Harry Potter (book) Crap/ Not crap?

[Cheesypoof]

I dont even think the names of the characters and places are that convincing or inventive.

Quidditch/Hermione/Harry Potter are not very good are they?

For kids books you need that electrifying standard of names that absolutely nail the character, like Professor Slugworth/ Bill Sykes/ Augustus Gloop/ Veruca Salt/ Willy Wonka.

I cannot help but find her banal in her arena.

 

[cesare]

I'm finding it hard to see why Willy Wonka trumps Quidditch tbh.

 

[Santino]

I dont even think the names of the characters and places are that convincing or inventive.

Quidditch/Hermione/Harry Potter are not very good are they?

For kids books you need that electrifying standard of names that absolutely nail the character, like Professor Slugworth/ Bill Sykes/ Augustus Gloop/ Veruca Salt/ Willy Wonka.

I cannot help but find her banal in her arena.

It's a wonder anyone bought them.

 

[Mr Moose]

Tom Browns Schooldays etc etc..

Yes - they are total boarding school books too (with JKR dipping well out of any issues of fees).

However even those books are popular for a reason - children love the fantasy of life unencumbered by parents around.

Much nicer also to have dead parents who make the odd reappearance - that's a very unproblematic relationship.

 

[Gromit]

I did read book 1 and tediously ploughed through it. I also just got the sense that Harry was a bit of a goody two shoes and a bit of a righteous little fucker.

Thats cause you have a massive thing for bad boys who do drugs like Pete Cockerty. So no surprises there that Harry isn't the sort you'd like.

The Harry Potter books are a difficult one for me.

Kudos to JK for coming up with a setting to capture the imagination of children. A school for wizards where amazing things happen with the wave of a wand and you don't even have to be athelitic or good looking or anything to be special. I can see how many kids would love the idea. I don't even mind the characters...

But then the plots and the writing itself is dire. The first book is so poorly writen that I wouldn't want a child to read it for fear of picking up bad habits.

The ideal senario would have been JK working with someone who could really write and just providing the ideas.

In a rare turn around i prefer the films because thats kind of what has happened. They've taken her books but teams of talented script writters have polished them up better than she could have ever written them.

 

[Cheesypoof]

I'm finding it hard to see why Willy Wonka trumps Quidditch tbh.

well for me it does, because even the name Dickens or Dahl uses represents a trait of the character or even sounds a bit like an associative word, such as 'Willy Wonka' suggests someone a bit wonky and not ordinary, in fact eccentric and extraordinary, which is exactly what he is.

Veruca Salt, sounds a bit ascerbic and spiteful, Bill Sykes sounds a bit like psycho; Mr McChoakumchild, as his name suggests, he is not overly fond of children.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm finding it hard to see why Willy Wonka trumps Quidditch tbh.

I blame Georges Marvelous Medicine for implanting a subconcious urge to take drugs. Life could have been so different


Incidently wasn't Dahl something of an anti-semite? or did I imagine that?

 

[poului]

I hated it.

Wow, I agree with Cheesypoof on something.


I barely managed a chapter of that shite when it first started up. Have refused to indulge in any of the franchise ever since, and consider it a virulent plague upon our society.

Quite a bit more contemptible than the DaVinci Code in many respects. The thin veneer of respectability, the utterly bourgeois twatness of it all...

I could go on.

 

[DotCommunist]

Wow, I agree with Cheesypoof on something.


I barely managed a chapter of that shite when it first started up. Have refused to indulge in any of the franchise ever since, and consider it a virulent plague upon our society.

Quite a bit more contemptible than the DaVinci Code in many respects. The thin veneer of respectability, the utterly bourgeois twatness of it all...

I could go on.

the ques of insufferably precocious middle class spawn queing all fucking night.....

 

[Mr Moose]

Wow, I agree with Cheesypoof on something.


I barely managed a chapter of that shite when it first started up. Have refused to indulge in any of the franchise ever since, and consider it a virulent plague upon our society.

Quite a bit more contemptible than the DaVinci Code in many respects. The thin veneer of respectability, the utterly bourgeois twatness of it all...

I could go on.

Unfortunately, reading only one chapter of a seven book series doesn't quite qualify you to expression such passionate criticism surely?..

