Recently read: all (sic) of Harry Potter

[viktor_haag]

I had made on abortive attempt at reading through the Potter books and came to a brick-wall halt about 100 pages into "Goblet Of Fire".

When my copy of "Deathly Hallows" arrived, and the cover protected with acetate, I set about to chew through the entire set.

On subsequent reads of the first three books (and re-read of part of the fourth), I came to the same conclusion. Book one is quite possibly the weakest of all the books. Book's two and three suffer greatly from having repeated setting background material presented in fairly pedestrian ways, but are successively better than the first. Book four's foofahrah about quidditch left me completely cold (as this is one of my least favourite bits of detail about the series), but was otherwise a fine pivot on which to hang the series.

After going past the familiar point in book four, things improved significantly. Once the boring quidditch stuff was put firmly in the background, I liked how the texture of Rowling's background deepened by an order of magnitude from the first three books.

My favourite of the series is almost certainly book five with book seven being a close second.

I was, in general, not a fan of the epilogue of book seven as it seemed a much too half-hearted stab at a coda: inappropriately short to serve for the entire series and to support the weight for the number of new characters introduced. However, one detail I did appreciate about it; I thought it was clever of Rowling to ensure that none of the characters depicted in the coda had any participation in the principle institutions depicted in the series.

I'm glad I've finally managed to read all these books; it is worth getting past the first three books and on into the meat of the series, and it's heartening that the first three are the quickest and easiest reads. I doubt that they will occupy the status of fond re-read candidates in the years to come, however. They certainly haven't replaced any books on my shelf of classics, but I do see why they became the phenomenon they did.

Rowling is just good enough as a writer to keep you going, and she definitely does improve as the books progress: this could be because her natural voice is not, in fact, well-suited to the ages at which the first two or three books are pitched. The later books seem definitely more in her wheel-house than the earlier ones, and she seems to have addressed their creation with a surer hand as well.

Her character building is not tremendously rounded, with some surprising exceptions that come to be revealed only at the end of the series. Nonetheless, she shows a deft touch for the stereotypes she puts in play: they have just enough life to sustain themselves, and their standard bits are not over-used to the point of becoming tiresome. Or at least not enough to put one off continuing to read.

On the whole, I'd give the series a thumbs up and say that they should be on your bookcase at home, most especially if you have young children. These books are not as well crafted, or as rich, as Tolkien, Lewis, or Cooper; what they are, however, is more accessible to the modern reader and will likely remain so for a good couple of decades. These books are a great place to start building your children's library, but there will be better books found when you branch out from them.

Comments

[jkahane.livejournal.com]

I have to say, Viktor, that your journal entry hits the nail on the head for me pretty much.

Out of curiosity, have you read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy? If so, what did you think of it?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I have read the first of the series, and liked it very much. I am just now re-reading it in preparation for wading my way through that series. I think Pullman is a much better writer than Rowling. However, I can see why this series is not as popular with children as the Potter books. It's not nearly as accessible, I don't think, and doesn't have Rowling's sense of fun. I highly recommended this series to the son of a friend of mine who is one of those children that devours books, and he thought it was "boring". I am not surprised that he would think this.

Pullman's books are on my "shelf of hardback YA books that I have been buying ... ahem ... for my children's posterity. Also on that shelf is this list:

- Tolkein's LotR, Hobbit, Silmarillion
- Lewis' Narnia books
- Jonathon Stroud's Bartameus trilogy
- Isabel Allende's City of Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, Forest of the Pygmies
- Michael Chabon's Summerland
- Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising sequence (pb)
- Garth Nix's Old Kingdom and Keys To The Kingdom series
- Caroline Lawrence's Mysteries of Rome series (only the first three, in omnibus)
- Jeff Smith's Bone (the Scholastic, coloured reprints, pb)
- Tintin (the chap-book reprints in seven volumes)
- The two omnibuses available of Daniel Pinkwater's novels (one collects four, the other five, pb)
- Rosemary Sutcliffe's Roman Britain trilogy (pb)

I think we also have a complete set of the Lemony Snicket Unfortunate Events series, but it's in paperback not hardcover.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I should also remark that I have all of Le Guin's Earthsea series in hardback, except for Tehanu (because SFBC doesn't seem to have produced a copy that I could easily find, and I wanted all the books to be the same rough size). However, I rather think of them not as "YA books for my kids" but "mine, mine, mine", as with my copy of "Little Big" and all my Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe books.

[jkahane.livejournal.com]

I have loved the Earthsea books since I was quite young, and read Le Guin's stuff avidly. She still remains one of my favourite authors of all time. I don't remember what my introductor was to Jack Vance's works, but I rather like his stuff, too. The Dying Earth stories are still some of my favourites, and I was glad to see that Pelgrane Press in the UK did the rpg based on those works.

[jkahane.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Pullman books are superb novels, and much better written than the Rowling books. Like you said, His Dark Materials is not as accessible as the Harry Potter series, but that is because I think they are written for a slightly older YA audience as well. Time will tell, depending on what happens as a result of the movie based on the first book later this year.

Interesting that you bring up some of the other children's works and all.

