(reading as children)
Aug. 7th, 2005 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI was reading fandom_wank out of sheer masochism again, and for the first time like, ever, someone said something that made me think, and not in the 'wtfeth??!' sort of way which has so tired me.
Basically, this is a tangent as to whether one could classify the HP books as children's books, and what that might mean. I have never really had a solid opinion on whether they are or not-- I can be convinced either way, and there's a quote that implies JKR does find them to be children's books, dark and increasingly muddled with adult elements though they are, though before I thought she said she wrote them without an audience in mind.
That isn't what's interesting, though. Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
white_serpent said,
Beginning with book 4, though, the characters are older, and we expect more of the world surrounding them. But we don't get it. It's the same world which works on some levels and is gosh-wow! magic on others. It's the "gosh-wow! magic" bits that cause the problems. Healing magic? Mind/memory magic? These are neat conveniences, but they have wider implications that one can only conclude Rowling has not pondered.
To make them work, you need to read the books as you read when you're a child-- just accept the world for what it is. Accept the characters are supposed to be likeable because the book tells you they are. The instant I start applying critical thought to any of those factors, they fall apart.
And something just clicked in my head-- why the deconstructive (rather than just speculative) type of HP meta itself has dissatisfied me for so long, and that's just it: it messes with the ability (or desire) to read as children and thus to have the story -or- the HP world itself really -work- in one's mind to its fullest capacity. And this is regardless of whether they're children's books or not.
Possibly this does nothing but explain how -I- feel, because I myself find that yeah, the books fall apart for me if I start applying critical, deconstructive thought too much and try to find out how they work-- the ethical/magical/world-building elements just don't hold up that well under real pressure, and yet there's also a feeling like I don't -have- to be disappointed if I just-- suspend my disbelief (which not everyone can... but perhaps that, more than anything, is why some books are meant for children). It's sort of like discovering that pretty birdsong you hear is just a wind-up toy with stuck-on parts and a broken foot.
In my case, HP demonstrated this dichotomy between ways of reading especially clearly, because before I was seduced by the H/D fandom, when I first looked at the books, I'd refused to read past the first 10 pages because it just didn't make any sense, and in a way I felt the book was insulting my intelligence. And after some time in fandom... I found I loved Harry and his world so much that nearly everything in it delighted me and amused me. What might once have seemed ham-fisted now appeared quirky and fun-- or perhaps more importantly, I was so used to the Dursleys from fanfic, say, I was able to accept them in the books as just a part of Harry's life. It's just... the way they are.
With some children's books, like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan or the Narnia books and most especially fairy-tales of all kinds, they can definitely be both enjoyed and analyzed, though... I just don't get that same feeling with HP. Even with my class on Narnia and the other one on Alice and The Water-Babies and The Jungle Book, I felt... I don't know, entirely too grown-up. I don't know how else to explain it.
I can't help but feel that their strongest magic resides in the sheer glee of belief. When I read them, their worlds and characters become utterly real to me, the same way rocks and trees and clouds are real, and I get completely carried away from myself, to a world where literally anything is possible. And I admit that for all my attraction, emulation, admiration and deep respect for reason and doubt, I compulsively read YA fantasy in the first place because my first love has always been my sense of wonder.
~~
Also, I'm really starting to feel... like maybe there's a connection between liking strong, brave, intelligent girls as heroines (often dismissed by fandom because they're 'too perfect' and 'unrealistic' and Mary Sue-ish), and reading 'as a child'-- that is, looking up in some way, admiring, thinking of the glorious future when you could have adventures and be everything you ever wanted to be.
I still love characters like that, of course, and I don't think I always read blindly-- I just happen to love strong, self-possessed (bitchy also helps) women characters. I always liked heroes of all sorts, and since I definitely identified with being a girl, I looked for girls to admire and identify with, and there weren't a lot. When I grew older, it took more and more to make me really admire someone, I guess, but a part of me... is still willing to be wowed by fiery girls, in real life or in stories. Even when I got older, I don't think I really stopped looking for the truth in everything too good to be true.
Basically, this is a tangent as to whether one could classify the HP books as children's books, and what that might mean. I have never really had a solid opinion on whether they are or not-- I can be convinced either way, and there's a quote that implies JKR does find them to be children's books, dark and increasingly muddled with adult elements though they are, though before I thought she said she wrote them without an audience in mind.
That isn't what's interesting, though. Then
white_serpent said,Beginning with book 4, though, the characters are older, and we expect more of the world surrounding them. But we don't get it. It's the same world which works on some levels and is gosh-wow! magic on others. It's the "gosh-wow! magic" bits that cause the problems. Healing magic? Mind/memory magic? These are neat conveniences, but they have wider implications that one can only conclude Rowling has not pondered.
To make them work, you need to read the books as you read when you're a child-- just accept the world for what it is. Accept the characters are supposed to be likeable because the book tells you they are. The instant I start applying critical thought to any of those factors, they fall apart.
