Harry Potter News and Commentary
By Matthew
JK Rowling has just added some new and interesting information to her website.
Follow these links
Hary and Voldemort in the forest
What was that on King’s Cross Station?
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Travis Prinzi on Harry Potter “Feeble”, Rowling’s Success “Depressing”
Jeremy on Harry Potter “Feeble”, Rowling’s Success “Depressing”
Honest Joe on Harry Potter “Feeble”, Rowling’s Success “Depressing”
Jessica on LOST: “Dr. Linus”
Andrew Slack on Harry Potter “Feeble”, Rowling’s Success “Depressing”
taj on LOST: “Dr. Linus”
revgeorge on Harry Potter “Feeble”, Rowling’s Success “Depressing”
Red Rocker on The Next Harry Potter?
Fricka on The Next Harry Potter?
Erin on LOST: “Dr. Linus”
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{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Matthew,
So now we know: the flailing, whimpering, thumping creature hiding under the bench at King’s Cross was the last bit of soul left to Voldemort (and not the accidental horcrux that stuck to Harry after Voldemort’s annhilation when he tried to kill him for the first time).
But she still doesn’t say what he was doing, and why Harry felt the noise was slightly indecent.
We also know that King’s Cross is limbo. Not Harry’s limbo, not something happening in his imagination, not a near-death hallucination, but an actual stage between life and death limbo.
See, there she goes again. Taking an ambiguity from the book & giving an explanation for it that makes it impossible for anyone to have differing opinions over it.
There’s not much I liked about the ‘97 movie Titanic, but I did like the ending where Rose is either a) sleeping & dreaming of a reunion with Jack & all the other victims of the disaster or b) she actually dies & is reunited with Jack in some sort of afterlife. At least Cameron has had the good sense not to say which it is.
So, I’m definitely starting to fall more into the Rowling needs to stop talking & let us do the reading camp. If I wasn’t in that camp already.
But again…it was not very long ago at all (a week? two?) that she gave the interview where she gave TWO possible interpretations for that limbo scene.
I’m slowly coming to realize that the work we do as readers is not pre-empted when an author resolves an ambiguity. Ambiguities take up only a minor – I’d say insignificant – part of our work in interpreting, understanding, and relating to the text.
King’s Cross is a good example. Was it all in Harry’s head, or was it real? Well, according to JKR, it was real. So what? How does that knowledge take away from the amazingly rich texture – layer upon layer of meaning – of everything that happens there? It does not. It’s almost immaterial. Dumbledore comes clean. Harry forgives him. Voldemort is revealed as the pitiful cripple he’s become. Harry understands where he is, and his choices – to go back, or to go on. And all this set in a background so eerie and haunting that I can almost hear the silence, and see the blinding white light of the waiting room.
Understanding the text – finding personal meaning and significance in it – is not the same thing as having differing opinions. It’s on a different plane altogether. It’s how you respond to the words and images. It’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the author. It’s letting the text move you to wherever it moves you.
Reyhan,
I think perhaps the confusion we’re having in regard to our differing opinions is between a personal reading & a critical reading. Reading personally I can imagine anything I want, but reading a work critically is a bit different.
I think Travis said once on this subject that he could present something one way based on what the text says just to have someone say, well, Jo said it was this way, so there. Or something to that effect. I may be simplifying things because it’s late.
Travis wrote:
“it was not very long ago at all (a week? two?) that she gave the interview where she gave TWO possible interpretations for that limbo scene”
So, do you think since the lawsuit that Jo’s stopped checking the Lexicon to see what’s she said?
Of course, she could always check Accio Quote.
Travis, are you talking about the Bloomsbury interview back in late July?
No, the one just a week or two ago…I posted on it here on Nov. 19. It was right after the release of the Dutch version.
revgeorge,
I appreciate the difference between a personal reading and a critical reading, although I don’t think a personal reading is necessarily that arbitrary.
But I don’t think JKR’s explanation of where King’s Cross takes place is knowledge that could negatively affect either.
