One of my New Year's Resolutions (begun a couple of months early) is to read more YA spec-fic. Why? I enjoy it, for one thing. For another, I've been wondering if this is the audience I should target in my own fiction. Many of my stories lately have had YA protagonists. We'll see.
Anyway, I've read maybe ten or so YA novels this year, most recently Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters Vol. 1: The Secret Hour. Teenager Jessica Day and her family move from Chicago to Bixby, Oklahoma for what could yield nothing but extreme culture shock. Big-city Jessica is suddenly elevated to the top of the popularity list at Bixby High, but a few of the stranger kids are keeping their distance. They know something's not right about Jessica.
Jessica discovers that she's a Midnighter, one of a select few who can live in a secret 25th hour each night at midnight, while the rest of the world is frozen in time. Weird things happen during this hour and not just to Jessica. But Jessica seems to be the only Midnighter who doesn't know her purpose in the 25th hour.
Midnighters is my first experience with Westerfeld and it's overall a good one. He sets up a creepy atmosphere and places in it teenagers that act and talk (for the most part) like real teenagers with real problems. The pacing is good and the story imaginative. I was never bored and I cared about the characters.
And it has depth. The novel takes a look at what it means to be a teenager no one understands, no matter how hard they try. In a way, they are alone in their own complex world and Westerfeld understands this. I think many teens will read this book and relate to it, far more than they relate to Harry Potter. Which brings up a brief digression...
Casual readers (usually parents) ask me all the time what I think of the Harry Potter books. They're good reads, I tell them. The pages turn, you have fun and you put the book down. But there's no depth. There's no great use of language. Nothing sticks with you.
There are so many YA books being written today that DO have depth, that DO utilize wonderfully written prose, that DO stick with you because they MEAN something. (Don't tell me Harry Potter "means" something. Every kid in the world feels like he's walking in a world of Muggles.)
Westerfeld does a pretty good job in all of these areas. Yet as much as I enjoyed the book, I could never get away from the feeling that The Secret Hour's entire premise was to discover Jessica's hidden power so that the series could really get going in future volumes. I suppose that's just the way things happen in introductory books: you learn where you are, who the characters are, and what's at stake. Westerfeld gives us all of that, but I have a feeling that the really good stuff will be revealed in Book 2 and 3.
Now Playing = Secret Story – Pat Metheny Group
Now Reading = Veniss Underground – Jeff VanderMeer
5 comments:
LOL! Tell that to the people who put out an entire book discussing the various philosophies and deeper meanings found in the Harry Potter series (they also put out books on LOTR, The Simpsons, Star Wars, Buffy the vampire slayer, Superheros, etc.)
Although I haven't read the Harry Potter philosophy book, we did have to read the LOTR's one for my LOTR class back in undergrad. It is a pretty decent book with some thoughtful criticism and ideas.
So I'll assume the Harry Potter one is the same.
You can also check out Sparknotes.com, which lists the Harry Potter books alongside other "great works" of Literature. They break down the themes, motifs chapter by chapter just like they would a Shakespeare play or any other important book you have to read for school.
I was very surprised to see Harry Potter books among these free guides.
I read few a couple. There is no denying that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets certainly deals with Racism/intolerance for example. If you read down through each Harry Potter book you'll notice each one has a different major theme.
Trent mentioned briefly in my blog that some has suggested Harry Potter = an anti-neofacist novel (not his own beliefs). I had never thought of this before, but the second he mentioned it, I could definitely see why some people might pick up on this thread: Voldemart and the old wizarding world trying to establish a conservative society of wizards. Then add some of the themes from previous novels (found completely seperate by people who never espouse Harry Potter as a rant againt Neo-Fascism), like the racist theme in the 2nd book (racism is a major part of certain Fascist ideology) and again you begin to wonder if there might be something to this.
Seperate learned person/scholars are picking up on different themes, but they are all strangely related.
Now, I don't know where I stand on the Harry Potter novels as regards to their depth (I'm certainly not a Harvard Grad Student like the people who write Sparknotes.com), but I will say this...
