HP a “New Classic”

June 25th, 2008 · 20 Comments · Goblet of Fire, Harry News and Commentary, Harry Potter Culture

Update: I edited this post for some grammatical mistakes. Sorry…I was in a bit of a hurry yesterday when I wrote it.

Jamie and I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, my favorite section of which is Stephen King’s monthly column in the back of the magazine. While the magazine certainly isn’t especially critically aware or anything, their latest issue lists what they believe are the “new classics” of film, television, books, and videogames. “New Classics” basically translates into the best examples from these genres over the last 25 years. You can check out the book list here, and there are links to look at the other lists, too.

I bring this up because HP made the list — once. One of the books is slotted at #2 on a list of 100, the only one to make it. That book? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The print version of the magazine has a brief commentary that praises the book’s turn from the tamer, more child oriented direction of the first three novels. Interestingly, the book sits right between Cormac McCarthy (#1) and Toni Morrison (#3), and is more than twenty places higher than Possession by HP nemesis A.S. Byatt (which is a fantastic book, whatever you may think of Byatt’s take on HP). She also sits well above a very long list of distinguished authors that have won everything from Pulitzer Prizes to National Book Awards.

But, Goblet of Fire? Really?

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20 responses so far ↓

1 revgeorge // Jun 25, 2008 at 12:21 pm

I’m with you, Dave. GOF? What were they thinking? I like GOF and all but it probably comes in last on my list of the 7 books. POA or OOTP are much better choices.
2 Victoria // Jun 25, 2008 at 12:23 pm

My sentiments exactly !
3 Red Rocker // Jun 25, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Well, it’s nice for HP to be acknowledged. I must admit, however, that the choice of GoF over some of the other HP books makes me question the judgement of the jury.

I have only read a handful of the other top 100. But here are a few eye-brow raisers: Watchmen, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Sandman, The Night Manager, Presumed Innocent, Lovely Bones, The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night. Two of these are graphic novels (Watchmen, Sandman). Some of them are well written and very moving (Lovely Bones, The Curious Incident) but lack substance. They certainly don’t touch upon a multitude of universal themes. Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent is a mystery- court-procedural, a fine suspense novel, but again lacking in substance. And Bridget Jones’ Diary? A potato chip of a book, enjoyable while you read it, but gone from your memory as soon as you close the covers. The most problematic of the ones I cited is LeCarre’s The Night Manager. I think LeCarre is a fine writer, the strongest of the ones I mentioned, and probably closest to deserving the accolade of “new classic”. But why The Night Manager? He has at least a dozen which are equally worthy of the designation. Certainly his trilogy featuring George Smiley would be higher up on most people’s list.

Which brings me back to GoF. I doubt that most of us here - we who have spent hours reading, thinking about, analyzing, debating and sometimes writing about the Potterverse - would place GoF at the top. I think for most DH would be the favorite in terms of substance and emotional power. And after that, who knows? OotP? HBP? PoA? It’s worth a poll (attention, Matthew!!!). But it would almost certainly not be GoF.

Both the LeCarre and the Rowling selections lead me to conclude that whoever made up the list didn’t do their research very well, and looked at a fairly limited sample.
4 revgeorge // Jun 25, 2008 at 1:04 pm

I can give a quick answer to the poll, Red Rocker.

1: DH
2: OOTP
3: POA & COS
5: HBP
6: HPPS
7: GOF

But it’s not a hard & fast list. Although I have POA & COS tied, if pushed I’d probably have to give the nod to POA. But I’ve always liked COS. And HBP isn’t far behind those two; I probably could’ve had a three way tie.

But there’s also no book I don’t like or that I find it tiresome to read. I enjoy reading them all. I really can’t see how some people who love the series overall have one or two books they can’t stand to read & haven’t read more than once. cough “Greg at HP Progs” cough.

But that’s just me.
5 Red Rocker // Jun 25, 2008 at 3:03 pm

Hmmm.