While the ambiguity was unresolved, one could assume either that King’s Cross was a near-death experience taking place entirely in Harry’s head, or an actual visit to the afterlife. Now we know.
So now it’s impossible to think that this was a hallucination.
What’s the damage? What have we lost?
I can see two scenarios. If one believed that King’s Cross was a near-death experience, JKR’s revelation might be disappointing. If one preferred the near-death experience explanation, one might feel cheated (as per the Red Hen’s essay).
On the other hand, if one preferred unresolved ambiguities, then the resolution itself would be a disappointment.
Usually, when we are disappointed in something, we move away from it. But to ask that the author not
speak about how she interprets her own work because of fear of disappointment is just not very sensible. If you don’t like what she’s saying, don’t listen to it. Don’t read it.
Would that not make more sense?
What am I missing here?
reyhan,
I see that here’s another area in which we’re going to have to disagree. But just to note, I’m not disappointed with her explanation per se. It’s the one I held to. I just think she’s taking the whole mystery out of her own work. Again, if she’s going to explain the whole book to us, what’s the point of reading?
Plus, in today’s age of information how is one supposed to not hear these things or read them?
I think that’s the key difficulty, right there. reyhan is right that it’s her work, and she should have all the right in the world to say whatever she likes about it. I’d just rather her not, and I think that on the whole, it’s better for authors not to – the novel itself should have said everything she wanted it to say.
And as long as she’s talking, it’s impossible to just ignore it, because as long as we keep having conversation here, someone will show up and say, “Your interpretation is wrong because yesterday Rowling said…”
The problem for me is that as Rowling continues to interpret her work for us, we either have less and less to talk about (she’s shutting down conversation and literary criticism about her own books), OR in every conversation we have to back up and defend the idea that an author can be wrong about her own work (something I still intend to do after this semester is over).
In this sort of discussion, I am reminded of George MacDonald’s “The Fantastic Imagination” in which he discusses fairytales and their interpretation:
“But a man may then imagine in your work what he pleases, what you never meant!”
Not what he pleases, but what he can. If he be not a true man, he will draw evil out of the best; we need not mind how he treats any work of art! If he be a true man, he will imagine true things: what matter whether I meant them or not? They are there none the less that I cannot claim putting them there! One difference between God’s work and man’s is, that, while God’s work cannot mean more than he meant, man’s must mean more than he meant. For in everything that God has made, there is layer upon layer of ascending significance; also he expresses the same thought in higher and higher kinds of that thought: it is God’s things, his embodied thoughts, which alone a man has to use, modified and adapted to his own purposes, for the expression of his thoughts; therefore he cannot help his words and figures falling into such combinations in the mind of another as he had himself not foreseen, so many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the relations involved in every figure, so many the facts hinted in every symbol. A man may well himself discover truth in what he wrote; for he was dealing all the time with things that came from thoughts beyond his own.
“But surely you would explain your idea to one who asked you?”
I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one. Any key to a work of imagination would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd. The tale is there, not to hide, but to show: if it show nothing at your window, do not open your door to it; leave it out in the cold. To ask me to explain, is to say, “Roses! Boil them, or we won’t have them!” My tales may not be roses, but I will not boil them.
So long as I think my dog can bark, I will not sit up to bark for him.
I’ve fought this battle on two websites now, and I’m almost ready to stop.
Almost.
I don’t see how JKR’s comments limit literary criticsm. If you think they can, take a look at the Red Hen’s commentary on DH. I did not take up John Granger’s invitation to debate the commentary because I wouldn’t even have known where to start. It would be like trying to carve up a whale. It would take a far more energetic person than I.
But I am interested in the thesis that an author can be wrong about his or her work, without recourse to “God’s work” which puts the debate in the realm of the unknowable.
As for the THIS IS A HORSE argument, it would be helpful if those who made it clarified their point: are you stating that JKR writing THIS IS A HORSE because she didn’t do a competent job of drawing the horse and no one knows what she drew? Or are you stating that JKR is writing THIS IS A HORSE unnecessarily because we can all see that she did indeed draw a horse? Or are you perhaps stating that she is writing THIS IS A HORSE under the picture of something all of us can is another type of animal, a COW or some such?
