Terry Pratchett doesn't like JK Rowling

[PaulKemp]

If I remember correctly, it was not Rowling but the Time interviewer who claimed that Rowling's fiction was subversive, revolutionary, or some other inappilcable adjective, and that before Rowling fantasy consisted of staid, conservative narratives, maidens dancing to greensleeves, or somesuch.

Rowling did, however, say that she wasn't aware she was writing fantasy, which, as Pratchett points out, sounds a wee silly.

 

[reveal]

Here is the Time article in question: http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083935,00.html

And, yes, it is the author of the article that implies that, pre-Rowling, the genre was a certain way and she "broke the mold" for lack of a better term.

It wasn't until after Sorcerer's Stone was published that it even occurred to her that she had written one. "That's the honest truth," she says. "You know, the unicorns were in there. There was the castle, God knows. But I really had not thought that that's what I was doing. And I think maybe the reason that it didn't occur to me is that I'm not a huge fan of fantasy."

"I was trying to subvert the genre," Rowling explains bluntly. "Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he's left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life."

Huh? That's odd because in one breath she says she didn't know she was writing fantasy and, in another, she says she was trying to subvert the genre. If she was trying to subvert it, then how could she not have known? Eh.

Regardless, I think she has a point. I remember reading an article from a person who wrote scary books aimed at kids (I don't remember who it was but they were very popular). The author said he/she would give the stories to his/her kids to read while they were writing them. The kids were very helpful because they would tell the author "The kids wouldn't do this" or "This is right on the money." A lot of authors who write children as the main characters tend to dumb it down because they think kids can't handle it. Harry Potter, on the other hand, is written at a level that is appealing to both kids and adults because it doesn't talk down to either side. It's simply an engaging story about what happens when a kid learns he can cast spells. All kids want to do that; I know I did. It's also an engaging story, which most adults like.

 

[delericho]

I'm still utterly mistified by Potter's mass appeal.

How about this: the books are easy reads, and really quite enjoyable. She writes directly to the experience of her target audience, in that she writes about going to school, having good friends and hated enemies, teachers you hate and teachers you like, and she plays into the wish-fulfilment fantasies of the same kids (who would really like to be able to do magic, encounter unicorns and griffins, and so forth).

As for the continuing appeal of the books, she's managed the neat trick of gradually upping the maturity and complexity of her books as the series has gone on, so that they age with the target audience (this may make for some problems for parents in years to come, when their kids are ready for books 1&2, but quite some way from 4-7).

Additionally, she has two things going for her: the Harry Potter story seems to be a retelling of the same Hero's Journey that is found in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and elsewhere. It's a story that has repeatedly proven to be extremely powerful.

Secondly, as regards the mass appeal of the books: once something reaches a certain level of popularity, it feeds into itself. If every kid in school has read, and is talking about, Harry Potter, you don't want to be the one kid who hasn't read them.

It didn't hurt that the books were attacked for the 'Satanic elements', of course.

Edit: Pressed 'submit' far too soon.

 

[billd91]

Huh? That's odd because in one breath she says she didn't know she was writing fantasy and, in another, she says she was trying to subvert the genre. If she was trying to subvert it, then how could she not have known? Eh.

She may not have been referring to the fantasy genre. She may have been thinking along the lines of "kids with hard lives discover something special/magical and everything is spiffy from there on" genre. That would certainly seem to fit the rest of her quoted comments better than general fantasy. She also might have just been thinking of the genre of juvenile fiction rather than fantasy.

I'm willing to take her at her word when she says she wasn't thinking of it as fantasy as she was writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I can believe she wasn't consciously pigeon-holing it into a particular genre of fiction. Again, she was probably thinking of it more along the lines of juvenile fiction, which isn't as often sub-divided when you go to the bookstore or library as adult fiction is.

 

[Desdichado]

Eh, I think both sides of this "argument" are based on a sentence or two taken out of context. There's a difference between "fantasy" and "the fantasy genre" and I imagine Rowlings is not very familiar with the latter and where it's been recently and I take her statement at face value when she claims not to have thought she was writing in the latter.

My response to all this? Much ado about nothing.

 

[mafisto]

I'm with JD on this - it's much ado about nothing.

The Potter books are extremely well written, accessible and entertaining. If they're not your thing that's fine, but her novels stand up to the hype. I've read hundreds of fantasy novels - including the 'classics' - and Rowling's books certainly stand tall among them. And, as I recall, the first book wasn't wildly popular because of a menacing Marketing Machine, but rather by word of mouth. People like the series because they like the series - it's not any more complicated than that.

As for Pratchett... as a fantasy-genre-subverting kind of guy, he's entitled to his opinion. Perhaps Rowling was being stupid, or messing with the interviewer, or making a very valid opinion that had been truncated to a single sentence. Whatever the cause, Pratchett has expressed no ill will for Rowling in the past, even when being asked bluntly. A single statement of criticism does not indicate dislike.

 

[F5]

...She also might have just been thinking of the genre of juvenile fiction rather than fantasy...she was probably thinking of it more along the lines of juvenile fiction, which isn't as often sub-divided when you go to the bookstore or library as adult fiction is.

-DingDingDing! I think that's it exactly. She went into it with the mindset of "I'm writing a kid's book". What genre of kid's book it fit into didn't even get considered; children's literature WAS the genre.

Keep in mind that this was JK Rowling's first outing into the children's literature field, and was looking at it from a layperson's standpoint. And the average man-on-the-street just thinks of children's literature as children's literature, whatever it happens to be "about".

I think Harry Potter's biggest contribution to the field (and no, Rowling wasn't the first writer to do this by any means, but was the one that made the most people today notice) was to remind the mainstream audience that juvenile fiction doesn't have to talk down to its' readers.

 

[PaulKemp]

It's no more or less "much ado about nothing" than is virtually every other thread on ENWorld.

I found the article interesting because it made me wonder if people who read little fantasy (which would include no one reading this post) thought about the genre in the same way as did the interviewer -- namely, that it's conservative, idealized, and romanticized. If so, I regard that as unfortunate. The genre has much more breadth than that. Some fantasy *is* conservative and idealized, but lots of fantasy (IMO, the best of it) is not -- Mieville, Martin, Cook, Stover, and Moorcock are a few names that come to mind. I also found puzzling the interviewer's claim that the HP stories do not "buy into the basic cliches of the genre." Of course they do, and there isn't anything wrong with that. But to claim otherwise is silly.

Now, I liked the single HP book I read, so this is neither a knock on Rowling or fans of the series. I write fantasy novels, so I'm pleased as punch that a fantasy series is doing this well. I was just disappointed by the interviewer's sweeping statement, which IMO evidenced a good deal of ignorance of the genre.

 

[reveal]

Here's a question: Have the sales of fantasy novels increased since the HP books became popular? Are people who didn't read fantasy prior to HP suddenly grabbing books they had never heard of because they like the genre?

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I heard Pratchett and Rowling got into a knife fight on Tower Bridge that had to be broken up by a group of Red Dwarf fans who happened to be in the area.

Actually, where does Rowling make her comments about fantasy?