Why do I still have no Harry Potter Icon?

[tree_and_leaf]

I thought some of you might be interested some snippets of the interview JKR gave for the German street magazines (I paused to buy a magazine today, and the vendor said hopefully 'Kennen Sie JK Rowling?") There was nothing really revolutionary, but it was nice of her to give them an exclusive. Quick and dirty translation.

Interviewer: Which of the the three 'Deathly Hallows' would you like to have?
JKR: Just like Harry, I'd choose the stone that brings back the dead. But just like him, I also know that would be a mistake.
Interviewer: Did you ever feel uncomfortable with the power which you have as author of these books? You could have made Harry drink Coke and...
JKR: God forbid... No way!
Interviewer:Or made him vote Tory...
JKR: Again, no way. Harry will never vote Tory. But I know what you mean, and I tried to ignore it as much as possible.

And, earlier in the interview:
Interviewer: If you're not going to produce anymore Harry Potter books, would you allow other authors to do so?
JKR: Never. I will prevent any stranger writing Harry Potter books. I am not at all laid-back about that. Harry Potter is mine. I'm the only person who understands him. Lots of people think that any half-way talented author can write a sequel to a famous story. Wrong, it's never worked. Even when it's well done, it's wrong.

...so, I think we can deduce that she's not a fan of Jill Paton-Walsh 'Wimsey'?

Comments

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

Lots of people think that any half-way talented author can write a sequel to a famous story. Wrong, it's never worked. Even when it's well done, it's wrong.

"It never worked" or "it's wrong"?

At least she's laid-back about fanfic. I much prefer good fanfic to another shoddy HP book.

[tree_and_leaf]

The German was: "selbst wenn es gut gemacht wird, ist es falsch", which to my mind is ambiguous. What do you think?

I think HP fandom is actually very lucky in JKR, and that some of it doesn't realise that they're well off....

[azdak.livejournal.com]

But presumably she actually gave the interview in English? In which case she must have said "It's wrong" originally, because there isn't really another option in English.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

But the second "wrong" remains ambiguous in English. "Wide Sargasso Sea" is a high-quality literary work, but it has no claim as the true sequel to "Jane Eyre". The second wrog could read (even as falsch?) as false in the sense of "just doesn't ring true to the reader" (JPW and Wimsey?) or false in a more morally condemnatory sense. "Wide Sargasso Sea" is a good novel, but there's a lot of room for debate about its position as sequel/prequel to "Jane Eyre", whether it works, and what a particular reader considers working.

[darkthirty.livejournal.com]

Well, it works because Jean Rhys is a great writer, who took a position on a lesser, in fact, work. John Gardner matched a classic of English literature with Grendel, for another example, though in this case, I think both works stand on their own. Wide Sargasso Sea stands on it's own because it is, in almost all respects, deeply critical of Jane Eyre, while being inspired at the same time. It is a political act, the writing of that novel.

If and when there is a similiar critical take on Potter, it won't look the same as Wide Sargasso Sea, but it will have to stand alone just like it.

The point is, though, that it is not being done, in that sense, or in the sense that Gardner rewrote Beowulf, with Rowling. When it does, obviously, Rowling's comments won't apply.

Yes, well, that's rather the problem, isn't it.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

When a writer mistakes the writing of a book - any book - as a political rather than a literary act, Nothing Good Comes of It.

Re: Yes, well, that's rather the problem, isn't it.

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm tempted to say that there's no such thing as a truly apolitical act - except I think that deep down I agree with you, although I'd say it differently. One may write a book, poem or play with political intent, as long as that intent really is integral to the vision of the work, and not tacked on to an ill-suited plot because you wanted to write edifying propaganda. The integrity of the work must come first, yes, absolutely - but precisely because of that, the work may demand to have political implications. There's heaps of politics in Dante, but that's fine - because it's part of his vision (not, in this case, central to it, but part of it and there) - rather than a case of My White Guelphism iz pasteted on Yay!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

One may write a book, poem or play with political intent, as long as that intent really is integral to the vision of the work, and not tacked on to an ill-suited plot because you wanted to write edifying propaganda.

Which is my problem with WSS. Jane Eyre is a great feminist novel. WSS is interesting - and well-written - but to me it is also a book that has positioned itself in Bronte's light, and is cheapened thereby. Compare (Ok, bit of a challenge here, because you're not sad enough to have read it), the lesser response to the lesser work, "The Chalet Girls Grow Up", which critiques the original work in order to comment on it and the society it depicts and was shaped by, but is situated - to my mind - as an answer to the problems of the original. It accepts as a corollary the critique of itself. I find WSS too anxious to shout loudly it drowns out its original.

It is possible that I may be biased in reaction to horribly over-simplifying 20 year old female students going on about how they used to love Mr Rochester, and now they found him evil and loathesome and JE unreadable. I do think there is a space between the pale imitation, and the violent reaction, and this is the space occupied by "Grendel", which I agree stands - and stands to be judged - both alongside (rather than beneath or on top of) its progenitor, and also on its own.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, agreed.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Yup, it works both ways in both languages (though "falsch" not so much in the sense of "false" as "that's the wrong thing to do because it doesn't work")

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

Harry will never vote Tory.

The sad thing is, I can picture people complaining about her having said this.

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

I think that sounds like "morally wrong".

I don't know if she ever expanded on that - as in, if she ever talked at length about her position concerning public domain and copyright. That would be interesting.

