Posted on 07/31/2007 4:40:36 AM PDT by ParsifalCA
Turkey had a key election a week ago. The global War on Terror rages with some of my own students battling for the country. People are starving all over the world, racism exists, and misogyny cripples lives.
Yet this past week an entire subset of the adult nation spent five hours or so reading a teen-fiction book about a boy wizard. Serious media pundits must groan inwardly at all the attention. If only as many people (8.5 million copies sold in one day!) cared about almost anything important to spend the same amount of money and passion on it!
Perhaps it is acceptable for the children to carry on about such things (they are after all children), but isn’t adult interest in Potter just another sign that we are becoming a nation of Peter Pans unable to grow up and talk about serious things?
Some adults are doing this (if you are over fourteen and wearing a Hogwart’s robe or a Star Trek uniform then you may have a problem), but some pretty serious adults such as Oxford don and World War I vet C.S. Lewis took such works seriously long before Ipods, “grups,“, or even hippies were on the scene.
(Excerpt) Read more at exilestreet.com ...
Yes, what was the cringing child when Harry talked again to Dumbledore?
I dont want to make this a spoiler post so I will send you a freep mail with my thoughts.
Not a particularly well-written article, but he makes some sensible, if not original, points.
I sometimes wonder if it would really make the world a better place if I agonized over the Turkish election, the war, racism and misogyny. Okay, it’s bad out there ... now what?
I can change diapers, cook meals, vacuum and mop, go to Wal-mart, e-mail my mother, run six miles ... AND read a Harry Potter novel. What’s the big deal?
That was pretty good.
The media held their tongues on the “secrets” of Harry Potter but they do not hold their tongues on matters of US National Security secrets.
This guy is hung up on Peter Pan, aint he. I was just reading the other thread. Whatever. He isn’t the most coherent of people, is he?
A good story is a good story. Spiderman is a good story. So was Gone With The Wind. So was Hamlet. And letting an hour or two go by reading something that’s just plain fun is okay.
Incidentally, I’m not putting Shakespeare’s genius on par with Stan Lee. I’m just saying...sometimes it’s just plain fun to escape into something you enjoy.
lol, good point.
I wanted to read the article. I really did. But, the writing was entirely too tedious and I had to stop a third of the way through.
Good point.
mobiliapingus? accio pinglist? This heat is gittin to me
Tonight I am going to the wake and tomorrow to the funeral of Ruth Hallman. She was the president of our neighborhood association, and she has been taking on drug dealers, prostitutes and johns, and slumlords for decades, certainly for as long as I have lived here. She's been like a member of the Order of the Phoenix, completely unrelenting.
Last Thursday morning, she was brutally beaten in her own home. She died Saturday night. She was a 76 year-old great-grandmother, and one of the bravest women I have ever known.
The thing about a lot of fiction, especially good v evil stories, is that most often they mirror what we live through every day. We all have Death Eaters in our lives, and we've all known our share of Order members and Ministrybots. So what if we read about fictional characters dealing with what we deal with? The themes and characters in the HP series hit a lot closer to home for me than the Turkish election. I can't change the world at large, all I can do is fight the good fight in my own backyard.
“I’m just saying...sometimes it’s just plain fun to escape into something you enjoy.”
you’re right.
And what’s wrong with adults having some childish fun every now and then?
Whoever said that adults have to be serious and mature 100% of the time?
If we listen to this guy we’ll all turn into old farts in a hurry.
It’s really like saying you can’t appreciate Barrie’s Peter Pan because it was written for children. One of my own favorite books (and one I read yearly, along with To Kill A Mockingbird!) is Felix Salten’s original Bambi. I think Superman is a wonderful story, too. What about Aeosops fables? Shall we discount those? What about Jesus’ wonderful parables? They were simplified stories to make a deeper point. The Screwtape Letters? Frankenstein?
And, like I said...I think that Spiderman is one heck of a wonderful story!
RIP Ruth Hallman. You fought the good fight.
I heard that Rowling was somewhat anti American. I wonder if she knew how close The Order of the Phoenix comes to real life in our present battle of good v. evil.
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