My eldest daughter has started reading Harry Potter and she loves the books. The Potter novels have opened an exciting, cool, imaginative world for her and for this I am grateful to JK Rowling. I am not that familiar with the Potterverse because as Richard Harris explained when asked why he hadn't read any Harry Potter novels in preparation for his role as Dumbledore "it just ain't my kind of reading". But that's ok - these are books for kids and kids love them. As my daughter has read me bits and pieces out of the novels I have become more aware of the characters and the plot and I can see that there are strong female role models which is a very good thing and I haven't come across any racist or bigoted stereotypes, also good....
However there is one thing that worries me about JK Rowling's world and that boils down to class. It seems to me that whenever a muggle villain appears in the Harry Potter universe they are always fat, vulgar, blingy and common. In other words they're a chav. As I understand it the Potter novels are about a bunch of special children who go off to boarding school to learn arcane things that the poor unfortunate muggle children couldnt dream of. JK Rowling went to private school as did a very small, privileged 5% of the UK population. Prince Charles has endorsed the Harry Potter books and its no wonder. He took a steam train north to a drafty, rather dangerous boarding school in Scotland when he was a lad and he would have sent William and Harry there too but for Diana's insistence that they remain closer to home. It's interesting that in the clips I've seen of the Potter films all the children at Hogwarts speak in nice accents. Are there poor kids there? Do you have to board? What if you can't go because you have to help out in your parents' shop or look after your siblings because your mother goes to work? I don't know...
...
As an aside, I find it completely baffling that boarding schools still exist in the real world in 2011. Why have kids in the first place if all you want to do is send them away for their entire childhood? There's something very perverse, creepy and Dickensian about this whole idea and I can't help thinking that parents who send their children away are morally suspect.
...
But back to the chavs - Ms Rowling - who's as thin as a rake - seems to have a particular hatred for anyone who has let themselves go. She devotes quite a bit of time describing the rolls of fat in Harry's uncle's neck and we are clearly meant to despise this vulgar chocolate biscuit eating oaf. We also are meant to hate anyone (like Harry's aunt) who's overly concerned with money - this, of course, is also a ghastly, vulgar pretension of the lower orders. And Harry's poor aunt makes things worse by her desperate and unintentionally funny attempts at social climbing. It seems to me that the worst thing you can be in the Potterverse is a chubby, state educated, commoner who has no interest in magic but who wants to earn a few quid and try to get ahead. I think Malfoy is supposed to be a spoiled rich kid looking down on Potter and his ilk, but Malfoy's only a strawman sort of villain and his problem seems to be is that he isn't an aristocrat - old money - but a jumped up nouveau riche type. What Rowling is telling us in these books is that 1) we should trust the true aristocracy and that 2) the lower classes shouldn't put on airs or attempt to rise above their station - if they're not special enough to get accepted to Hogwarts they should know their place and doff their caps to the privately educated elite who have been running England for the last two centuries and will almost certainly be running it two centuries from now. As anyone who has studied the Great Reform Act of 1832 will tell you the English rulling classes are past masters at maintaining their position through faux liberalism while not so secretely promoting a deeply conservative agenda.
...
Maybe I'm wrong about this. I certainly don't know the material well enough to justify my argument with more examples so perhaps you, gentle reader, could provide some counterfactuals to set me straight...If I'm wrong I'll do the decent thing and admit it.
55 comments:
Adrian -
I just spent the last two months reading all the Harry Potter books for the first time and I really enjoyed them. Before entering the Potterverse, I definitely scoffed at the books and wrote them off as "for kids."
But I've seen the error of my ways. I'll steal from one of the critics and say they're "ruthlessly compelling."
The nonsense with Harry's adoptive parents, his aunt and uncle, does get to be a bit much. Of course the slovenly fat man is also wickedly evil. It's a little lazy in terms of characterization. Admittedly, this isn't one of the highlights of the series.
About class though ... I'm not so sure Rowling feels that way. The larger issue of the series (kind of like the X-Men series) is whether these "special" wizard types should live in harmony with, or subjugate, the non-wizards. The smartest kid at the school, Hermione, comes from non-wizard parents too. The good guys obviously take the position that they should live in peace with the Muggles and use their powers for good.
So to answer your question, yeah, the aunt and uncle parts ain't the strongest but Rowling more than makes up for that and addresses the issue of class in other ways.
