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ccbc-net digest 6 Jun 1999
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From: drabkin <arcanis>
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 15:40:45 -0700
Andrew Ogus wrote:
That's been apparent. Judging -- reading -- fantasy and/or s-f the same way that you read realistic fiction makes as much sense as comparing horses and cows on the grounds that they're both herbivorous quadrupeds. They're different -- the conventions are different -- and comparisons are beside the point.
All this discussion of Harry's personality as warped or not warped by early experiences is completely irrelevant. Harry is a fictional character
-- a fantasy -- written by an author. But perhaps the very fact that you and Maia are ready to talk about this character as though he were a real child is a testimonial of sorts of the ability of the author. The character is not real -- the readers are.
Harry isn't real. He's a delightful character in a delightful book. But supposing he were real, just for the sake of discussion? Any parent who has raised children to adulthood can tell you that each human being comes into the world with a personality all his/her own, and all that parents can do is help along the good parts and try to control the unpleasant parts. Apparently Harry was (in the author's imagination) one of the good ones, and there are, thank God, many. Despite the glorification of victimhood that has become part of this culture, most children, even unhappy ones, manage to scramble into adulthood without any more damage than has been suffered by any of us here on this list.
What distresses me in this discussion is that a very good children's book is being nitpicked because it doesn't happen to be a different, also very good, children's book. That is completely unproductive, and -- may I say it? -- boring. Harry stands on his own merits.
What we were supposed to be discussing, I thought, was the crossover phenomenon. What I was hoping to see in this discussion was some exploration of the themes common to both adult and children's books that are universal in their appeal and that make a book a crossover book.
Marian Drabkin
Received on Sun 06 Jun 1999 05:40:45 PM CDT
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 15:40:45 -0700
Andrew Ogus wrote:
That's been apparent. Judging -- reading -- fantasy and/or s-f the same way that you read realistic fiction makes as much sense as comparing horses and cows on the grounds that they're both herbivorous quadrupeds. They're different -- the conventions are different -- and comparisons are beside the point.
All this discussion of Harry's personality as warped or not warped by early experiences is completely irrelevant. Harry is a fictional character
-- a fantasy -- written by an author. But perhaps the very fact that you and Maia are ready to talk about this character as though he were a real child is a testimonial of sorts of the ability of the author. The character is not real -- the readers are.
Harry isn't real. He's a delightful character in a delightful book. But supposing he were real, just for the sake of discussion? Any parent who has raised children to adulthood can tell you that each human being comes into the world with a personality all his/her own, and all that parents can do is help along the good parts and try to control the unpleasant parts. Apparently Harry was (in the author's imagination) one of the good ones, and there are, thank God, many. Despite the glorification of victimhood that has become part of this culture, most children, even unhappy ones, manage to scramble into adulthood without any more damage than has been suffered by any of us here on this list.
What distresses me in this discussion is that a very good children's book is being nitpicked because it doesn't happen to be a different, also very good, children's book. That is completely unproductive, and -- may I say it? -- boring. Harry stands on his own merits.
What we were supposed to be discussing, I thought, was the crossover phenomenon. What I was hoping to see in this discussion was some exploration of the themes common to both adult and children's books that are universal in their appeal and that make a book a crossover book.
Marian Drabkin
Received on Sun 06 Jun 1999 05:40:45 PM CDT