Because it does make a difference whether one sees her commentary as necessary due to her incompetence as a writer, redundant because she is a competent writer, or contradictory because her commentary suggests something different from her work.
Because it does make a difference whether one sees her commentary as necessary due to her incompetence as a writer, redundant because she is a competent writer, or contradictory because her commentary suggests something different from her work.
I don’t think the argument is being made about Rowling’s incompetency as a writer, but about her insecurity as a writer. The idea is, “Stop saying THIS IS A HORSE” outside of the context of the horse you drew. Let the work speak for itself. Any of the possibilities you suggest (competence, incompetence, contradiction) are options at various points of the series; but discussing any of them is taken away if she keeps talking and giving us the definitive exegesis of her work.
That sounds like you’re saying it’s hard to hit a moving target. I think that it just makes the job more interesting.
I would agree that there might be some degree of insecurity involved in not letting the text speak for itself. But I think there are other factors involved. With regards to both Dumbledore’s sexual orientation and the “out there” interpretation of King’s Cross, JKR might have been reluctant to commit herself in the text for fear of how it would be received. She probably feared the reaction of the fundamentalist book burners had she outed Dumbledore in the text. And she probably feared being castigated as a religious zealot if she acknowledged a hereafter, with limbo and destinations beyond.
But even more importantly, Harry Potter was conceived and grew up in the internet age. The books were not quite a collaborative process between author and readers, but certainly the author heard a lot more from her readers while she wrote than other authors. And responded. I think one day it would make an interesting study to compare Harry Potter to Sherlock Holmes and other literary creations who developed over time, giving the author access to reader reactions and input. My point is, for the last seventeen years Harry Potter was an interactive process; there was an ongoing dialogue between the author and her readers. The dialogue continued after each book. Why should that process stop now?
Cory,
That’s a great quote from MacDonald. Thanks for posting it!
reyhan:
Actually, I’m not trying to say why Rowling is making statements regarding the interpretation of her work, just that she is in fact doing so, and it is not really helpful. I do not think she is a poor writer. I do think she is clinging too tightly to her own intentions for the text. I like the earlier portion of MacDonald’s quote regarding readers finding other meanings in a text outside of the authors own intentions. I see Rowling as having a real problem with lettign go of her creation and letting readers analyze it for themselves. Certainly during the interlibrum period, it made sense that she was so controlling over the books, movies, etc. I don’t think most people thought twice about that tendency. However it seems to me that she still feels that way even though the series is complete. On the otherhand, she has every right to say whatever she wants to say about the books. It is still in our right not to accept those statements as “true” if other interpretations can also be reasonable argued from the text itself.
Cory,
I started out from a position that once printed, the text has an existence distinct from the (intentions of the) author. Coming from that position, I would accept that we would be justified in rejecting the author’s interpretation if other interpretations could also be reasonably argued from the text.
But I’m not sure any more that we can separate the text from the author’s intentions. Everything she wrote was an attempt to realize her intentions, whether successful or not. The possibility that she might have had various or even competing intentions, or that she might not have been successful in depicting some of her intentions, doesn’t change that basic underlying relationship between the text and the author.
Where it gets confusing is that the author may not always be able to clearly answer the question: what were you trying to do there? She may not be able to definitively say what her intent was at all points, especially if she had conflicting intentions: to show Dumbledore as wise and compassionate, for example, while showing him as manipulative and flawed. It takes a lot of skill to write such a contradictory character.
But – and this is my main point and it’s the one I’m waiting for Travis to address – we as readers or critics can not be more definitive about the author’s intent than she is, either in agreement or disagreement.
We can’t say she really meant this, when she only implied it. And we can’t say she didn’t really mean this, when she says she did.
So in the case of Dumbledore, JKR has said that he is flawed, that he is manipulative, and that he is gay. Much consternation, especially in reaction to the last point. The chief argument is that she didn’t give us enough – or indeed any – evidence in the text, and that therefore what she says afterwards doesn’t or shouldn’t make any difference. We can continue to see Dumbledore as non-gay.