Also, I think the decision to have the characters attend this mysterious, private school is more to give the story that wow-factor and sense of wonder.
It seems, though, that both Harry Potter and the X-Men (and so many others) begin with the accepted idea that some people are simply born better and could subjugate the rest of us if they wanted to and the conflict is then amongst themselves over whether they should or not.
Which may very well be how the world is, it's just interesting to see it so easily accepted in popular culture.
I have to say that this was exactly where my skepticism of the phenomenon began, and so I'm glad to see it voiced here. Like Brian, my sisters and their kids have told me that it gets more complicated, as Brian said, but the whole idea of a class of people who were Muggles and could not aspire to be an aspirant to the magical boarding school because they didn't have that special quality really turned me off.
It's really not enough to say you're willing to co-exist with the non-elite, whatever your elite status derives from. At some point, you have to realize that other kinds of people possess virtues equal or greater to your own, even if they're fat and haven't had the education you have. I think it's probably a hard trick to pull off once you've been designated as one of the elite though.
I don't know if it's good or bad that most kids probably don't think "Oh, damn--I'm a Muggle."
Even though, of course, they are.
I've read all the Potter books and I can't entirely agree with your analysis. Yes, Harry's uncle is a cartoon suburban boor, but most of the villainous people have a faintly aristocratic air. The Malfoys, are, I believe, described as a very old wizarding family and aren't in any way noveau riche. As for the boarding school angle, Rowling is simply using one of the traditional tropes of English kids lit, and the reason this trope works is that at a certain level kids enjoy the idea (if not the fact) of being away from home with their peers. As for the veiled elitism of wizards vs. muggles, I think kids simply like to fantasize about having extraordinary powers, whether it's magic, super-strength, or being able to shoot webs like Spiderman. I'd agree that there are no clearly identified working class characters, but, on the other hand, there aren't any working class villains. And to Rowling's credit she does make Hogwarts student population multiracial. I think Rowling's worst sin is that she wrote three fine books to start the series and then followed them up with four increasingly dreary and obese novels that cry out for an editorial machete.
I'd say the lack of editing is probably a publishing world sin rather than Rowling's own, Cary. It seems to happen to everyone who publishers see as a cash cow.
Brian
Cute picture of the new arrival.
I take your point, but I wonder (and I really dont know the answer) is that how most Americans now see the British educational system: a bunch of bright young things off at boarding school? It may be the reality for a small proportion of the country but its nothing like real life.
I also worry about it as a fantasy. Sending little kids as young as 8 and 9 off to boarding school seems like child abuse to me.
Anyway, like I say, you're the expert, I'm not so I'll bow to your superior knowledge.
John
Yes thats my point, except that you said it better and sharper.
Star Wars is the same deal - Lord Vader v Princess Leia and the little people in the middle getting screwed.
Seana
"It's really not enough to say you're willing to co-exist with the non-elite, whatever your elite status derives from. At some point, you have to realize that other kinds of people possess virtues equal or greater to your own, even if they're fat and haven't had the education you have. I think it's probably a hard trick to pull off once you've been designated as one of the elite though."
I think thats well said and it can't be forgotten. Much British history of the last two hundred years has been battles between the elites who know all too well whats good for the common people.
Cary
I've got to bow to your superior knowledge of the texts. I just havent read enough of them to have anything more than a superficial knowledge of them. I certainly do stand corrected about Malfoy although when I read him he does seem like a strawman villain.
So there are no working class kids at Hogwarts? This is what I thought. Yes you're right that Rowling is writing within that tradition of English School Fiction. Billy Bunter, Tom Brown's School Days etc.
When the first book came out I was surprised that she was recycling this trope. I thought that that tradition was thoroughly discredited in our democratic age. Here's what George Orwell had to say over 50 years ago.. His analysis is still pertinent.
And here's George Orwell on what boarding school life is really like.
The beatings are less today but anyone who thinks these are not places of pyschological torment is kidding themselves. JK Rowling has done the boarding schools of England and Scotland a tremendous service by making them cool again, which I think is a very dubious achievement.
I thought of something else today. In Harry Potter all the spells are cast in Latin.
Why Latin?
Was there no native magic in Britain before the Romans came? Were there no Celtic magic spells?