I’m tempted to say DH, but in many ways DH and HBP are like volumes 1 and 2 of a single book.

And OotP is also very closely linked, because that’s when things start getting darker, and Umbridge makes her appearance and Dumbledore’s unexpected dark side starts coming out.

But then what about GoF? That’s when people start dying, and although the story is kind of unbelievable, it certainly ends with a convincing bang: he’s baaaack! It also features the Mad Eye / Barty Crouch Jr. duo, a stroke of creative genius (no matter how implausible).

And I love PoA a lot, it’s probably the one that works the best as a stand-alone book.

And CoS isn’t too shabby either. The whole device of Riddle’s diary is spooky menacing. Our first real dip into the twisted place that’s Voldemort’s mind.

And I love PS because that is our introduction to the Potterverse. It has a sense of wonder which can’t ever be repeated.

So the difference between the rankings is very minor for me.

I think I’d put them in three tiers:

DH / HBP
PoA
OotP / CoS / PS / GoF

But no matter how we cut it, revgeorge, neither of us has GoF at the head of the list.

What were the people at Entertainment Weekly thinking of?!?!
6 Dave the Longwinded // Jun 25, 2008 at 4:24 pm

I’ll defend the Watchmen selection a bit. It is a Hugo Award winner — one of the major awards for science fiction and fantasy literature won by the likes of Ursula K. LeGuin, Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke (all winners multiple times), and none other than J.K. Rowling. Interestingly enough, the Rowling’s award was for none other than GoF! Are we perhaps missing something about this book?

Granted the Hugo is awarded in multiple categories each year. Watchmen won in the “Other Forms” category in 1988. The authors mentioned above won for novels.

As for ranking the books?

1) HBP
2) DH
3) PS
4) PoA
5) CoS
6) OotP
7) GoF

In digging around, I’m suprised that GoF has received some of the awards it has received. It’s such a thoroughly flawed book in some extremely rudimentary ways. No amount of logic can adequately explain why Voldemort and Bartie Crouch, Jr. drag Harry through the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
7 revgeorge // Jun 25, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Perhaps the reason it received so many awards was that coming fourth in the series it was the one favoured with the recognition that Rowling & HP were not some flash in the pan but actually worthy of being counted as good, if not, great literature.

Much in the same way that the first two LOTR movies won hardly anything while ROTK did. Just a thought.
8 Red Rocker // Jun 25, 2008 at 6:19 pm

I have another, less appetizing explanation. Perhaps whoever included it in the list didn’t bother reading it for narrative logic but based the choice on other, extra-textual considerations. Which is similar to what you’re saying, revgeorge.

Which would cast doubt on many of the other prize winners. I, for one, was not overly impressed by Watchmen. Intellectually ambitious, certainly. Too much so for the medium, I thought. And the artwork felt cramped and overwhelmed by the text. Even if you call them graphic novels, comic books should look good - or so says someone who was raised on Barry Windsor Smith, Neal Adams and Frank Miller.
9 Victoria // Jun 25, 2008 at 7:53 pm

And Sandman why did you discard that one ?
10 Red Rocker // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:07 pm

I never read Sandman - although I’ve heard a lot about it. So I discarded it on general prejudice against graphic novels being considered in the same category as books.

Like I said, nothing against comic books - and I consider Frank Miller’s stuff pure genius and I really enjoyed the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Graphic novels can tell stories amazingly well. But they’re not books.

BTW, I just pulled out my copy of Watchmen and took a look to remind myself. The artwork isn’t bad. It’s not great either. And cramped. It’s that 3 by 3 format. The story telling is pretty good. A bit jerky - a story told through dialogue, more like a movie than a book.