Well, I think it would be reasonable to argue (as I have) that the clues were there, but just not clearly connected. It would also be reasonable to say that JKR didn’t do a very good job of laying out the clues so it would have been impossible to connect the clues. So she either hid the fact well for reasons we can conjecture about, or she unintentionally did a poor job.
But to say that it’s not true because there was no evidence, is totally disregarding the author’s clearly stated intent. It is being more definitive about the author’s intent than she is herself. It’s like setting one’s own opinion up as an alternate – and more compelling – source of authority on the text. In my opinion, it would be better to call her incompetent than to say that she is not the ultimate authority on the intent of her own book.
I am beginning to see how JKR’s post-publication revelations make the critic’s work harder, especially if one wants to make a strong case for themes which the author seems to have mixed feelings about. The Christian themes – of saving the world from evil through love and self-sacrifice and resurrection – are themes which are strongly suggested by the books. God himself is left unmentioned, although heaven and hell are strongly hinted at. And now, most recently, JKR strengthens the implication that she did indeed portray a life after death: King’s Cross was not a near-death hallucination. A critic who had written as if it were might well feel the carpet pulled out from under his feet by the subsequent revelation.
But what sort of critic would have made such a definitive conclusion given the ambigious evidence?
It’s an interesting situation. Critics need the book to be finished so they can proceed with their work. The author doesn’t appear to have signed off yet. It’s not too helpful to suggest that analysis should wait until the author stops commenting – she may never stop. Fortunately, I’m not a critic, so I don’t need her to stop just so we can have closure.
I think “Small Gods’ by Terry Pratchett did it right; The basic story is of a god being strangled by unbelief, despite having a large and powerful orthodoxy enforcing his religion. The god chooses a young, innocent, guileless priest to tackle an orthodoxy headed by someone very much like Doesteyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.
TP stated in interviews that he got positive feedback from two chief sources: Pagans who liked the way he stuck it two the ‘big beard religions’, and Christians who identified with the young priest character. Both took it as an indictment of organized religion; one, however, took it as an indictment of God himself while the other took it as standing by the One who would clean out the Temple.
Mr. Pratchett has made a point of NOT saying which viewpoint he meant. Why should he? He’d just offend half his readership and lose money. Far better to simply tell the story and let people draw from it what they will. A lesson I think Ms. Rowling could stand to learn.
Finally a Christian article writer who hit the nail!
Harry Potter:
Rowling’s Christian critics miss the mark
LA Daily News, USA
Oct. 18, 2007 Opinion
Tim Haddock
http://www.dailynews.com
[Contains spoilers]
There are some Christian factions that love to criticize J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter books. References to witchcraft, paganism, curses and hexes make the books easy targets for the defenders of righteousness.
It turns out these factions of Christianity miss their mark.
Instead of focusing on how things like witchcraft and paganism are anti-Christian themes, they should have been criticizing Rowling’s interpretation of life after death.
During her book tour visit to the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on Monday, a reporter asked Rowling to explain the last time she wrote about Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Dumbledore dies in the sixth book, but meets Harry in limbo, somewhere between life and death, near the end of “The Deathly Hallows.” Before leaving Harry, Dumbledore is seen crying in grief and shame as he says good-bye and returns to being dead, while Harry goes on living.
…Is [J.K. Rowling] a Christian?. ‘’Yes, I am,’’ she says. ‘’Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I’ve been asked if I believe in God, I’ve said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that….
- J.K. Rowling in Author has frank words for the religious right
The reporter wanted to know if Dumbledore spends eternity crying and in pain. Rowling said no, that Dumbledore has a wonderful afterlife, despite the mistakes he made during his life.
Then Rowling proceeded to explain her thoughts on the afterlife. “On any given moment, if you asked me (if) I believe in life after death, I think if you polled me regularly through the week, I think I would come down on the side of yes – that I do believe in life after death,” Rowling said. “It’s something that I wrestle
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with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that’s very obvious within the books.”
