(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 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-07 09:18 pm (UTC)I'm totally with you on the reading fanfic much more critically (adultly??) thing-- even though it often seems to fit JKR's world a lot less (than JKR's own writing), my ability to just accept it flew away (far, far away) way back ago in the days of the dinosaurs, when IP roamed the earth...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 03:44 am (UTC)I just recced a bunch of classic fics to a friend who's just getting into H/D and her assessment of IP was that it was "a bit purple" with metaphors, "like walking into a lovely home and being accosted by the cloying scent of air fresheners in every room." Heh. She liked it though. It's still a classic.