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Topic: Not in Hogwarts Anymore |
Not in Hogwarts Anymore
Wall Street Journal, by Meghan Cox Gurdon
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Original Article
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Posted By:MissMolly, 9/27/2012 5:55:16 AM
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| If the ghost of Harry Potter seems to hover over the opening scenes of J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults, it has vanished by page 13, when the swearing starts. We are no longer at Hogwarts, with its child wizards and magical incantations. In "The Casual Vacancy," Ms. Rowling transports us to a dark contemporary version of George Eliot's village of Middlemarch, an outwardly pretty place with cobblestones and flower pots and a populace that slowly reveals itself to be seething with folly and ambition, marital and class tensions, and a dismaying degree
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Comments:
I'll pass.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
yottyhere, 9/27/2012 6:25:18 AM (No. 8892739)
Have definitely added it to my WIsh List.
This Fall has been a nonstop release of new books from all my favorite authors it seems.
Have quite a number of books ahead of The Casual Vacancy but eventually I'll get to it.
I'll have all those months the first of 2013 where I'll be searching for reading material and a 512 page book will be just perfect.
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Reply 2 - Posted by:
Rather Read, 9/27/2012 7:12:00 AM (No. 8892821)
I read it for sure. I have a nice long list of books I'm looking forward to, and J.K. Rowling is nothing if not a good storyteller.
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Reply 3 - Posted by:
Phil_hk, 9/27/2012 8:07:32 AM (No. 8892920)
I actually read some of the harry Potter
I found it to be pedantic, predictable and not very original. Those books were, at best, silly.
The real appeal to children was that they were set in a world where the adults are always wrong and do not understand the young Harry.
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Reply 4 - Posted by:
StormCnter, 9/27/2012 8:18:13 AM (No. 8892954)
Rowling's permanent contribution to the world is that she turned a whole lot of kids into readers.
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Reply 5 - Posted by:
lzboy, 9/27/2012 9:16:24 AM (No. 8893107)
I agree with #4.My granddaughter read them all before she was 8 and has become a voracious reader.
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Reply 6 - Posted by:
Aubreyesque, 9/27/2012 9:19:09 AM (No. 8893116)
...yes, but how many adverbs does she use in a page?
She is obviously highly successful, and yes, she got a good many kids to read (why weren't the parents doing something about that though? How hard is it to sit down and read to your child and talk to them about stories????), but her writing got sloppy...VERY sloppy...towards the end of the HP series, and she seems OBSESSED with class and race...was very presumptive to lecture people about it practically every time I read an article interviewing her. She measured the world by her own little corner of England and had a rather condescending attitude towards Americans, if I remember correctly. Pot, meet kettle. She was a 'great' writer in that she was able to garner so much fame and attention and took the children's world by storm...but I would never classify her in the same league as Tolkien or Lewis or Dickens or Waugh or Austen. It was evident her editor let her run rampant with the English language because she knew how much money would be brought in. I don't envy her the money - gads, as a writer, I'm merely jealous. I would love to emulate that success. But as someone who prides herself in always trying to improve her use of the English language, JKR is a bit ham-fisted.
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Reply 7 - Posted by:
bob913, 9/27/2012 9:40:22 AM (No. 8893177)
I agree with some of the movies obsessing with race. They were disguised as muggles vs wizards. The 2nd movie brought it out more. The movies got darker and harder to follow. I haven't even seen the last 2 as I could not follow the one prior to it. J.K. Rowling admits to rushing the books out after the first one became so successful.
CNN article on her new book:
http://tiny.cc/usqalw
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Reply 8 - Posted by:
TheMotherCO, 9/27/2012 11:23:46 AM (No. 8893541)
I loved the Potter books, but Rowlings got sloppy and I tossed the last several books. BTW, muggles were the non-wizards - I saw no racist attitudes, I saw an author who had a marvelous imagination and became money hungry and thereafter wrote some pretty unreadable books. I have her new book on order and will give it a once over. I really prefer non-fiction.
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