[tree_and_leaf]

Definitely. Which is probably why she said it in the decent obscurity of a learned language (or at least, in order to be translated therein).

They both said, specifically, Tory, too hence with British (or Canadian, though I doubt they were conscious of that) reference.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Of course Harry will never vote Tory; there's no evidence that the Wizarding World has any electoral system, and I can't see Harry making the effort to go and get himself on the electoral roll.

Snape, on the other hand, has voted in every single election since he was 18, carefully reading all the manifestos. I don't know why I think this, just that he strikes me as somehow a man who might feel obliged.

[darkthirty.livejournal.com]

Harry would vote labour, don't you think? You don't seriously think Rowling meant otherwise, do you? That would be silly.

Potter? Wet LibDem.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

And, er, I believe that Nineveh's post was humour. (LABEL: 'British-made Humour (Certified Organic). Made in England. Warning: this product will deteriorate upon crossing the Atlantic. Or the Channel. And possibly the Tweed.')

The real question is, For whom did Severus vote?

Re: Potter? Wet LibDem.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ahem. As a possibly wet LIb Dem... and Scot...

But anyway, I can see Sev as either a really hardline ideological Thatcherite, or a Communist. Or both, successively (I can't, admittedly, see the Death Eaters being big on the workers owning the means of production, or on the principal of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs - though I suppose it does very much depend who's defining the need.)

Re: Potter? Wet LibDem.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Or both, successively
I fear Snape would be sunk in his endeavours by his tendency to be unable to see the best in anything. He tried being a romantic Marxist teenager - except that he lacks the requisite faith in human nature. He considered Stalinist Communism (and Fascism); the weak need a strong leader. Except he knows just where that ends. One-nation Tory? Hah! Dumbledore thinks that none of those early pamphlets survived. And Lib Dems are indeed clearly impossible.

I suspect that Snape ends up voting for the local "we've got an issue" candidate if only because it's the only one he can mangage without feeling like a cop-out, supporting a dangerous lunatic, or just insufficiently self-castigating. At least voting for "Keep our hospital/wetland/shipyard/power station in the less attractive countryside over the hill" has the merits of stating an opinion on an important local issue without - multiple manifesto reading aside - being ultimately overly involving.

Re: Potter? Wet LibDem.

[tree_and_leaf]

That strikes me as plausible. Poor old Snape... Though he probably quite enjoys elections and the consequent brooding on the Evil and Folly of the World, in a masochistic sort of way!

Re: Potter? Wet LibDem.

[eagles-rock.livejournal.com]

I can see Sev being a Labour militant because of his father, but also being frustrated that dim people are allowed to vote at all; ideally there'd be a test of his devising to sort out those worthy of a vote. I agree that he'd be a compulsive voter and he's not alone there.

Harry - Vernon would have put him off the Tories for life, even if he'd been that way inclined, but wet LibDem sounds about right, with special interest in keeping orphans out of cupboards, werewolves in employment and equality for Muggleborns, given the condition of said in DH. That is, if he can be bothered to vote.

[tree_and_leaf]

I dunno; it might just as well be the Anything But the Tory Party.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Harry Potter: your candidate for the Natural Law Party! Yogic flying FTW.

[tree_and_leaf]

So that's how it works *makes note*

I was thinking more of tactical voting, but you're idea is funnier.

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't know; Harry might feel obliged if it ever occurred to him, though I admit it probably wouldn't.

I can see Snape voting just about anything excpet Lib Dem... Do you think he might be a Communist?

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Hm. She's *usually* right about sequels/continuations by other authors, but not always. In addition to Wide Sargasso Sea, there's Wicked, which in terms of sheer literary style and quality is miles ahead of The Wizard of Oz. And as much as I thought Jill Paton Walsh was the wrong person to attempt a continuation of Thrones, Dominations,, Robert Goldsborough's first two Nero Wolfe pastiches were so close to the original that they could have easily passed for lost manuscripts.

What bothers me most is the extremely proprietary tone: "Harry Potter is mine." That holds true only when a book (or a song, or a movie, or an academic paper, or any other creative work) has not been published or shown. Once it has, the audience can, and does, interpret it however it pleases. Arthur Conan Doyle never understood why his historical fiction, his work as a spiritualist, or his propaganda efforts in the Boer War came second to the Sherlock Holmes stories in the public eye, and I'm not sure Dorothy Sayers ever quite realized that no, she will not be remembered for her theology or her translation of Dante.

Creation is a two-way street. I hope that someday JK Rowling relaxes enough to realize this.

[tree_and_leaf]

But the proprietary feelings are at any rate very common; since you mention Sayers, there's a bit in one ofher letters where she talks about how much she hates people telling her what she ought to write - she'd had someone say that they felt sure Peter would end up 'a committed Christian'; Sayers says she wanted to say 'Keep your damned hands off him, I won't have him interfered with' (rough paraphrase, it was certainly equally strong). Of course the interpretation is up to the reader - and Sayers was a fan herself - but I do see the difference between the reception of the readership and letting someone else publish a work about the characters you created that is supposed to have equal status (as opposed to fanfiction, which is almost fictionalised criticism). It may be sentimental, but I do understand it and I think I'd feel exactly the same way.

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely true.

Oddly enough, the most decisive statement I've heard about this is from Harlan Ellison. He has reportedly instructed his literary executors to destroy all work that is unfinished at the time of his death.