I'm a firm believer that almost every book/movie/etc. means something, has a deeper theme at its core. Don't care if we are talking Harry Potter, something by Charles Dickens, or a Star Wars novel.
The real question for me is although Harry Potter might have an anti-fascist theme (overall), a coming-of-age theme (certainly Harry Potter has one of those and perhaps every YA novel does to some extent), or whatever, does the novel add something new, something thought-provoking to that theme? Get you to think about it a new way?
That is what depth, really is, in my opinion. Every book is about something other than its plot (usually), but not every book tries to add something new to the discussion.
See, to say Harry Potter is about Anti-fascism (overall), anti-racism (especially the 2nd book) is not actually that far fetched. The series and books are definitely about those things. But to say whether it adds something new to these theme and makes one really think about them is something else entirely.
I can't really say one way or the other. I would have to read more of the perceived philosophy in the books, read more of the scholarly articles, etc.
But it would seem to me that Harry Potter is starting to be regarded by many as a "deeper read." It may also suggest why it has such a strong adult market outside of its primary YA and children audience.
It has an entire book of philosophy now printed on it, it has Sparknotes writing cheat sheets and analysis of deeper themes on it (Harvard Grad Students), and I've seen articles appearing in Mythlore (the official scholarly 'zine for Tolkien, Lewis, and a few other highly regarded Fantasies). So it seems the scholars are picking up on Harry Potter.
Look, you can find philosophy and the meaning of life in a Bugs Bunny cartoon if you look hard enough. Fill up libraries on Harry Potter commentaries too, while you're at it.
You want to compare LOTR to Harry Potter? In economic terms, yeah, maybe. But I think Tolkien is a little higher level of literature than HP, don't you? Also you have to realize that LOTR has stood the test of time (even before the films). Harry Potter hasn't, at least not yet.
An aside - I deal in used books everyday and look at what people want to get rid of. I rarely see Tolkien. I see Harry Potter books by the hundreds. Sure, that's not representative of everyone, but it's a pretty good indicator.
Yes, most all forms of fiction do have a deeper meaning. For the benefit of argument, maybe those issues and themes you mentioned are in the Potter books. Maybe Sparknotes, Scholastic and Harvard University Press are all looking for and publishing (and profiting from) the deeper meaning in the Harry Potter books. But deeper meaning is just one aspect.
What about character development? What about use of language? What about tone? How does setting relate to character? To theme? To plot?
All I'm saying in my blog is that other books do these things better. Let me name a few:
Thirsty – M.T. Anderson
Growing Wings – Laurel Winter
The House of the Scorpion – Nancy Farmer
(Not to mention Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time which I reread this year and has stood the test of time.)
But with the exception of A Wrinkle in Time, nobody's writing about them. Sure, read Potter, look for the deeper meaning. My argument is that Potter isn't all there is. It's hot, it's profitable, and ANYTHING written on Potter is going to get published. But it's such a small part of the YA (and adult) reading universe... It's the equivalent of ignoring the greatest films of the past hundred years so you can watch the Star Wars trilogies for the 36th time.
What about character development? What about use of language? What about tone? How does setting relate to character? To theme? To plot?
Well, like I said before I personally don't know how I feel about the depth to be found in the Harry Potter books.
I would argue, though, that the characters and setting are well-concieved. The characters in particular do demonstrate depth, have grown between books, have multiple levels to them. There is also definite emotional resonance with the characters. A sign of a powerful book (outside of just an entertaining plot).
As for who decides what maketh literature and a deep book, not me nor yourself. I had this argument fairly recently with Trent over the value of a PhD. A discussion is probably a better word than an "argument."
It was only when you brought this up that I remembered the Mythlore thing.
Sure, A Harry Potter and Philosophy book might mean nothing or Sparknotes analyzing the books. My thought, too, was they could be motivated by money.
But the Mythlore appearances of Harry Potter books is interesting. Mythlore before Harry Potter was primarily a scholarly publication for Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia (it still is primarly a scholarly journal for those two books). This isn't a new scholarly journal, it is many issues old and probably one of the leading scholarly journals for analysis of The Lord of the Rings.