This is what Rowling’s Christian critics should really be angry about.
For Rowling, the afterlife is more than a promise. It exists. Without Christ. She has created a world where the dead walk among the living, where the afterlife is for everyone; and in some regards it’s a better place than the living world. Death is not that horrible of an option.
For many Christians, accepting Jesus Christ as savior is the only path to an afterlife. Those who don’t are lost, sent to hell, or purgatory, or someplace other than heaven.
Rowling doesn’t need Christ. Not in her wizard world. Not in her afterlife. Not anywhere near Harry Potter.
That is the reason Christians should be upset with Rowling – not because her child characters perform spells and curses and delve into witchcraft, but because they do not need Christ to have an afterlife. None of us do, in Rowling’s views.
In the world of Harry Potter, dying is not something that needs to be feared. Those who are afraid of dying become corrupted, misguided, lost and alone.
Dumbledore is the best example of what happens to Rowling’s characters who embrace the thought of an afterlife. They take chances. They challenge authority. Most importantly, they aren’t afraid to fail. Dumbledore turns out to be a failure in many ways, but it doesn’t affect his place in the afterlife. He may have regrets, but he would not trade his afterlife for a chance to return among the living.
Harry gets to make that choice – to be dead or alive. In that sense, he is much luckier than any of us will ever be.
That moment when Harry gets to decide if he wants to live or die best illustrates Rowling’s struggle with the concept of life after death. “The truth is that, like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes that my faith will return,” Rowling said. “It’s something I struggle with a lot.”
Tim Haddock writes for the Daily News’ Harry Potter blog, Portkey to Hogwarts, http://www.insidesocal.com/harrypotter.
Technorati Tags: JK Rowling, Harry Potter
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/19677/harry-potter-5
That’s a terrible article.
Just a short comment on the article posted by Guest. Again, not every novel that ends up having Christian themes has to be explicitly “Christian” & encompass all of Christian doctrine. Rowling is not writing a “Christian” novel, so all her Christian critics need to get over that.
Second, who’s to say that Christians don’t struggle with their faith in God’s promises, including the promise of the afterlife? Tell it to the Old Testament saints who cried out, ‘How long, O Lord!’ Tell it to St. John the Baptist, who we remember in the 3 year lectionary this coming Sunday, who sent his disciples to Jesus to inquire, “Are you really the Christ or should we expect another?” Tell it to the New Testament saints all the way down to today who pray, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
If anyone says they never struggle with their faith in God’s promises, they’re either blessed beyond all other men or they’re liars. Well, I guess my comments weren’t so short. I agree, Travis, a terrible article, by someone else who completely misses the point.
Well said, reyhan.
She did not write a Christian story, very indeed. Even she talks and talks and talks about her “Christian” belief which is nothing else than Calvinist heresy.
Mausezähnchen, that statement may be even ignorant than the article, on so many levels…
And just to be clear, this is not the place for declarations of heresy. Please find another forum to debate Calvinism and Arminianism.
But – and this is my main point and it’s the one I’m waiting for Travis to address – we as readers or critics can not be more definitive about the author’s intent than she is, either in agreement or disagreement.
We can’t say she really meant this, when she only implied it. And we can’t say she didn’t really mean this, when she says she did.
I’ve observed this discussion from the outside because I’m not sure what else I have to say that I haven’t already said. For me, it’s not a matter of “right” vs. “wrong” interpretations. A book is a collection of ideas strung together into something that somebody hopes will make some sense to someone else. That’s just not a cut/dry, perfect moment of communication — especially in literary works that rely so heavily on artistic tools, and not purely rhethorical ones. I believe these things were Rowling’s intent. For me, that’s not the question. The question is a (deceptively) simple one: what’s the story’s point(s)? With some decent reasoning, I think conflicting interpretations can coexist and be equally valid. We’re dealing with the figurative expression of ideas often about abstractions. There’s no scientific or quantifiable manner in which to decide what a word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or entire work means at a given point in time. We’re debating literature — not math. I’m skimming through Rowling’s words and metaphors, not Galileo’s calculations and experiments.
