Here’s something to get your blood pressure up this morning. Toby Young, a freelance writer, gives a series of bare assertions about how sad it is that literature as “second-rate” as Harry Potter has been so successful:
But on the other hand, there’s something depressingly second-rate about the Harry Potter franchise. The books are a bland amalgam of more interesting work by more imaginative authors. The plots are feeble and episodic. And what little interest the characters and stories contain has long ago been eradicated by endless repetition.
Of all Britain’s celebrated children’s authors, JK Rowling is among the least deserving of this honour. Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen better candidates — Beatrix Potter, AA Milne, Kenneth Grahame, CS Lewis, Richmal Crompton and Roald Dahl. A hundred years from now, children will still be reading those authors and Harry Potter will be a distant memory.
This is the kind of article that tells us more about its author than the author about whome he is writing. How embarrassing would it be for him and the other condescending commenters there to learn that Potter is being studied as serious literature at over 40 college and university campuses, including many of the Ivy League schools? This man doesn’t know the first thing about these books or about what constitutes great literature.
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{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, was already having a bad morning before having this to fire me up.
Jealous, anyone? The only thing that’s worse than the author’s assertions is the comments beneath the article. There’s nothing there but one man’s non-descript opinion.
As for the amalgam of interesting works, does he realize we’re living in the post-modern world? I think we’ve had most of these debates before and that the Harry Potter books will stand the test of time and be considered great literature.
I scanned some of the comments on the blog. My favorite one:
I soon realised that only a certain group of adults were reading them, and they were the low brow, “normally cant read a book” end of the market. They were all just play acting along with the fashion of the day. They’re not reading Harry Potter now – gone back to their HEAT magazines.
OK, where’s my copy of HEAT magazine? Have all you low brows been holding out on me?
Ahuh – ahuh! I see I need to get me some edjumication! Dabnabbit – I loves me some Harry Podder in the mornin’!
I just want to know how he’s so confident what will happen 100 years in the future. And is he willing to give us any stock tips or lottery numbers?
Also, if he had been writing 100 years ago, would he really have picked Beatrix Potter and A. A. Milne (savvy and wealthy businesspeople both) as most likely to stand the test of time? Ah, the magic of hindsight.
“Toby Young is the author of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2001) and The Sound of No Hands Clapping (2006). In addition to being a freelance journalist, he is leading the efforts of a parent group in West London to set up a state secondary school. To learn more about that project, visit the school’s website on http://www.westlondonfreeschool.co.uk. Toby’s personal website is http://www.nosacredcows.co.uk and he tweets under the name of Toadmeister.”
I really think that tells us all we need to know about the author of this article. If that’s not depressing, nothing is.
Researching the test of time led me to discover “Nineteenth-Century American Children and What They Read“. It wasn’t all A. A. Milne.
Grr… I really have nothing to say to this… Other than to maybe want to start a campaign to unindate the author under copies of academic articles and books on HP =D (Just kidding, but it would be amusing would it not?)
Ack. I don’t think I can bring myself to get into the comments over there. I totally agree with everyone else who has commented here, though. Red Rocker, you made me laugh. I’ve never even heard of HEAT magazine. Tom, sounds like Mr. Young is practicing what he preaches about losing friends and alienating people. Ally, a campaign to inundate the author with academic material (and the academic credentials of those writing the material) sounds like fun.
This reminds me of a similar article a few years ago (mercifully I forgot the author’s name) that stated adults shouldn’t waste time reading HP but read Madame Bovary instead. I am grateful that I am no longer a schoolgirl who is forced to read books she isn’t interested in. As for people reading HP for a “fashion”, I cannot agree at all. Personally, I only met people who won’t read it because it is popular and therefore cannot be worth their time.
Red Rocker, I can’t find my copy of HEAT either. BTW I think the QUIBBLER would be much more fun to read.
