Das Tagebuch Murnaus

From today's paper (bits edited):

Martha moved off Canadian airwaves
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I know I'm going to get into trouble for this one, but I wanted to quote this review of the new Harry Potter book from the amazon.co.uk website:

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Reviewer: the-byronic-man from Wainscotting 31 December, 2002

I'd recommend this imaginative little book to any (unadventurous) child under the age of twelve. S/he won't learn anything from it, but as an alternative to "Dawson's Creek" and other dreck TV, it's solid, inoffensive fun. To others, though, the book could be instructive. Some adults--ambitious, mercenary, would-be writers--will find an object lesson here.

The lesson: stick with the tried and true. If you want to be praised for "originality," just reach a little further back for your literary models. Rowling herself was a failed writer for years before she struck her gold mine: the weekly schoolboy serials of the early 20th century.

George Orwell describes these stories--which were hugely popular in England and its colonies for over 30 years--in his great essay "Boys' Weeklies." They were all set entirely at posh boarding schools, hence their fantasy snob appeal: most of their readers could only dream about attending such places. The school rites, rules, customs of daily life, etc., were enshrined in fetishistic detail. For thousands of children, and adults, too--to judge from the weeklies' uproarious letter columns--these self-contained (and mostly imaginary) worlds held a mystical fascination that bordered on obsession.

The typical heroes of these stories were titled (that is, bluebloods, with family in the peerage) and filthy rich. Their friends and foes were a variety of types: the plodding boy who's good-hearted and loyal, though a trifle melodramatic; the hand-raising pedant, who nevertheless shows pluck in a crisis; the villainous swell... Sound familiar? The teachers, too, were a menagerie of types, many of them eccentric and mysterious, a few not what they seemed (foreign spies, master thieves, etc.), but by and large, wise and benevolent. The plots consisted of mild pranks, curfew-breaking, besting bullies, solving quaint mysteries of the school, and so on. Sports and team spirit (and "house spirit") were, of course, all-important, and unshirking respect for those institutions was a given. The stories did not confront real life (even real school life)--or real emotion--in any shape or form except the most sentimental.

These serials lost their readers by the late '30s because they were excessively "polite." Kids turned to power-trip fantasies about gun-toting brutes (commandos, explorers, detectives, "Doc Savage") whose exploits were faster and more sensational, more "life-and-death." Rowling's bit of genius was to throw both genres into the same pulper. The result: life-and-death power-trips set within the cozy, hallowed halls of a prestigious school. The hero is still a blueblood: Harry's magical destiny, the glowing halo of Promise he carries into Hogwarts (symbolized by his scar, which is a throwback to the "royal" birthmark or tattoo of the pulps), is entirely a legacy of his powerful parents. The wealth fantasy of the earlier stories has become the even sadder one of having magical powers. And so the stories have cringed even further away from real life.

Harry's beginnings as a transplanted orphan are another appeal to fantasy. The young reader can imagine that he too was born to greatness; that his own, loathsome family and school-life are amendable accidents; that any day now an owl will swoop from his chimney with certified proof of his true pedigree as a doyen of magical omnipotence--and vengeance.

So--what should kids be reading instead of this stuff? How about: something exciting, with fantasy elements, yet still grounded in the real world--and with a dash of irony, to bring it all further down to earth? (I reject the doctrine that children are deaf to irony, which is a necessary ingredient of intelligence). My humble suggestion: give them the "Flashman" books of George Macdonald Fraser. This series of novels (the latest one appeared just last year), about a Victorian adventurer and coward, are thrilling, hilarious, eye-opening, and educational in every sense--historically, culturally, psychologically. Any child who has ever felt a little nauseated by the sententious, schoolyard call to conform and embrace "team spirit," will take to them readily--and become far more historically astute than his classmates (especially the ones who dream of playing "quidditch"). Oddly, Fraser lifted his anti-hero, Harry Flashman, from a 19th century "schoolboy" tale that was also one of Rowling's models: "Tom Brown's School Days," by Thomas Hughes. Flashman was the sadistic bully who made Tom's school life a living hell. Hogwarts could use someone like him. Actually it does have someone comparable, but he doesn't show much promise. In a hundred years, will Draco Malfoy have his own novels?

I doubt it. But then, I'd be very surprised if "Harry Potter" is still read by anyone (other than nostalgia-buffs) in thirty years' time...Even after Rowling has used her gazillion merchandising pounds to restore the Empire to its full glorious whimsy of cream buns, cold baths and cringing menials, with herself as Queen.

***

This review puts its finger on what's been bothering me about this Harry Potter phenomenon from square one. Please let's not have any arguments like "bu-bu-but kids are reading the books, isn't that worth it?" Sure it is; I'm all for anything that makes it into print. However, I want you to go and read George Orwell's essay, if you haven't already.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that these books are not the towering literary achievement their marketing hype makes them out to be: they are hackwork, well-advertised hackwork to be sure but essentially that.

Many other reviews on the same page were written by children gushing, "this is the best book I've ever read!" Well done, BillySusyDevonClarissa, now go and read a better one.

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Ah, here we are - the URL for an online version of the Orwell essay: http://orwell.ru/library/essays/boys/e/e_boys.htm.

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[placeholder for another rant about video games and the death of imagination - have to go work now]

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