Last night I finished the last Harry Potter book. It may sound childish and corny, but that last page closed a chapter in my life.
My sister's gentle (about one year worth of) badgering opened the door. At the time Harry and I met, he already finished his fourth year at Hogwarts. I instantly fell in love with his world, and the amazing imagination of his creator and her wonderful sense of humor. Like everyone else, I had to suffer the three year waiting for the fifth installment, and the subsequent two years each for sixth and then the final seventh. In the interim, there were the usual heated discussions, musings, and loads of guessing; and, of course, constant re-readings.
Now that the saga is over and almost all the questions have been answered, so that we can compare notes and see who and when was right, there will be no more anticipation, no more waiting, no more British Amazon or mad dashes on Saturday night to book stores, there is a certain sense of loss. We will never say good buy to Harry; but the relationship will be different from now on, and that brings forth a bittersweet feeling.
Of course, as usually happens in the case of something very popular, everyone and their brother had to get on the bandwagon and express their opinion; and, as always, the predictability of the usual stupidity is amazing. For example, I do not know who first decided that JK took her ideas from Star Wars, but the idea stuck and every single critic felt it incumbent upon him or her to repeat it. Then there were the usual musings about supposed other sources, like Lord of the Rings, the discussions of why the books are so popular, the predictions of wherever or not they will survive after this generation, the critique of her writing style, mentionings that for some people reading her books is like being subjected to the Cruciatus curse, counting of the amount of cliches on every page, the phrase "her flatfooted dialogues", the suggestions that here she sacrifices the plot for character development and here she sacrifices character development for the plot, the learned scholars' discussions of what and how supposed to happen according to the cannons of classical literature and mythology, hints that she was lying about having the whole series in her mind beforehand and only writing them when her first books turned out to be so popular, et cetera, et cetera... The most fun ( at least for me) was provided by our Christian "brothers". From paralleling Harry to the late JC to accusing him of teaching witchcraft and occult to our children and everything in between, like predicting the future disobedience of children as a direct result of reading those books; let's just say it was very, very amusing.
I just feel like adding my two cents worth to all this. As I always maintained, liking or not liking of any kind of literary work is a purely personal and subjective thing; on the other hand, repeating somebody else's moronic opinions, usually without touching a book, is, well, moronic; plus it reminds me of the good old Soviet phrase: "I did not read, but I feel honor-bound to say..." Of course, the craziness will slow down a bit simply because there are no more books to look forward too; but surviving for the next few generations? Hell, yes. Classic or not? That will probably be decided in about hundred or so years, because, let's face it, "true classics" have to be at least that old and written by somebody dead. As for all the discussions of literary merit or the lack thereof, allow me to paraphrase the dialogue from one of my favorite BW movies. It was called "Love in the Afternoon" with Cary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn in the lead. Cooper's character keeps giving compliments to Hepburn's, to which she replies "I am too thin, and my ears are too big, and my teeth are crocked, and my neck is much too long" to which he replies: "That's true, but I like the way it all hangs together!" True beauty does not have to be symmetrical and perfect to give immense delight and sublime pleasure.
One of the main reasons, in my humble opinion, why these books are so unbelievably popular, aside from Rowling's unending imagination and humor, is their deep humanity. Everybody can relate to them and everybody can find some parallels to their lives in there. There are a lot of likable and admirable characters, but not one of them is perfect; they are all human, with their flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings. In our wonderful times of nihilism, modernism, post-modernism, general fascination with psychotics and perversions, moral relativism, and very strange definitions of when and how and under what circumstances does human life have value, how can a simple story about school for magic and its students attract attention and become a bestseller? The "childish" book about ordinary people with extraordinary talents living right next to us is fascinating enough; when you add to it the beauty of friendship, loyalty, selflessness, humility, innocence, heroism, love being "the deepest magic of all", and the morality tale of "our choices, not our abilities, which make us who we are", is it any wonder that everyone from seven to eighty seven years old can't get enough of the book?