Anyways, this is just my opinion - others obviously disagree - to support my suggestion that the people who compiled the Entertainment Weekly list have a fairly broad idea of what constitutes a classic.
11 korg20000bc // Jun 26, 2008 at 4:48 am

I reckon GoF is there because it is the best stand alone adventure of the series. Anyone could pick it up and have a great time reading it without having to have the complete backstory that is necessary to understand the later novels.
12 Michael // Jun 26, 2008 at 7:56 am

I wouldn’t have put GOF at the top but so many fans have their own favorite so I’m not going to question their integrity based on their choice. It is a great book and really ups the stakes within the series. The last quarter of the book is brilliant.

my choice would have been DH, OOTP or POA.
13 revgeorge // Jun 26, 2008 at 9:04 am

Matthew, I think you may have hit upon another reason GOF got picked. The sheer adventury sports competition nature of the story.

I still can’t see it being picked as the best, but that might be more understandable than, say, picking GOF the movie as the best of the movies. If someone did that, then you’d really have to question their judgement.

Michael, I’m not sure anybody questioned their integrity, just their conclusion & how they came to it.
14 Travis Prinzi // Jun 26, 2008 at 10:10 am

That’s precisely it - the adventure of it all. Almost all the “casual” readers I talk to - people who read HP for the same reason they read the hottest, fast-paced paperbacks - name GoF as their favorite.

That doesn’t explain how it would make a “classics” list or win crazy awards, but it might explain why a pop mag like EW would rank it so high.
15 Red Rocker // Jun 26, 2008 at 10:29 am

I think you - Matthew, revgeorge, Travis - are on to something. Putting aside Babymort and the main storyline, GoF is a very traditional quest story. It also follows a very old fairy-tale motif.

There are four contenders, and three tasks to be achieved in order to win the final prize. Three of the contenders are the strong favorites, whom everyone expects to win. The fourth is the underdog, the simpleton, the traditional third son in the fairy tale whom no one expects to win. But through a combination of luck and virtue and help from greater forces, he is the one who wins the ultimate prize.

Can’t get more classic than that.

I take back everything I said about EW’s lack of integrity. They are right.
16 revgeorge // Jun 26, 2008 at 10:47 am

Except shouldn’t a classic be put together a bit more tightly than GOF is? EW may have their pulse on what is ‘popular,’ but that’s not necessarily the same thing as classic.

Red Rocker, next you’ll be saying that all the contests in GOF are more exciting than the wandering around in the woods of DH.
17 Michael // Jun 27, 2008 at 4:53 am

I loved the wood wandering in DH.
18 David // Jun 27, 2008 at 7:25 am

Let’s keep in mind who is rating these “classics”, Entertainment Weekly!!??
People that are into the “entertainment ” business I guess would pick GOF as their favorite “classic” in Potterdom.
You have the the “World Quidditch Cup”, Death-Eaters attacking at the games, the Tri-Wizard Tournament with Dragons flying, Mer-people stiring up trouble in the water, Mazes with all
sorts of dangerous magical challenges and obstacles to overcome in order to reach the grand prize…….a Tournament Cup that ends up being a portkey to the graveyard of one Tom Riddle, where Harry gets to play wand-blasters (priori incantatem) with a re-embodied Voldemort.
This is the book that most video game people and movie makers of our day would want to see more of from the HP saga. Hence,
The Entertainment Weekly people would only naturally choose GOF over all the other books in the series, not that the others don’t have their own wand-waving, spellcasting battle moments as well, but GOF has the most action encased in one book.
19 revgeorge // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:31 pm

GOF certainly does have lots of excitement & it’s entertaining & it’s a good read. I like it a lot. But not many of us put in the realm of classic. So, I’d guess we’d have to know EW criteria of how they’re defining a classic work, in order to more fully see why they made GOF their choice out of the HP series.
20 jensenly // Jun 30, 2008 at 2:00 pm

My fav of the series - HBP.

It must have something to do with reading it while I was on vacation - gently swinging in a hammock next to a lake.

But GOF as the best in the series? Go figure.