The world divides between those who think Harry Potter rubbish, and those who love it. In fact, this could be further split, into those who feel this way about the books, and those who feel this way about the movies, or both. I personally find the books beneath contempt, amazing only in terms of their unprecedented cultural success, which renders them worthy of study if not approval; and the movies a dull second. It is good to see this series come to a close, as lifeless, draggy and ponderous as ever. As one critic put it, it is just one damn thing after another. The struggle between good and evil has never been more long-winded and lacking in dynamism. It is a sign of the weak-minded times that a whole generation grew up on this twaddle, when, for instance, previous generations had Tolkien, Lewis, and Frank Herbert, to enjoy.
When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?
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J.K. Rowling is the first writer in human history to become a dollar billionaire through her literary endeavours so she must have been doing something right. (Think of all the publishers who turned her down!) I never read the books myself but I did buy copies for my nephew and niece.
Best wishes from Simon
thanks for sharing
martine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMjrXRgu8IU
Her handling of plot is far superior to Pullman's; for example, in Pullman's third book, during intense action passages, the narrative has to stop several times for things to be explained. When things are exciting, Rowling never has to explain anything, because she has already explained all the spells necessary in the action scenes earlier in the book. And she does so without anything having the slightest air of being "set up" for use later; the explanations of things are so fully incorporated into the plot that they never seem like foreshadowing. Top-flight handling of plot, that.
With age I come to understand how most of the time mediocrity rises to the top.