Posted by Peter Ceresole on September 13, 2008 at 09:46:52 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Magic that books give us posted by Mike Dennis on September 13, 2008 at 08:27:08:
Rowling...
it’s just a case of high sales figures create media interest.
Yes, but she had to do something that generated those figures to start with. And she did, in spades. Looking at the books, I've only really read two of them; the first one, which I rather enjoyed, then the 'Order of the Phoenix' (is that the right title?) which bored me so much that I stopped half way through and gave up. I've also dipped into others, as my sister is an enthusiast and has the whole lot.
What seems to me absolutely clear is that Rowling has used existing English genres; you can hear clear echoes of 'Stalky and Co', 'Just William' and a whole slew of sword and sorcery books. This doesn't make her a plagiarist; her take is a very clever one and she comes across as a perfectly worthy participant in what is a fine tradition. The point is that the original stories have been enormously successful, so if you were consciously looking for a line that works then that would be a logical one to follow. And she seems to have caught the wave nicely. I think she thoroughly deserves her success. But I simply find her unreadable.
Successors to AR must be out there, but whoever they are I haven't looked for them or found them, and with a shelf full of fat green books within reach in my book case I don't really feel the need. Tastes evolve- mine certainly do- and as well as WH and PM, my main pleasure reading now is Anthony Powell; 'At Lady Molly's', 'The Military Philosophers', 'Books do Furnish a Room'. I have 12 to choose from... And, for some unaccountable reason, John Strachey's 'Post D'. All of those give me an intense feeling of sheer pleasure whenever I restart them. As well as fiction, I love books about 19th and 20th century design. My wife lectures on the subject and we have hundreds of them here; I can read them like novels, with the same pleasure.
I'm sure that this will apply to my grand-twins later, but with totally different books. At the moment, they love tractors, fire engines and Thomas the Tank Engine. With taste as good as that, they'll go far.