Showing posts with label My reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My reading. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
MY READING
POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
Just finished another excellent book from the "Politically Incorrect Guide" series. This one was especially dear to my heart, since I am an avid reader, and overwhelming percentage of what I enjoy reading is British. The woman who wrote it sounds like a very enjoyable college professor of English literature with a great sense of humor and totally in love with her subject.
Actually, I had a professor like this. I loved her and took all my English prereqs with her. There was only one problem with good dear Dr. E.: she always assigned the most depressing reading imaginable; either a piece that was written by an author who was slightly deranged, or, if we were studying a particular author, she would invariably pick up his or hers most depressing work. Aside from that regrettable tendency, Dr. E. was a great prof.
She had a saying: "The best way to kill a book is to give it for an assignment in school". I tend to agree with her there for a number of reasons: first of all, you have to be in a mood to read something. The book may be the greatest in the world, but your mind has to be tuned to appreciate it, otherwise, it is just a waste of time. Plus, I never enjoyed all the dissecting done in classes. "The country was going thorough a war, and you can clearly see it in this piece." "The author was going through financial problems, and the hero of the story reflects this." "This work is imbued with revolutionary pathos!" I always had one question for all this nonsense: "How do you know that?" Unless you have a telepathic connection with the author (usually deceased), you have no idea what he or she was thinking or feeling at the time, and how exactly it is reflected in the writing, no matter how great an expert you are on the biography. Unless a letter or a journal survived that clearly indicates the connection between the writer's life and his or her writing, all the rest is just a guesswork and a matter of personal perception. So, yes, giving out a literary piece for an assignment in school is a very sure way to kill the true appreciation for it.
Or so I thought till I read Elizabeth Kantor's PI Guide. As much as I heard and read about the loony left's taking over of the colleges, nothing paints the exact horror as specific pictures. Apparently, students now a days either are not required at all to take English Lit as a prereq., or they are required and offered courses in English Lit., but only to teach them the horrors of Western Civilization, and the racism, misogyny, and the hatred of the homosexuals inherent in the above mentioned Civilization. Kantor makes a very good observation: professors who used to teach garbage like Marxism are not needed that much anymore. So, where could they transfer to? They can't teach science or math, so they somehow end up the literature department and continue to teach their miasma under the guise of English Lit.
Kantor gives a whole bunch of examples of loony teachings, saying that "English professors are so politically correct they're beyond parody." Here are some courses offered as "English": Comparative Cross Dressing; Gender Relations in the 19th Century Romantic Ballet: Sex, Drugs and Crime; Latino/a Popular Culture; Sex Outside the City; The Bourgeois; Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean. She also gives some specific examples of PC language imposed in classes: subject instead of human being or person, the literary production instead of the work of literature, binaries instead of truth and falsehood, Marxist instead on Communist, priveleges instead of benefits, and so on. Suffice it to say that the blood boils from such garbage.
Most of the book is dedicated to basically going over the greatest English writers and their major work, touching on the main biographical points and explaining why all these works are classics and what we can learn from them (aside from supposed "priveleging" of white males to the detriment of everyone else). Despite the fact that I do not necessarily see all of these literary works in the same light (like nothing will convince me that I will enjoy The Taming of the Shrew), her sheer enthusiasm and obvious love for her subject was very contagious.
She concludes the book by offering the ways of teaching English Lit to yourself. I found that especially delightful: finally somebody tells me that it's OK to think of the literary characters as somebody real and argue with them. Plus, she suggest starting an amateur production of Shakespeare with your friends and relatives. What a grand idea! (Moish, how about you as MacDuff)?
As much as I enjoyed Kantor's witticism, the sad conclusion is inevitable. Long gone are the days when the worst what could have happened to you while studying English Lit. was somebody with Dr. E.' propensity for assigning depressing works. Now the wide-eyed college freshmen are subjected to English professors like Grover Furr, credited with saying: "This article outlines Joseph Stalin's attempts, from the 1930s until his death, to democratize the government of the Soviet Union", and instructors teaching "theory", "meaning Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, bashing of dead white males" and general "resistance to literature". Let us also not forget that a lot of it is done using our tax dollars. Great!