Thus, Rowling is a perfectly reasonable persion to listen to about Harry Potter. I just don’t think she has a special privilege concerning the ideas within HP once it becomes a publicly read and traded document. The very act of discussing the book turns it away from her exclusive control.
Dave,
I can see room for conflicting interpretations, e.g. King’s Cross is Harry’s subjective experience vs. a shared “out there” experience. In that sense, there is no “right” vs “wrong” interpretation.
But when the author tells you what she meant by it, then I think the conflicting interpretations need to be put away. The text may support them, but ignoring the new input or “evidence” from the author is not justifiable. I think this is because when the author comments, it’s not interpretation, but intent. It doesn’t quite have the same import as the text, but it’s more important than other people’s interpretations. My point is that her intent trumps everyone else’s interpretation.
The critic’s task at that point, to my mind, would be asking why the author created the ambiguity in the first place. And why she changed her mind and resolved the ambiguity after publication.
I think King’s Cross is a wonderful piece of writing, down to the last word: “real”. I think she resolved the ambiguity with that word. But for some reason, JKR was not content to let the text speak for itself. Put it down to insecurity, lack of belief that she had said what she needed to. Or put it down to control needs: she wanted to ensure that everyone interpreted it the way she intended it to be interpreted.
The critic’s task at that point, to my mind, would be asking why the author created the ambiguity in the first place. And why she changed her mind and resolved the ambiguity after publication.
I think King’s Cross is a wonderful piece of writing, down to the last word: “real”. I think she resolved the ambiguity with that word. But for some reason, JKR was not content to let the text speak for itself. Put it down to insecurity, lack of belief that she had said what she needed to. Or put it down to control needs: she wanted to ensure that everyone interpreted it the way she intended it to be interpreted.
Reyhan, maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but this statement seems to contradict the earlier idea about the author’s sanctity. Rowling can’t “resolve the ambiguity after publication”. If an ambiguity exists “in text”, then it will always “be” in text. It’s all purely speculation at this point, but I would daresay that any homoerotic reading of Dumbledore’s character would have been met with a lot of skepticism — as yet one more reach on the part of some readers to eisegetically read into the text an external agenda.
Obviously, no one can know that. One can read Dumbeldore homoerotically precisely because of the ambiguity; but that is not a hard and fast “fact” as far as the text is concerned. Thus, we get back to canon. If the text is canonical, where does Rowling’s statement fit in that context? Does her statement become somehow part of the text — canonical in its own right? Or, as a postfacto statement, is it yet another interpretation? I lean towards the latter.
Dave,
I was wrestling with the same question: where does a post-publication statement fit?
I don’t think it would be canonical in its own right. But I don’t think it would merely be an interpretation. It would fall somewhere in between.
Reyhan, hmmm…a middle ground. I like it!
We here at SoG could make a lasting contribution to the world of literary criticism by theorizing this middle ground — an answer to the postmodern dilemmas found in traditional exegesis.
Sidenote:
If nothing else, how about this postmodern dilemma: the author is “dead”, but she “owns” her work as “intellectual property”, whatever that is.
Don’t we have a very old-fashioned term describing that situation: don’t we call it a copyright (which reverts to the author’s estate upon her demise)?
Ah, but wouldn’t the copyright only apply to the actual text itself and not any post-publication interview comments?
I read a good essay a while back in Scribbulus (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/issue9/authordead) called “”If the Author is Dead, Who’s Updating Her Website?”
According to The Leaky Cauldron website, the next two Pottercasts will feature an interview with JK Rowling herself. Lots of new canon revelations, they say. Apparently they’ve decided that anything that comes out of JKR’s mouth is automatically canon. Guess they should read our discussions on the matter; they might not be so sure.
Ugh…more “canon” revelations. Yikes. Of course, it probably WILL all be canon when she puts it in the encyclopedia.
Unless she changes her mind between now and then.
Which is likely.