And now some professors are writing criticism on Harry Potter, which is appearing in Mythlore alongside LOTR and Narnia.
It is not my place to discern whether Harry Potter is deeper than LOTR. I certainly have my own opinions, but that isn't what is important.
The Mythlore appearances are the interesting factor in all this. The others might be motivated by profit, but I don't think the Mythlore articles would be. Other scholars are going to be looking at it; a person might stake their whole career on writing about Harry Potter and being laughed at by their fellow scholars.
But nonetheless I've seen in Mythlore table of contents criticism on Harry Potter.
By the way. Here is an upcoming list of what will be appearing in Mythlore:
Table of Contents of Next Issue:
His Dark Materials: A Look into Pullman's Interpretation of Milton's Paradise Lost (Karen D. Robinson)
A Note on Charles Williams's Phillida (Joe R. Christopher)
Lewis's Screwtape Letters: The Ascetic Devil and the Aesthetic God (Larry D. Harwood)
"The young perish and the old linger, withering": J.R.R. Tolkien on World War II (Janet Brennan Croft)
The Lord of the Rings as Elegy (Patrice Hannon)
A Larger World: C. S. Lewis on Christianity and Literature (Don Williams)
So Familiar, Yet So Strange: Mythic Shadows of the Medieval Gawain-Romance in Iris Murdoch’s Green Knight (Carla Arnell)
About the Contributors
Forthcoming Articles
Forbidden Forest, Enchanted Castle: Arthurian Spaces in the Harry Potter Novels (Alessandra Petrina)
From Hades to Heaven: Greek Mythological Influences in C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair (Amanda M. Niedbala)
Heorot or Meduseld?: Tolkien's Use of Beowulf in "The King of the Golden Hall" (Michael R. Kightley)
Hermeticism and the Metaphysics of Goodness in the Novels of Charles Williams (Scott McLaren)
The Golden Key: A Double Reading (Bonnie Gaarden)
Haggard’s She: Burke’s Sublime in a Popular Romance (Dale J. Nelson)
‘In My End is My Beginning’: the Fin-Negans motif in George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind (Catherine Persyn)
Reimagining Rose: Portrayals of Tolkien’s Rosie Cotton in Twenty-First Century Fan Fiction (Amy H. Sturgis, PhD)
Tolkien in the Land of Arthur: the Old Forest Episode from The Lord of the Rings (Corinne Zemmour)
Debbie and I very much enjoy the Harry Potter books, and have been pleased with the 1st three movies -- will see the new one in IMAX format on Turkey Day. We read and watch a lot of other stuff, too, and while it is in the nature of genre stuff to wade through a certain amount of crap, nay to even revel it in occasionally (grin), we both think there is both more to Harry Potter than some of the critics think and wish it really was treated as more of a "gateway drug" for young (and old) readers than it is.
I read a review of the new movie which said finally we get Harry doing some serious proving himself worthy -- that he's mainly along for the ride in the earlier films. But in the first story, he's only just learned that he's from wizard stock. He doesn't know anything. He's our As You Know, Bob, for wizarding. And the author has weaved in some details which show she had a plot arc to work with, and for YA readers who've never dealt with complexity before, it's a revelation.
Sure it's a stereotype -- British public school is a very familiar setting, even if it's Hogwarts. And yes you can find better writing -- we re-read A Wrinkle in Time the other year when we discovered there was another book in the series. But I can tell you why you can find so many used HP's -- people are buying them who aren't book hoarders.
Amongst my friends, we don't know anyone who can say, "I have bookshelf space I just don't know what to do with." Read books, breathe -- it's all the same. I'm almost envious of the girls in the anime series R.O.D. the TV with all their books.
HP's success is that so many people are reading them/watching them who didn't/haven't read/watch things like this before. And a significant percentage are moving on.
I guess what I'm saying is that there is FAR worse crap out there, that you can do worse than adore Harry Potter. And as long as you're talking about fans, you're not going to necessarily talk sensibly (grin).
So I'm probably not disputing your point here, merely saying I think there is, whether by intent or accident, more to HP than just pop stardom.
Dr. Phil
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