Just finished another excellent book from the "Politically Incorrect Guide" series. This one was especially dear to my heart, since I am an avid reader, and overwhelming percentage of what I enjoy reading is British. The woman who wrote it sounds like a very enjoyable college professor of English literature with a great sense of humor and totally in love with her subject.
Actually, I had a professor like this. I loved her and took all my English prereqs with her. There was only one problem with good dear Dr. E.: she always assigned the most depressing reading imaginable; either a piece that was written by an author who was slightly deranged, or, if we were studying a particular author, she would invariably pick up his or hers most depressing work. Aside from that regrettable tendency, Dr. E. was a great prof.
She had a saying: "The best way to kill a book is to give it for an assignment in school". I tend to agree with her there for a number of reasons: first of all, you have to be in a mood to read something. The book may be the greatest in the world, but your mind has to be tuned to appreciate it, otherwise, it is just a waste of time. Plus, I never enjoyed all the dissecting done in classes. "The country was going thorough a war, and you can clearly see it in this piece." "The author was going through financial problems, and the hero of the story reflects this." "This work is imbued with revolutionary pathos!" I always had one question for all this nonsense: "How do you know that?" Unless you have a telepathic connection with the author (usually deceased), you have no idea what he or she was thinking or feeling at the time, and how exactly it is reflected in the writing, no matter how great an expert you are on the biography. Unless a letter or a journal survived that clearly indicates the connection between the writer's life and his or her writing, all the rest is just a guesswork and a matter of personal perception. So, yes, giving out a literary piece for an assignment in school is a very sure way to kill the true appreciation for it.
Or so I thought till I read Elizabeth Kantor's PI Guide. As much as I heard and read about the loony left's taking over of the colleges, nothing paints the exact horror as specific pictures. Apparently, students now a days either are not required at all to take English Lit as a prereq., or they are required and offered courses in English Lit., but only to teach them the horrors of Western Civilization, and the racism, misogyny, and the hatred of the homosexuals inherent in the above mentioned Civilization. Kantor makes a very good observation: professors who used to teach garbage like Marxism are not needed that much anymore. So, where could they transfer to? They can't teach science or math, so they somehow end up the literature department and continue to teach their miasma under the guise of English Lit.
Kantor gives a whole bunch of examples of loony teachings, saying that "English professors are so politically correct they're beyond parody." Here are some courses offered as "English": Comparative Cross Dressing; Gender Relations in the 19th Century Romantic Ballet: Sex, Drugs and Crime; Latino/a Popular Culture; Sex Outside the City; The Bourgeois; Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean. She also gives some specific examples of PC language imposed in classes: subject instead of human being or person, the literary production instead of the work of literature, binaries instead of truth and falsehood, Marxist instead on Communist, priveleges instead of benefits, and so on. Suffice it to say that the blood boils from such garbage.
Most of the book is dedicated to basically going over the greatest English writers and their major work, touching on the main biographical points and explaining why all these works are classics and what we can learn from them (aside from supposed "priveleging" of white males to the detriment of everyone else). Despite the fact that I do not necessarily see all of these literary works in the same light (like nothing will convince me that I will enjoy The Taming of the Shrew), her sheer enthusiasm and obvious love for her subject was very contagious.
She concludes the book by offering the ways of teaching English Lit to yourself. I found that especially delightful: finally somebody tells me that it's OK to think of the literary characters as somebody real and argue with them. Plus, she suggest starting an amateur production of Shakespeare with your friends and relatives. What a grand idea! (Moish, how about you as MacDuff)?
As much as I enjoyed Kantor's witticism, the sad conclusion is inevitable. Long gone are the days when the worst what could have happened to you while studying English Lit. was somebody with Dr. E.' propensity for assigning depressing works. Now the wide-eyed college freshmen are subjected to English professors like Grover Furr, credited with saying: "This article outlines Joseph Stalin's attempts, from the 1930s until his death, to democratize the government of the Soviet Union", and instructors teaching "theory", "meaning Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, bashing of dead white males" and general "resistance to literature". Let us also not forget that a lot of it is done using our tax dollars. Great!
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