I'll tell you why Latin because as Cary points out JK Rowling is writing in the tradition of the English boarding school story and learning Latin was always a crucial part of the indoctrination in these books. Knowing Latin means that you are no longer a commoner but one of the elite, the chosen few who will literally Lord it over the poor muggles stuck at their public schools having to make do with their dull muggle subjects like, say, biology and computer science.
I again point you to the Orwell essays above: Boys Weeklies and Such Such Were The Joys.
Orwell is such a delight as an essayist, isn't he? Funny to see the News of the World mentioned in the first paragraph.
I thought a lot of that essay was quite relevant to the Potter popularity. Although I'd say that that the wish to be in a boarding school for an American has got to be largely benign. It's just Anglophilia, rather than a wish to be part of the American ruling elite. I don't think there's much of a tradition in children's books here of wanting to go to a boarding school on the east coast, say. I mean especially before high school. I think for Americans the ancient buildings and the old traditions are imaginatively appealing.
I think that's right about the Latin. But on the other hand, I am finding more and more that if I did know some Latin, I would know a lot more of what the hell I was talking about.
You have to write what you know. I guess J.K's world was boarding school. If we had a novelist writting about an Inner City London Comp, i doubt it would possess the same romance and magic, nor would it have a world wide appeal.
I wouldnt send my children off to boarding school though, id miss them too much, unless they were rotters.
Interesting blog. But there are working class at Hogwarts, wouldn't you consider the Weasleys to be working class? But then what do I know, I'm an American. I know some people like to really dissect stories in this way. But I must say I must not be that much of a scholar, as mostly I read to just enjoy the story. That's why I didn't become an English teacher, because I want to just read, and I hated having to dissect all the symbols in the story. I teach science because that is the kind of stuff I like to dissect. :-) Not criticizing your blog, just putting out another thought of just enjoying it. I try to write, don't know that I'm very good, but when I write, I'm trying to tell the story, not put in a bunch of symbolism for people to dissect from the story. Maybe that's why I don't feel my stories are very good.
Anyway, glad you liked my review of your book, it was done as I prefer to read, to enjoy it! And enjoy it I did!
I enjoyed the books, but that doesn't mean there's no value in thinking, and teaching kids to think, critically about them.
Theoretically, the Weasleys are poor, yet, mom doesn't work and they own their own home. In terms of gender roles, yes Hermione is bossy and smart, but her main character arc is finding love with a big, slightly dumber than her, boy, and I've never been completely comfortable with the harpweaverness (my apologies to Johnny Cash) of Harry's mother's role in the story. I hate the idea that the best thing a mom can do for her kid is die violently so he'll go to war and fight.
As a teacher, I've seen that it's fairly rare for students from poverty to choose fantasy. The few that do (and I was one of them as a kid) are likely to already see words as their way out of their circumstances. So you could argue that Rowling was just smart about her audience.
I think there's nothing wrong with kids reading HP as long as they also have access to grittier versions of what it means to be a kid working to survive.
We all deserve access to books where we can find some emotional authenticity and resonance.
Winter's Bone (mentioned here awhile ago) is a great anti-Harry Potter book (maybe because Daniel Woodrell did not grow up privileged and then become a billionaire).
I've read the first one and a half of the Harry Potter series, I gave up half way through the second. I admit, I don't see the draw in them, but I think it's great getting kids to read and my son loved them.
In all honesty, the boarding school thing seems almost mythical here, it fits in with wizards and magic and dragons. I've never even known anyone to even think about it as an option, it doesn't occur to us in this part of the world. And as for how the English school system is viewed, well, I'd say it's miles above the American one. The average American has no idea about anything other than what is right in front of them I think.
More than anything, I'm glad to see a discussion on Harry Potter about something other than how evil it is because of the magic and wizardry in it. I'm glad the last movie is finally out so maybe we can move on to something else.
It may just be me, but I like to point out that working class isn't poverty. I grew up working class, both my parents were in unions and we owned our home and felt secure. Sure, lots of people I grew up with wanted to have more money but we really didn't want for anything.
But that wanting - reinforced now by every aspect of pop culture - has had a big effect on the working class. And now on the middle-class, which is taking its turn on the front lines.
But hey, our whole consumer society is based on always wanting more somwe're always looking at the people who have more.
