age. I didn’t read Dostoyefsky or Dickens until high school, and I was in the Advanced class. You must be very, very smart for your age.
Which is odd, because your erudition doesn’t seem to match.
I’m just sayin’, is all.
J.E.T.
Ah - the childish belief that the longer the book, the more “grown up” it is. And how long is Candide by Voltaire my young friend?
742 pages of story written for children is still a child’s book, m’fraid.
And she hasn’t written like anyone else? Nonsense. Read some of Terry Pratchett’s early works and see where half the concepts derive from.
pan
ps I’d also express surprise at that reading speed. I’d have thought that spending a lifetime revising for exams, struggling to do far too many subjects at once and needing to brief myself on 50 page documents in an hour before a meeting had taught me the skills of skimreading, information absorption and downright fast reading. But Goblet of Fire still took me half a week’s reading whilst lying on a beach on holiday.
Nevertheless, suggesting that it is a fast read merely reinforces the point that it is not a complex read. Any book densely layered with characterization and grey areas would not be read so quickly.
pan
Well, folks, perhaps this will help you to understand our underaged friend alloran. His family are voracious readers. He himself is frequently immersed in between three and six books at any one point in time. Having met him and had reading contest . . . he’s beaten me, and it took me about four hours to read Doomspell Tournament. Now, granted, I didn’t read at lightning pace, but he does, when it comes down to natural reading speed, read faster than I do. It’s mostly because my eyes are faster than his that I can speedread better.
Now, to try and get back to the OP: people hate HP books for any number of reasons. Among them are certainly the (preposterous, to me) notions that they promote witchcraft/satanism/whatever-the-hell-else, and that they are somehow evil or harboring evil in youngsters and such. Then you have the fact that several religious groups have condemned the books. Then you have your nuts. And people who don’t like 'em out of jealousy toward Rowling. Go figger.
Not unless alloran only read the book once and got everything possible from it. Having read Doomspell tournament at least three times so far, I still think I have about a quarter of the important stuff left to fully saturate into my brain. I’ve read #s 1 and 3 three times or so each, and #2 once, and that’s my weakest knowledge right there. You can read a book more than once, y’know:-)