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You should be ashamed of yourselves. George Bush has a higher reading age than you!!!!
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Only feebs vote. -
Aggie...you're just pure meanness! LOL!
-=Vel=-Comment
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Especially you, Velocyrix!!!!Only feebs vote.Comment
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Yes but....I'm prolly the only person posting in this thread who HASN'T read any of them!
-=Vel=-
I have watched the movies tho....Comment
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You're confusing cause and effect. The success of these books is not a tragedy for English Literature, but brought about by the tragedy of Modern (not exclusively English)Literature. Specifically, their popularity seems to me a direct response to Modern Lit abandoning:Originally posted by Agathon
The success of these books is a tragedy for English Literature. Grown ups reading childrens' books. Pah!
1) Grand narrative
2) Clear, unapologetic morality
3) The notion that reading itself can be an ennobling act
In that respect, the Harry Potter books are a throwback to the 19th century, when no separate category, "Children's Literature" even existed. Critics and academics -- and I used to be one -- are far too jaded-ironic-hip to get that the kinds of things that animated Dickens' readership can still animate a readership.
That's not to say that Rowlings is a Dickens. Far from it. (My chief gripe with her is that her books are a kind of mosaic made from pieces of other, better, books --though she does blend them well). But she does point to a void that contemporary lit has failed to fill, or has even helped create."I have as much authority as the pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it." — George CarlinComment
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Well, it seems Aggie caught a fish! Good job, old boy!Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy – LessingComment
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Nah. Aggie' repeating a standard complaint about the books, I'm repeating my standard answer. It's far more like kabuki than fishing.Originally posted by nostromo
Well, it seems Aggie caught a fish! Good job, old boy!"I have as much authority as the pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it." — George CarlinComment
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Originally posted by Velociryx
Yes but....I'm prolly the only person posting in this thread who HASN'T read any of them!
-=Vel=-
I have watched the movies tho....
Haven't watched the movies, either.Comment
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I knowOriginally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Nah. Aggie' repeating a standard complaint about the books, I'm repeating my standard answer. It's far more like kabuki than fishing.
My friends sometimes ask me, amazed : "you actually enjoy reading? You have fun reading?" 
If people read less (if they do read less, I'm not even sure about that), I don't think modernist litterature is the cause. After all, for every Paul Auster, there are 100 Stephen Kings, Robert Ludlums or Danielle Steels. Not to mention the classics, like Dickens. If people read less, its more probably because of the competition: TV, the Internet and the movies...
Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy – LessingComment
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On that I agree. The difference between the Rowling books and King, Ludlum, Steele, etc., though, is the wholesomeness of the series; this is another point of commonality with Dickens, and another thing that's selling them. As for just reading Dickens himself: sadly contemporary English speakers have a far, far smaller vocabulary than do 19th century speakers, and a lower attention span to boot; that's what makes 19th century lit (or anything pre-WWII except, inexplicably, Gone With the Wind) such a turn off for the average reader today.Originally posted by nostromo
I know My friends sometimes ask me, amazed : "you actually enjoy reading? You have fun reading?" If people read less (if they do read less, I'm not even sure about that), I don't think modernist litterature is the cause. After all, for every Paul Auster, there are 100 Stephen Kings, Robert Ludlums or Danielle Steels. Not to mention the classics, like Dickens. If people read less, its more probably because of the competition: TV, the Internet and the movies...
"I have as much authority as the pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it." — George CarlinComment
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Spoiler:Today, you are the waves of the Pacific, pushing ever eastward. You are the sequoias rising from the Sierra Nevada, defiant and enduring.Comment
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He's currently being seared with herbs and butter in my pan.Originally posted by nostromo
Well, it seems Aggie caught a fish! Good job, old boy!
Only feebs vote.Comment
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Spoiler:We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. - Abraham LincolnComment
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Okay how much did you pay for it?
I went to Borders and got a ticket that said I was number 527 to get the book, which, since I didn't pre-order would be $19.99. Not too bad.
Had an hour to go before they even released the book so I went to Wal-Mart(I know, I know). There was a line of 30 people waiting calmly, I joined the line waited 25 minutes and got the book for $15.78.
Even better. No I am home about to read, while at Border's, I'd be waiting at least a couple of hours to get it.
ACK!
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust!Comment
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YAY YAY YAY
!!!Comment
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