I love when you post these types of articles, Travis. It brings out the most witty and sassy side of the Pub’s patrons. A perfect way to start my day – laughing!
“Toadmeister”? That says it all for me.
Toadmeister, indeed. Who calls themself “toad”. Reminds me of the character in “American Graffitti” who was called Toad – and it wasn’t a compliment.
I think the most disturbing thing about this guy is that he’s involved with trying to start a school.
A petty little man who drips with jealousy and is panicked that the world will forget him. I already have.
This is a repeat of what I said of Buzz, but… doesn’t that guy realize he’s just regurgitating crap already said by Harold Bloom and A.S. Byatt. A.S. Byatt only read OOtP and thought she was qualified to discuss the series as a whole (it’s really too bad she thinks this way, as I liked “Possession”). How many of the books has Toby Young read?
I hate this snobbery of only seeing old, dead people as good writers, can’t help but thinking that a lot of these authors that feel the need to make such statements about Rowling are just insecure and jealous of her success.
I think the best response to the idiots who think that only “low brow” adults read Harry Potter is to give them the links to this and John Granger’s site. I’m also happy to fax them a copy of my degrees .
@Eric: Totally agree (with how can he say that Harry Potter won’t be read in a hundred years).
Wonder what would have happened if he had said that about Beatrix Potter….hmmm *imagines*
I’ve been away from the pub for a while and have missed you all a lot! This was a great post as I try to catch up on everything I’ve missed – I had a great laugh reading all your comments. Clearly the author of the article is suffering from PRUBON.
And I just have to quote this commenter from the article:
The final book was extremely poor, with page after page offering no story development and a lack of tension building to an anticlimactic climax.
Can I just say what?!?! and leave it at that…
And we’ve missed you aerisflowers! Glad you’ve got a chance to comment.
It’s one thing to have an opinion. Even if that opinion is wrong. But it’s quite another thing to make a prediction. This guy predicts that the Harry Potter books will not be read widely in 100 years. Oh great. Now I have to find a way to live until I’m 130 just to make sure I’m alive so I can say, “boy was that guy an idiot. In other news, in twenty years I’ll be as old as Albus Dumbledore” and a surprisingly large amount of youngin’s will know exactly what I mean, having read and cherished the great piece of literature that is Harry Potter.
This is not a discussion, anything but, more like a party political propaganda exercise. You should all form a choir.
You could sing carols outside Rowling’s Edinburgh mansion. providing she doesn’t get the police for you.
Toby is right, of course, and brave to say so. He has a mind of his own. You don’t.
After me then – a-one, a-two ….”Ding Dong Merrily on High etc- May you beautifully rhyme your evetime song, ye singers.
Gloria, Joanna in excelsis! etc”
Honest Joe: “Toby is right of course, and brave to say so…”.
Logically neither of these statements is true. I think that you will find that:
“Toby has an opinion and has the right to state it” is what you meant to say.
Oh, good. Honest Joe is going to make this fun.
“He has a mind of his own. You don’t.”
Funny, since all you’ve done is come along here and agreed with Toby. Let’s have you and Toby exercise that “mind of your own” and explain, in the context of the tradition of British lit, the schoolboy novel, Gothic and fantasy lit, and the Great Books why it is that the Harry Potter books are “feeble.” We’ll be expecting close analysis of the text of Harry Potter itself. You do have a “mind of your own”, after all.
Let’s get some basics out of the way, shall we?
1. Have you read all 4100 pages of Rowling?
2. Have you interacted with the hundreds of literary scholars, many who are experts on Great Books, about the Harry Potter books?
You shouldprobably consider lurking more before assessing an entire “discussion” based on one thread. As we’ve spent the past 5 years discussing HP and other lit here, you might find we’ve come across these kinds of “opinions” before and discussed them. You’ll also find this is a site where liking and disliking opinions and choices by Rowling is fair game, so please drop the “Christmas Carols” thing.