 

[cesare]

I blame Georges Marvelous Medicine for implanting a subconcious urge to take drugs. Life could have been so different


Incidently wasn't Dahl something of an anti-semite? or did I imagine that?

Christ knows what happened to the kids that read Fungus the Bogeyman.

Dunno about the anti-semiticism bit, doesn't ring a bell

 

[Gromit]

well for me it does, because even the name Dickens or Dahl uses represents a trait of the character or even sounds a bit like an associative word, such as 'Willy Wonka' suggests someone a bit wonky and not ordinary, in fact eccentric and extraordinary, which is exactly what he is.

Veruca Salt, sounds a bit ascerbic and spiteful, Bill Sykes sounds a bit like psycho; Mr McChoakumchild, as his name suggests, he is not overly fond of children.

So that would make you a Cheesy Gay person? Good to teach children to judge people based on their name isn't it?

It sounds condesending to me that you have to spell out the character of a character to children through their name.

All well and good back in the day but modern children prefer literature that doesn't talk down to them in such ways.

 

[poului]

Unfortunately, reading only one chapter of a seven book series doesn't quite qualify you to expression such passionate criticism surely?..

Yeah, cos it's so easy to forget about in popular culture if you don't make the effort.

 

[idioteque]

Cheesypoof, I don't understand how some of JKR's made up words bother you but Dahl's don't. Sounds a bit like you're trying to find things to criticise it over- saying that you just don't like it is enough you know

 

[cliche guevara]

Brilliant stories, terribly written.

 

[idioteque]

Brilliant stories, terribly written.

^^ This. Case closed.

 

[Gromit]

Brilliant stories, terribly written.

Damn your eyes.

You said what i said... but clearly and consisely.
I hate that! ...whilst appluading you.

 

[DotCommunist]

Brilliant stories, terribly written.

Brilliance is a word that should be usually applied to originality imo. Originality or exceptional skill. I'd say its badly written derivative guff.

Certainly sells tho.

 

[cesare]

Brilliance is a word that should be usually applied to originality imo. Originality or exceptional skill. I'd say its badly written derivative guff.

Certainly sells tho.

Derivative of who in particular?

 

[Iam]

Entertaining.

All I ask from most books.

 

[DotCommunist]

Derivative of who in particular?

clunky elements from half a dozen kids book. Enid Blyton rubbing shoulders with TBSD. I'm not re-reading the first one again to check, but I recall being able to pick out a good few others.

 

[idioteque]

Do the Harry Potter not-fans always approach books with this degree of literary analysis? Do you never enjoy a book which borrows elements or builds on themes used in other books?

 

[DotCommunist]

Do the Harry Potter not-fans always approach books with this degree of literary analysis? Do you never enjoy a book which borrows elements or builds on themes used in other books?

again, if it's well written I can live with it. If its done well you should have to analyse to find the borrowed elements, themes and influences.

 

[cliche guevara]

There are several websites which point out JK Rowlings blatant plagarism. I don't have time to look at the minute, but if you take a couple of minutes you'll find loads. I'm not sure how much of a bad thing this is, as she rips on classic stroies mostly, which you can find in loads of literature (and film, and art, and music, and anything else you care to mention).

 

[Sweet FA]

Alan Garner was a great writer, actually one childrens writer I wouldnt mind reading again.

I've just re-read 'Weirdstone'. What a fantastic book. I read it many times as a kid and it's still great, tho' maybe a little dated. (Having said that it was written in 1960 so no surprise really).

*goes off to dig out The Owl Service*

 

[Gromit]

Derivative of who in particular?

 

[cesare]

So which children's books don't deal with themes such as orphan/loss of parents, rescue, good v evil, danger/heroism, etc?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I think of Dahl as an anti-semite, although mainly it was because he started being anti-Israel a few years before the rump of the chattering classes adopted a similar position.

 

[Iam]

That might have been quite funny, if you'd written it, but as you simply copied it, it's really not very good.

Right?

Yeah.

 

[DotCommunist]

That might have been quite funny, if you'd written it, but as you simply copied it, it's really not very good.

Right?

Yeah.

thats exactly how bad literary rip off jobs work. Well done you.