Of course, there's also the feeling that most people have in early adolescence that they're really adopted or left by aliens or something that's just not this. You know, that time in your life when you want more independence and you want to travel or just be more onvolved in the adult world but you're just a little too young. I think the Harry Potter books tapped into that. But I think they did it the same way sugar coated chocolate cereal taps into hunger...
Maybe the children who go to boarding school sometimes feel lonely or isolated and they retreat into their imagination more, out of comfort, that or scoff down mountains of crumpets after lights out.
The best film on the boarding school theme is If. Best line "when do we start living, that's what I want to know" Harry Potter it aint.
Seana
Orwell's the greatest isn't he? If I remember correctly his great essay The Decline of the English Murder also begins with a mention of the News of the World.
Thats another great one incidentally.
Frankie
I think it could have the romance and magic but the author would just have to work harder at it. Finding magic in the everyday is really an art.
Lisa
I think its your duty to encourage the kids to think. If they absorb the information, well that's great, but if they absorb it, think about it, question it, thats even better, no?
Shulla
I knew the Weasleys were the everyman characters, but they must be Jo Rowling's vision of an everyman. I guess if you live in a council flat then Hogwarts is not going to be for you.
Glenna
But I think that thats how a lot of Americans see the English educational system...? Kids in posh accents off at boarding school, playing games, learning Latin, separated into houses...
Yes it does happen but only for a tiny tiny minority of students. The reality is much different and actually much more interesting.
John
"Of course, there's also the feeling that most people have in early adolescence that they're really adopted or left by aliens or something that's just not this. You know, that time in your life when you want more independence and you want to travel or just be more onvolved in the adult world but you're just a little too young. I think the Harry Potter books tapped into that. But I think they did it the same way sugar coated chocolate cereal taps into hunger..."
Yeah I think I'd go along with that. Magic seems an easy way out. You have a problem with your obnoxious uncle and aunt who mistreat you? Well thats ok because you were born with magic powers and they werent. Thats what I've always preferred Batman over Superman, both were wealthy scions but Batman has no magic and has to work hard to invent devices to help him fight the bad guys (or in the case of Frank Millar's The Dark Knight, Superman).
Frankie
If is fantastic isnt it? I think its McDowell's best role. Better than Clockwork Orange.
Over on his blog Declan Burke has a post about the most famous American novel about a boarding school kid...
John
Whats great about Catcher is how much Holden hates the school and thinks its full of creeps and phonies.
Is there anyone at Hogwarts who would even dare think that?
Even in Cinderella there's the evil stepmother and the wicked step-sisters, and I'm sure that Cinderella's triumph appeals to us all. But the thing that Rowling's concept does or at least seems to do from my limited exposure is make everyone else--everyone in the ordinary world-- a lesser being. Not based on anything they've actually done wrong--just based on them being ordinary.
We were down at my mom's getting the house sorted out, which meant going through the bookcases. I found a double volume of Orwell's essays and letters, and I opened completely at random to this:
"When I worked in a second-hand bookshop--so easily pictured, if you don't work in one, as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally through calf-bound folios--the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookish people. Our shop had an exceptionally interesting stock, yet I doubt whether ten per cent knew a good book from a bad one. First edition snobs were much commoner than lovers of literature, but oriental students haggling over cheap textbooks were commoner still, and vague-minded women looking for birthday presents for their nephews were commonest of all"
So of course I had to bring this volume home with me to peruse, even though to his last comment I can only say, Ouch!
Seana
He just feels so contemporary and he's so truthful, even when it tell against himself - you cant help but love him for that.
I had this old Everyman edition of the selected essays that I read until it literally fell apart.
This volume also has Shooting an Elephant, which you have recommended before, and which I'll also put in a plug for for anyone who missed it the first time around.
Just been finally catching up on the end of Breaking Bad Season 3 in preparation for season 4 tomorrow night. Worth the wait, I think.
I'm not saying "don't think", but what I'm thinking of is all the reluctant readers out there. I want to get them to read any way I can. So, if they enjoy a book without having to do all the symbols, then what is wrong with that? I do read books in class with kids sometimes and we discuss them. But what gets a kid reading is liking a story, not the symbols. And that is really why I read, I think all day long as a teacher, and part of my night too as an online teacher. Most of my reading is for pleasure. And I don't think there is ANYTHING wrong with that. Even just reading for pleasure makes me interested in things that I read about, whether it has anything to do with symbolism stuff or not. Reading HP made me interested in learning more about English schools, not because I wanted to dissect the books, but because I was now intrigued.