Adult, low-brow, non-reading dweeb checking in here! My daddy never read no books, nor his daddy neither. All them books what is in my house is just for holding doors open and stuff like that.
Thanks for posting this article–it made my morning! I needed a good chuckle.
There once was a Brasenose scholar
Who disliked the tales of Potter
It’s feeble he bellowed
How is it allowed?
The author makes more money than she oughter.
In one of Dorothy L. Sayers books, Lord Peter is explaining why he does not discuss Greek Philosophy–it is a closed book to him, and then goes on to compare it to being tone deaf. I wonder if perhaps that’s what we are dealing with here–that Toby and Honest Joe are tone deaf to the different notes that JKR orchestrates in her work. Or perhaps they have read only the surface level, and have not “gotten” to the other layers. I think we should acknowledge that it’s OK to not like Harry Potter(gasp! did I say that???), if one is honest as to why one does not like it. For example, in spite of my best efforts, I have not been able to get my brother to read any of the HP books. He says he is not interested in that kind of fantasy writing, and I’ve accepted that. But to read the books(or not with the intent to let oneself enjoy them)and then belittle the author and the people who do enjoy reading her books–that’s dirty pool, in my view. There are plenty of authors whose works I don’t care for, and in a life spent as an avid reader, an English Lit major, and a college teacher, I’ve come across a fair few, but I don’t put down others who do find them enjoyable.
P.S. Honest Joe, that’s Hosanna in the highest, NOT Joanna in the highest. The fact that you wrote that made me think perhaps you ARE partially deaf. Either that or being deliberately disrespectful, and I’d prefer to think the former than the latter.
wordsaremagic, it’s nice to see you in here! we non-reading dweebs have got to stick together!
Howdy there Honest Joe! Ding dongs and ye and all those high fallutin’ words – you shure talk purdy! Yup – we got ourselves a choir alrigh’ – and we likes to sing!
Great comments, Fricka….
I do not like the great Russian writers. They do nothing for me. I do not, however, take this as an opportunity to slam them. I assume the fault is with me, not with them — I am, as Fricka says, “tone deaf” to the Russians. I don’t know why.
I don’t mind when people are “tone deaf” to Harry Potter. Not every books is everyone’s cup of tea. But to assume that everyone who likes something you don’t happen to like is an idiot merely shows how very small your own mind is. So go ahead and feel smug, “Honest Joe” and Toby, and enjoy yourselves. We have better things to do.
As for Toby’s 100-year prediction? Yeah, right. Go ahead and predict something that’ll happen in ten years — you know, a time frame when someone can check up on you — and see how you do. 100 year predictions are for cowards.
See, ordinarily I’d try to show some common courtesy and respect some standards of debate: to wit, try to understand the argument and address well-made points. But Mr. Young’s comments are so free of standards themselves – and his supporters so shrilly vituperative – that I sink very low down indeed. With apologies to Python:
Bravely bold Sir Toby, rode forth from the cooking shows.
He was not afraid to make a fool of himself, o Brave Sir Toby.
He was not at all afraid to sound like an ignorant twit.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Toby.
Thanks for the laugh, Red Rocker. I did not mean to ignore your earlier post–apparently you were writing at the same time I was, only you finished more quickly. I like both of your little rhymes, especially the Brasenose one. Don’t suppose you could produce one that rhymes with “Balliol,” could you???
Who’s from Balliol?
Mr. Young’s criticism is short and not very specific. Like most such rants, his falls apart when it comes to mentioning other authors who the ranter thinks are better than the target of his criticism.
Mr. Young cites seven children’s writers who he thinks are better than J.K. Rowling:
Beatrix Potter, author of Peter Rabbit, which is certainly a classic anthropomorphic children’s story—- for the thousand or so words that it lasts. But it is shorter than one of Rowling’s chapters, shorter even than any of the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Beatrix Potter’s entire opus is probably not much longer than one of Rowling’s novels. Nor are her works masterpieces of English style. Plain children’s prose, not really any better than Rowling’s pedestrian style.