- Tolkein's LotR, Hobbit, Silmarillion

Love the Tolkien stuff, but Silmarillion can be hard to get through. Adored Adam Roberts (as A.R.R.R. Roberts) parodies of these, too. The Sellamillion was quite good.

- Lewis' Narnia books

Some of my favourite stuff when I was little.

- Jonathon Stroud's Bartameus trilogy

This series has been very good, but I think that its appeal is tough to judge. Mind you, lots of folks are reading it so...

- Isabel Allende's City of Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, Forest of the Pygmies

Beautiful stories, beautiful prose in the English translation, and good characters. I suspect a lot of folks who should read this don't even know about them.

- Michael Chabon's Summerland

Excellent stuff.

- Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising sequence (pb)

I adore the Cooper books, having read them when I was younger, and have been reading them with my goddaughter on her sleepovers with me. I bought her a complete set for her 9th birthday.

- Garth Nix's Old Kingdom and Keys To The Kingdom series

Hep, these are good, too. I also rather like his Abhorsen series as well, but they're not for the real YA crowd, I don't think.

- Caroline Lawrence's Mysteries of Rome series (only the first three, in omnibus)

I rather like these, but am a huge fan of Roman mystery stuff, so that doesn't count. :)

- Tintin (the chap-book reprints in seven volumes)

Ah, yes...Tintin ::nostalgic look::

You brought back some good memories, mate. :)

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I managed to 're-read' the first few books in the series by having them on audio-tape, and then listening them in the car. It may be that the target audience was just a tad too young to hold my interest the second time around as a reader, but still fun as a listener.

::B::

P.S. Of course, another way to get through the earlier stuff was by watching the films. This past summer I watched "HP and the Order of the Phoenix" in the theatres, read "HP and the Half-Blood Prince" for the first time a few days later, and then read the final book in one two day flurry after that.

I had HP sauce bleeding out of my ears after that one!

[thebitterguy]

I had HP sauce bleeding out of my ears after that one!

{sad.trombone}

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I was determined not to see any of the films until after I had read the books. I watched bits of the first film after having read the first book and was so dismayed at the image pollution I suffered I resolved not to watch any more of any of the films until I had read all of the books, and perhaps not even then.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

By image pollution, I do not mean to say that the film was bad -- I didn't see it all, and so can't comment on that -- what I mean was that I was dismayed at how much the film maker's vision for the characters, sets, and so on, leaked into my own feeling for the book and the world.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

This is probably the fairest summary of the series I've read in some time, wholly devoid the pro- and anti- hyperbole I've come to expect when people start talking about Harry Potter.

Mind you, it largely mirrors my own opinions, so I'm probably biased.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I've tried to be consciously agnostic when it comes to Potter. I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but to judge the quality of the entire series on the strengths (or, rather, lack thereof) of the first book or two is also a mistake I think.

However, I refuse to defend the first book on the grounds that "it's written for a younger audience". I think that it's pretty deliberately pitched at the same age as The Hobbit, or The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, and it is nowhere near as well written as them (by a long shot) whatever you might think of the social politics of Lewis or Tolkien.

Compared also to other classics of children's literature (Arthur Ransome's books, E Nesbitt's books, the re-tellings of Howard Pyle and TH White), it's nowhere near as good.

What it is is Rowling stepping into shoes that she's going to wear for some distance and breaking them in, showing some promise, and still managing to hold the interest of the reader.

But, frankly, I think once she gets to the second half of book four, pretty much through to the end of the series, her ability has matured to the point where she can deservedly be put in the same general ballpark as all those other names.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

I agree that the later books (5-7 particularly) are better than the first three, though I still have a great fondness for the third one for reasons not worth detailing here. I enjoyed the series over all, but I'm not yet convinced that they're classics for the ages. Mostly, they're not much different than an extremely well-done fantasy series that you read, take pleasure in, discuss, and await the conclusion of -- and then don't think much about afterwards. That's no jibe, mind you. I meant it as a compliment. Not everyone can write a book that gets added to Canon and there's no shame in that.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

In general, I agree with you. I thought there was "some things of significance and complexity" in books five, six, and seven, which bode well for the series' addition to Canon. Whether they'll find themselves there will, I suppose, tell with time. Personally, I would have put Susan Cooper's "Dark Is Rising" in the Canon, but very few people seem to know about those (although the exposure that the new film(s) might lend the series will undoubtedly bring it to light).

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

Count me among those who've never heard of Susan Cooper or her books.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Go thou and find them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Is_Rising). YA fantasy done somewhat in the "traditional British books for children" mode, heavily based on the myths and fables of Wales and Cornwall. It's sometime hard to remember that, when she wrote them, the Wild Hunt (and so forth) were actually fresh-ish, but if you managed to avoid overexposure on such things, then it's doable.

For my money, she's as good as Lloyd Alexander, and well worth reading. (The trailer for the first movie, on the other hand, looks a wee bit tacky.)

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I remembered reading and enjoying Cooper's books way back in HS. I especially liked the quest aspect in the first book, which surpised the person who recommended it to me, a friendly Children's Librarian named Margaret Worth.

::B::