I want to get the kids reading, because I think that will get them to thinking without knowing it, which then leads into being a better student. In my experience anyway. Kids who hate reading, tend to totally tune out any discussion of symbols.
Lisa
I think I understand what you're saying and I agree that the most important thing in a novel is a good story and good characters.
A good story however isn't everything. I don't enjoy books with racial stereotypes. I don't enjoy books where girls are passive victims. And I don't like books that patronize me. JK Rowling's got some very odd notions about working class people. She celebrates and asks us to celebrate the wealthy, largely white five percent of the British population who send their kids off to private school and who happen own the country and run the country. While I admire her storytelling abilities I am not going to sit here and shut up about what to me are some very unpleasant stereotypes of working class people in the HP books.
But you're American and its not your fight and I agree that getting your kids to read at all is really the most important thing a teacher can do in this age of many many distractions.
As someone who's a dedicated reader of the HP books, and as someone who has attended boarding school for a couple of years, I almost feel obligated to join the discussion. First of all, I would like to point out that attending Hogwarts is not a privilege afforded to the kids of rich aristocrats, it is a schooling option available to kids who've shown signs of magical ability. I'm not sure why this distinction is being interpreted as one of economic class, or even as that of elites vs. non-elites. The existence of a magical class of people is the entire premise of the fantasy genre, it is what makes these works appealing to children (and grown-ups too). Whether or not one class is better than the other, or whether one deserves to rule over the other are issues which Rowling explores fully and puts to their rightful conclusion. (which is of course, that they are equal and should live in harmony!) In fact, these are issues which are tested throughout the series and the perception of Muggles as inferior is consistently criticized. I find it annoying that people are jumping to such extreme (and erroneous) conclusions based on a cursory reading of the books.
Coming to the depiction of the Dursley family... their personalities have been so designed to highlight Harry's plight, and to add to his eventual triumph - again a classic element of children's books which champion the underdog. I don't think too much should be read into their physical appearances; Rowling has created plenty of characters who defy the same stereotypes people are accusing her of perpetuating. Consider Hagrid - a huge, hairy half-giant, not very bright, not fully educated. He is one of Harry's closest friends and a beloved character - one of the heroes. Consider Bellatrix Lestrange - wealthy aristocrat, beautiful, talented, and one of the most deplored villains of the series. I could give you many more examples, but I wouldn't need to, if any of you had actually READ the books. And the Dursleys are not poor, working-class people, suffering exclusion. They are quite well-to-do in their own world.
The fact is that Rowling has always championed goodness, bereft of social or economic standing. The Weasley and the Malfoy families often clash in the series. The Weasleys are shown to be extremely poor, but their children do attend Hogwarts, even if they have to survive on hand-me-downs, because they have magical ability. The Malfoys are one of the old, aristocratic families, extremely wealthy and influential, and Draco (the son) too attends Hogwarts. The good vs evil paradigm, along the rich-poor divide, is crystal clear.
Also, Rowling deals with and attempts to resolve, race conflicts WITHIN the magical world, which can be seen in wizards' attitudes towards elves, goblins, giants etc.
What Rowling has clearly intended is to use the magical world as a setting which appeals to young people, to represent real world issues. You don't need to worry about your child being miserable about being a Muggle, as long as he or she gets the concept of 'good' and 'bad'...and has a lot of fun along the way. Frankly, I think the children would have already understood this... please stop constructing imaginary subtexts about class domination, go read the books and have a good time.
Well, Shruti, where there's text, there is always subtext.
Personally, I don't doubt Rowling's good intentions, and if the much publicized story of her writing the books in a tea room in Edinburgh is true, then she does know a bit about the hard side of life.
I do think it's fair to criticize the books, though, for what the magic represents in the books metaphorically, and I do think the Muggles were a misconceived notion. I read a lot of fantasy books like Nesbit and Edward Eager and such, and Mary Poppins when I was a kid, and though there were a lot of bad adults or at least misguided ones, they didn't amount to a whole caste as they do in Potter.
If you're going to set your stories in a British boarding school, you do have take what coals are heaped upon you for being part of that tradition.