Then he holds up A.A. Milne, whose work was so twee that it induced Dorothy Parker (in her Constant Reader review) to say “Tonstant Weader Frowed Up”. The less said about “Pooh Style” the better I think.
Next on Young’s better-than-Rowling hit parade is Kenneth Grahame. Okay, here we finally have a children’s novelist of quality. The Wind in the Willows is a novel both in terms of length and in terms of plot, picaresque though it is. Grahame also writes pretty well, though not a lot better than Rowling, sharing her weakness for putting an adverb after every use of the word ‘said’. But it is hard to deny that the book is a children’s classic.
But The Wind in the Willows is only one book. Rowling has written seven full novels about Harry Potter and three other books in her universe.
Of course, output counts for nothing if quality is lacking. But Rowling is not a terrible writer. She sometimes writes with an overly juvenile style, her plots frequently make no sense and her character development can be a little repetitive. But these defects are balanced by her strengths: her sense of humor, her emotionally involving characters and her exceptional reversals and reveals. Her combination of good writing and large output surely makes her as at least as “deserving” of being a celebrated children’s author as Kenneth Grahame.
I will pass over Mr. Young’s mention of C.S. Lewis, since Lewis has hardly been passed over in popularity. His books are all still in print and several have been made into movies. (Also, I will pass on Lewis because I admit that I am not a big fan of Narnia. Aslan always seemed to overshadow all the other characters in Narnia and, for me, this destroys the dramatic qualities of what are supposed to be novels. I think Rowling’s books are much better as novels than Lewis’s pseudo-dialogues).
Richmal Crompton’s William stories do not seem to me to have any qualities superior to Harry Potter, fun though they may be. They are also not novels and not very ambitious as writing. Why Young thinks that people a century hence will be reading about a boy stealing mule carts and skipping school in preference to the antics of the Weasley twins is beyond me. But De gustibus, I guess
Roald Dahl, like C.S. Lewis, is hardly lacking for attention or popularity. His books are classics and deserve a place on the shelf with Rowling. But ever said anything different? Dahl’s books are still in print and have been made into movies. Parents still read them to their children and audiobook versions are readily available, read by big stars, like Jeremy Irons. And, while Dahl writes imaginatively and with verve, let’s not overestimate his quality:
excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
“COWS THAT GIVE CHOCOLATE MILK, it said on the next door.
“Ah, my pretty little cows!” cried Mr Wonka. “How I love those cows!”
“But why can’t we see them?” asked Veruca Salt. “Why do we have to go rushing past all these lovely rooms?”
“We shall stop in time!” called out Mr Wonka. “Don’t be so madly impatient!”
FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS, it said on the next door.
“Oh, those are fabulous!” cried Mr Wonka. “They fill you with bubbles, and the bubbles are full of a special kind of gas, and this gas is so terrifically lifting that it lifts you right off the ground just like a balloon, and up you go until your head hits the ceiling – and there you stay.”
“But how do you come down again?” asked little Charlie.
“You do a burp, of course,” said Mr Wonka. “You do a great big long rude burp, and up comes the gas and down comes you! But don’t drink it outdoors! There’s no knowing how high up you’ll be carried if you do that. I gave some to an old Oompa–Loompa once out in the back yard and he went up and up and disappeared out of sight! It was very sad. I never saw him again.”
“He should have burped,” Charlie said.
“Of course he should have burped,” said Mr Wonka. “I stood there shouting ‘Burp, you silly ass, burp, or you’ll never come down again!’ But he didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t, I don’t know which. Maybe he was too polite. He must be on the moon by now.”
On the next door, it said, SQUARE SWEETS THAT LOOK ROUND.
“Wait!” cried Mr Wonka, skidding suddenly to a halt. “I am very proud of my square sweets that look round. Let’s take a peek.”