And something just clicked in my head-- why the deconstructive (rather than just speculative) type of HP meta itself has dissatisfied me for so long, and that's just it: it messes with the ability (or desire) to read as children and thus to have the story -or- the HP world itself really -work- in one's mind to its fullest capacity. And this is regardless of whether they're children's books or not.
Possibly this does nothing but explain how -I- feel, because I myself find that yeah, the books fall apart for me if I start applying critical, deconstructive thought too much and try to find out how they work-- the ethical/magical/world-building elements just don't hold up that well under real pressure, and yet there's also a feeling like I don't -have- to be disappointed if I just-- suspend my disbelief (which not everyone can... but perhaps that, more than anything, is why some books are meant for children). It's sort of like discovering that pretty birdsong you hear is just a wind-up toy with stuck-on parts and a broken foot.
In my case, HP demonstrated this dichotomy between ways of reading especially clearly, because before I was seduced by the H/D fandom, when I first looked at the books, I'd refused to read past the first 10 pages because it just didn't make any sense, and in a way I felt the book was insulting my intelligence. And after some time in fandom... I found I loved Harry and his world so much that nearly everything in it delighted me and amused me. What might once have seemed ham-fisted now appeared quirky and fun-- or perhaps more importantly, I was so used to the Dursleys from fanfic, say, I was able to accept them in the books as just a part of Harry's life. It's just... the way they are.
With some children's books, like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan or the Narnia books and most especially fairy-tales of all kinds, they can definitely be both enjoyed and analyzed, though... I just don't get that same feeling with HP. Even with my class on Narnia and the other one on Alice and The Water-Babies and The Jungle Book, I felt... I don't know, entirely too grown-up. I don't know how else to explain it.
I can't help but feel that their strongest magic resides in the sheer glee of belief. When I read them, their worlds and characters become utterly real to me, the same way rocks and trees and clouds are real, and I get completely carried away from myself, to a world where literally anything is possible. And I admit that for all my attraction, emulation, admiration and deep respect for reason and doubt, I compulsively read YA fantasy in the first place because my first love has always been my sense of wonder.
~~
Also, I'm really starting to feel... like maybe there's a connection between liking strong, brave, intelligent girls as heroines (often dismissed by fandom because they're 'too perfect' and 'unrealistic' and Mary Sue-ish), and reading 'as a child'-- that is, looking up in some way, admiring, thinking of the glorious future when you could have adventures and be everything you ever wanted to be.
I still love characters like that, of course, and I don't think I always read blindly-- I just happen to love strong, self-possessed (bitchy also helps) women characters. I always liked heroes of all sorts, and since I definitely identified with being a girl, I looked for girls to admire and identify with, and there weren't a lot. When I grew older, it took more and more to make me really admire someone, I guess, but a part of me... is still willing to be wowed by fiery girls, in real life or in stories. Even when I got older, I don't think I really stopped looking for the truth in everything too good to be true.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-07 08:44 pm (UTC)And in terms of magic I've always thought obviously they worked on a childlike level: a Pensieve works the way a child would think about memories: what if you could just take the memory and show it to someone else? You don't think through the physics of it, like how far one could wander and whether it's objective. It's just instinctual.
When it comes to subversive readings and deconstruction, and thinking about which people are good or bad, then children do those things as much as adults do. Why wouldn't a child respond to these characters using their own thoughts? They're not so passive as that. In fact, I think some of the discussions the "grown-ups" have in HP are childish--like when people seem to think it's analysis to talk about whether or not they're going to "forgive" Snape for what he did or how dreadful whatever character is so that they deserve what they got, or how whatever another character did is justified. Like anybody cares whether you personally want to be friends with a character or not!
But questioning where characters are coming from...I think that's something children do with HP just as adults do. Certain types of analysis and deconstruction are more adult, but questioning what they're learning from the story seems exactly the type of thing many kids enjoy doing. They might not always have the same perspective as an adult, but they might bring their own. And sometimes those adult perspectives are, imo, there in the text even if kids don't see them or can't quite understand them yet.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-07 09:07 pm (UTC)At least, I wasn't thinking of how children respond to books-- well, I mean, I have only myself to go by. There's definitely no lack of opinion & individual reaction, but it's just more likely to be the simpler reaction that accepts more 'as is', and thus follows the story's indended path or goes against it but on the story's terms, still. I'm not sure-- I agree that adults' reactions can often be childish, but that's not the same as child-like, which makes me think less of tantrums and projection & more of being swept away...?
I can only say (about myself) that questioning can be of different sorts-- it can be simply wondering and picking up clues (sort of detective-style or just intuitively), which I definitely did as a child-- thought about what things meant-- and it can be deconstructive, where one looks at the book from a distance of sorts, examining it dispassionately and without much intuitive ability or desire to grasp of why this bit goes there and that bit here, I guess. I'm just thinking about my immediate dismissal of the Dursleys as cardboard-cutout and predictable and stupid (offensive, even), and my later ability to...kinda see how they fit? So my -opinion- is still mine, and I don't exactly love the Dursleys, see, but my approach is different, accepting them as part of the that world....
I'm not sure, this is all so half-baked on my part~:) I was just feeling like there are different types of questioning, but unsure how to quantify it, really ^^;