Although the coals do seem to magically bounce off Rowling, so I wouldn't worry about a few lone dissenters out here on her account.
Seana,
I'm not sure who are the 'bad adults' you are referring to... and also what it is about life at Hogwarts (a boarding school) that you find so offensive...
I believe people are free to interpret these books in whichever way they want to...It's just that I feel Rowling's stance on class divide is absolutely clear, and I don't see the need to go digging beyond that to unearth all of this. Especially when someone hasn't actually read what she's written.
Shruti
Thank you for joining the discussion and adding your excellent points.
Unfortunately I'm unlikely to actually read the Harry Potter books because they're just not my cup of tea. I've never enjoyed boarding school fiction, be it Billy Bunter or Harry Potter - there's just something too twee and precious about it. I dont really like books about magic either, it all seems too easy. Finally Rowling's prose style really gets on my nerves: the alliterative names, the superfluous adjectives, the condescending tone. Thats fine though, these are kids books and I'm glad kids like them.
I think you're missing the mark in your defence of Rowling. The tradition she writes in (english boarding school fiction) has always been about social exclusion: the rich, aristocratic elite versus the poor unfortunate masses. No different here. Nice rich kids in a castle learning Latin and arcane knowledge: the poor fat muggles doing their boring muggle things. Are there poor people at Hogwarts - is there a scholarship programme? What if you have to help out in your mum's shop, or look after your gran, or your siblings? If there are poor kids at the school how come none of them have ever shown up in the movies? The Weasleys are what a rich person thinks of as a poor person in Britain. In fact they're quite comfortably off. I'm told they own their own detached house. There is no one at Hogwarts who comes from a housing estate or a block of flats - people like that dont even enter Rowling's consciousness. The Weasleys are that most obnoxious thing in English fiction: the deserving poor who arent really poor at all, just gentry fallen on hard times.
I'll point you in the direction of George Orwell's essay on Boys Weeklies for why I and many other people find boarding school fiction such a wretched tradition.
Seana
I didnt know that JK Rowling had to write the first Potter novel in an Edinburgh tea room. Now I know that she has seen the dark abyss of human nature. One ssshhh from an elderly Edinburgh lady over the clotted cream container can make your blood run cold. I speak from experience.
Adrian,
Based on what you're saying, either you didn't read my 'defence', or you didn't understand it.
One thing I would suggest is to not judge the books based on what you've seen in the movies. And if you haven't and are never going to read the books, I find it kind of ridiculous that you're presenting opinions on them.
And thanks for the link - I'll look it up, but I actually enjoy boarding-school fiction, and having studied in one, I have a pretty good understanding of what they're all about.
Sorry you find it ridiculous. I did make clear in my post that I hadnt read Potter and my only acquaintance with the texts was the bits that my daughter reads out to me or that I read to herm, or the clips of the movies that I've seen. I wont be delving deeper into the Potter books, life's too short to read something that I dislike and rubs me the wrong way.
I did read your defence but am unconvinced by it. The Weasleys are only a rich person's conception of what the poor are like. I'll ask a third time if there are any actual poor people at Hogwarts...people from council estates, people from flats, people who dont talk like JK Rowling or you. My guess is that you havent answered that question because the answer is no.
You really should read the George Orwell. Its good, I think you'll like it even if you disagree with it.
Finally why dont I like boarding schools? I think I explained that in the post...The boarding school elite has been ruling Britain for the last two hundred years and they still control vast portions of the country: the BBC, the papers, business...Its a self perpetuating oligarchy who dont have the best interests of the nation at heart, they protect their own interests above all other things. As part of the 95% who didnt go to private school I resent this and fight against it. If democracy means anything it is rule by the people not by the oligarchs.
I also think its bad for the kids to be separated from their parents at such a young age. It happens in no other culture in the world. Its abnormal and actually a bit perverse. Adolescence is not the time to be sent away from your father and mother. It may cause life long emotional and psychological problems.
Or it may not.
Anyway look as I mentioned to Lisa I think its probably a good thing that JK Rowling has got so many kids excited about books and reading. So lets just agree to disagree, eh?