It is not exactly Oscar Wilde, is it?
Thanks SPT, I think you hit the nail on the head! It’s not Rowling’s writing style that will make this series endure for the next 100 years, it is the universal relevance of her main themes and overall message. Her characters are so relatable, flawed and human. Can’t we say the same for any “classic” that we still read and revere, 100 years after it was written?
Good point, aerisflowers. Of the seven authors mentioned by Toby Young only two, C.S. Lewis and Rowling, write Real Proper Modern Novels—- ie novels that have a second layer of meaning below the narrative level.
Surely this should count for something.
I’m thinking that maybe we could add Kenneth Grahame and Roald Dahl to the group who have something to say beyond the surface story.
In the case of Grahame, there’s a message about an idyllic existence which is linked to the outdoors, lack of ordinary familial obligations, and above all the importance of male friendships. It’s the world of bachelor men, leading responsibiilty free lives in the absence of any female attachments. An immature view of existence, perhaps, but a very clear one.
One of the first things that struck me when I read Dahl was the abysmal lack of morality shown by many of his adult characters. The awful aunts of James and the Giant Peach, the murderous Miss Trunchbull of Matilda, not to mention the totally self-cabsorbed parents, and the horrible things that happen to (admittedly) horrible children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory show children a dangerous world in which adults not only do not offer safety, they are the principal autthors of peril. There are good adults in this world, who try to help and protect children, but there is no guarantee that children will be safe. That to me is messing with one of the primary tenets of children’s literature: that at the end of the day, all will be well. While James, and Matilda and Charlie all make it safely to the end of the story – and achieve happiness – Dahl’s world is one where they might easily not have.
Nothing to do with Toby Young, btw.
Well, I guess Grahame does have the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. This has always seemed to me to be little more than a name-check of Pan. But I suppose it could be considered subtext.
I”ve never been too crazy about the Piper. He doesn’t really fit the rest of the story – he seems to come from another story which has no real link to Toad, Rat, Badger and co. The subtext is irrelevant, imho.
This article brings to mind another great writer of fantasy (fairy story) literature, J R R Tolkien and the fact that some in the literary world of his day either ignored the LOTR or carried negative comments in their periodicals toward his work.
Michael Martinez, a Tolkien Studies Webmaster had a great comment about literary critics who don’t do their homework.
“The study of Tolkien’s works is really in its infancy because, quite frankly, the critics have been ignoring the Tolkien stories for decades. They’ve focused on whether Aragorn has all the qualities of a noble horse, whether the Orcs are stereotypical villains, or whether the Rohirrim were derived from the Anglo-Saxons. Do even one of these people understand what The Lord of the Rings is all about?
Tolkien said the story was about death and the search for deathlessness”.
“Critics are the graffiti artists of literature. Tolkien critics devote a great deal of time to “proving” their points, but they would probably not last long in a trivia contest”.
Ditto to Toby on the longevity of Rowling and Harry Potter!
Well, you all have done a sufficient job broiling the Toadmeister without me. I bow in agreement to your dismissal of his article. The only thoughts I have to add is — a) critics made much the same claims about Dickens, and b) they sneered at Tolkien. If anything, a few more slavering critics simply solidifies Rowling’s place in literature.
SPT @30 — Thanks for an exhaustive and well informed comment. Just wanted to point out that Potter and Rowling worked in two entirely different art forms. It’s not quite fair to judge one by the other. Writing short, self-illustrated books for young children is nothing like writing a seven volume epic fantasy. It takes two different kinds of genius. Children’s writing is an art in itself — children don’t usually read Wilde, though they will read Pooh with delight. It would be interesting to compare Potter’s work with the Beedle tales, though, as there the forms are similar.
I’ve just now had time to read the Toadmeister’s column with its comments, and the comments here. I see that Honest Joe has not been back to engage in a serious discussion. Hit and run, Joe? Not an indication of honesty.