Years ago in a writing class one of the other students handed in a story in which all the Native characters had negative names like Frank Tips A Canoe, and Emily Drunk Woman, that kind of thing. When it was pointed out to him that all the names were negative sounding he said, "But they're real names." When he was told, sure, but so are Soaring Eagle and Brave Bear he stuck to the defense that the negative-sounding names were real and he didn't mean anything by having them all be negative-sounding.
So, either JK Rowling decided to have a caste system in her books with the vast majority of people being, well, simply born less powerful, or she didn't even think of it like that. Which would be worse?
Even scholarships are part of this problem, Adrian, because they have the effect of making exclusive places like this desirable for an even tinier percentage of the people not born into that class.
There used to be something like working class pride that was more than reverse snobbism (though there was plenty of that, of course), something that celebrated a culture (maybe also a culture you had to be born into, so maybe that's not so good).
But that culture has been decimated. Some of that has been from within but a lot has come from outside, from the constant pushing of the idea that working class people all want to "get out" and by the steady loss of power of the working class since the 1950's. Hey, marching on the front lines in that war was one thing, trying to remake our own society quite another.
Kids love the Harry Potter books. Kids love ice cream.
Still, I can't wait till Adrian discovers Cory Doctorow... ;)
I'll bet that elderly Edinburgh tea room woman went right off to hassle some poor bookstore clerk with a vague request for books for her nephew too.
John, Adrian doesn't hate children's books. He even writes some.
I'm not against people reading the Harry Potter books, going to the movies, any of that. Obviously it's become a bonding experience. But like so many things that 'everybody's reading', like Steig Larsson, Twilight or Dan Brown, I find myself slightly baffled when I come to encounter the actual text.
Yeah, Seana, we've read Adrian's YA books in my house. Good stuff. And there's no accidental content or "I didn't mean it that way," stuff in them.
The reason I look forward to Adrian discovering Doctorow is that his books are really political and he falls back on the, "they're just adventures." A real student of Heinlein ;)
There's been a lot written and discussed about the portrayal of girls in YA fiction - and the portrayal has changed a lot over the years - but there's been very little written about the boys and what the books have to say to them about what kinds of people they should be and what they should believe.
John
Shullamuth was talking about Winter's Bone and I think the thing that really impressed me about that film and book was the code of honour that everyone understood.
When everyone is out to screw everyone else and the person who dies with the money is declared the winner there's no place for honour.
Thats also why boarding schools are bad: you need to stay home to learn the values, culture and honour of the place you're from instead of going off to learn the top down belief system of a morally bankrupt aristocracy.
Seana
The other person in the tea room was probably Ian Rankin uncovering the poisonous nether world of scone bandits and the shady men cutting the Earl Grey with lesser varieties.
Nice start to Breaking Bad I thought. I really liked the way they never felt the need to explain the box cutter incident. In a movie or a lesser show they would have had expository dialogue: "why did he just do that?" "He blundered into the crime scene, he shouldnt have done that and he had to die."
Breaking Bad doesnt underestimate our intelligence.
Shullamuth was talking about Winter's Bone and I think the thing that really impressed me about that film and book was the code of honour that everyone understood.
Yes. And a lot of great books have come out of seeing a code start to fall apart - or at least be questioned. Or seeing the damage done in not questioning the code, ha ha.
Like I said on Declan's blog, that's the nerve I think The Catcher in the Rye hit so hard.
I liked it, but I saw it coming. More surprising to me was the young guy's unexpected abilities. Although having just watched most of season three in the last month, the writers had certainly laid the groundwork.
John, I really liked Little Brother. For a liberal, it probably resonated more in the Bush era, but there's really no reason why it should.
Thinking about scholarships and honor codes...Here in the US we play coy about social class and pretend we're a meritocracy. The assumption is that if you have the merit to "escape" the 'hood, then of course that's what you'll do, shedding any identification with where you're from on your way "up."
Growing up-- especially if you're odd one out because of those "merits"--it's easy to see the problems the failings of your family and friends. It's easy to want out. Then when you get into the big tainted world, it's easy to romanticize from a distance the place you left.
My first years teaching were a long drawn out identity crisis as I realized that middle class people really did exist somewhere other than TV--ha ha.
Yet, a couple weeks ago I visited a neighborhood school committed to developing kids minds within the values of their indigenous culture. I also visited a community garden where adults had fought for peace within their neighborhood and kept up that fight by working side by side with students to nurture food, medicine, and flowers.
I walked away from that day thinking, "What did I ever do for where I grew up other than leave?"
It makes me wonder what would happen if more of us brought our talents back "home," instead of dumping them into the vast pool of go-along-to-get-along-and-maintain-the-status-quo.
Adrian,
I'm sorry, I realise I've been too hasty with my arguments.
I gave it thought and I do see your point about the Weasley's poverty not being truly representative of ground realities. I guess I was thinking in too confined a space, (since I'm so absorbed with the books!) while you were looking at it from a wider perspective. But I would like to reiterate that the issue is not muggles vs wizards... The Dursley's son, Dudley is also shown to attend a private boarding school.
Also, being from a different part of the world, I guess I do not fully understand the kind of elitism these schools perpetuate in your society.
I think a thanks is in order, you've definitely given me food for thought :)
Shulla
I know what you mean, but on the other hand I completely understand people who dont want to rush back to say Detroit or wherever especially if you're in a family situation.
John
Yeah Catcher and Winters Bone does all of those things. There's a real deepness to the writing.
Shruti
Hey no problem. There are no right or wrong answers here, just food for thought.
Coming in late to this discussion, but as far as I can tell, nobody's mentioned the main distinction in the Harry Potter books as they develop, which is Mudbloods versus Purebloods. It's true that in the first book the major distinction appears to be between Muggles and Wizards, but Muggles become extraneous to the series pretty rapidly, except when Wizards are born among Muggles. Wizard kids born to Muggles are known as Mudbloods, while the old Wizarding families are Pureblooods. Rowling brings in both class and race through the Pureblood / Mudblood distinction, and on the whole I think she succeeds in undercutting ideas of purity without being politically correct or preachy. I think her handling of the Mudblood / Pureblood theme is among the best things in the series.
As far as boarding schools and stuff go, I have a theory that Rowling's Wizarding world split from the Muggle world sometime in the late nineteenth century. All the human (Muggle) inventions that are used by Wizards are nineteenth century things like trains, which go alongside horse drawn carriages. The boarding schools, the feasts (even items on the menu), the Latin spells, all hint that Wizards got stuck in a time warp after the split with humans. They can, of course, do perfectly well without computers or mobile phones because they've got magic to help them.
Thanks for the added info, Girish. I bet Shruti wishes you had hopped in a bit earlier. I doubt you've done much to convince Adrian on the boarding school angle, though.
Girish
I had no idea about any of that stuff. How would I?
I think you're right about the nineteenth century. I think that is seen as some kind of golden age. The peasants knew their place, the gentry were respected, the Empire was still intact.
Adrian,
Just hit on your blog a few hours ago and have been happily reading through all evening, so thanks for that! I found on reading this particular entry though that I have to wade in, late as I am to the debate.
I really think that you've got the wrong end of the stick with Potter. It's a series that does feature entitled upper-class reactionary bigots, but it rightly vilifies them- the aunt and uncle definitely aren't supposed to be 'chavs'- they're characterised as very well-to-do surburbanites who read the Daily Mail, the uncle is a director of a firm who went to a private school ('Smeltings') that the cousin also goes to, and in fact there is a scene where, in talking about Harry's parents to some friends, they sneer about them being supposedly unemployed drunken louts. Add this to what others have already said about the entirety of the moral of the Harry vs. Voldemort battle and the series essentially being one about rejecting bigotry of all kinds. Should the author have explicitly gone into a detailed description of Hogwart's access policy and/or fee scheme, or the backgrounds of all the students to verify it's class-cred? I think just going from the fact that Hogwart's is a boarding school, and most boarding schools in real life tend to be private schools, to extrapolating that HP is sending out a terrible class message is pretty unfair to a series which in my opinion has some of the best messages of kids' and YA fiction around. Going to go for broke on nerd here and quote headmaster Dumbledore (who's gay and out, btw- another pretty good message) ' 'It is not our abilities that show what we truly are, Harry. It is our choices.” You might also reconsider your knee-jerk reaction to the author on reading this http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/03/09/j-k-rowling-no-longer-a-billionaire/
Anyway- that's my two cents (as a working-class northern comp-educated immigrant)! I don't expect any response to this- but FYI this is my longest contribution to the internet TO DATE. And it's a passioned defence of a kids' book, how embarrassing.
Post a Comment