JK Rowling…
I was out to coffee with a dear friend yesterday and she asked me who were the three people I most desired to meet. It was an easy choice for me. Oprah Winfrey because of her social conscience. The Dalai Lama because of his wisdom and humour. And JK Rowling because she singlehandedly reconfigured the reading world for the youth of today.
For a long while before I read Harry Potter, I would see the bestsellers’ lists and would see mention of someone called Harry Potter. He’d be listed with a Philosopher’s Stone or a Chamber of Secrets. Even with a Prisoner of Azkaban and I would wonder at the hype. Vaguely I knew HP was a boy wizard, but beyond that I knew little so I purchased the first in the series when Prisoner was being released and began reading.
I loved the pure simplicity of the tale, I marveled at Rowling’s imagination, and Harry, Hermione and Ron became friends. It was a very small stretch to believe that I, a grown woman, could summon my broom from the laundry by calling “Accio Broomstick’ and then by saying ‘Up’, have it slip into my hand ready for me to mount and fly away. (For those who might think I’m a bit of a witch anyway, its no stretch to believe the above at all). Who couldn’t love gillyweed which enables one to swim for hours under water and breathe? And don’t you love the saying ‘wingardium leviosa’? (made even more special by Emma Watson’s rendition in the movie: Wingardium Leviosaaahh!) And I so wanted a Marauder’s Map.
What I love about the series is the way the language and plot dexterity deepens and matures with the ages of the protagonists. It fits. I imagine it fitted the intended audience as well. More though, I think it was indicative of Ms. Rowling’s own growth as a writer.
Ms. Rowling as a person of grace is inspiring. Quiet, immensely private for which I applaud her, and almost self-effacing. Her outstanding success would allow her every reason to blow her own trumpet but instead she appears very occasionally in public and delivers inspiring addresses.
Yesterday it was reported that that Ms.Rowling has acquired one of the most beautiful pastoral properties in Tasmania. The river on which the property sits bends and loops over a couple of miles to pass by the door of the house in which my husband and I spent the first years of our marriage.
Our original home on the banks of the South Esk.
The view over the osiers and river reeds, across paddocks of crops to the misted blue of the mountain of Ben Lomond is not much different to what can be seen at Symmons Plains. Our house had massive fireplaces and our bedroom was big enough to play cricket in and there were two resident cats called Rinso and Panda who would climb onto the roof and cry at the bedroom windows to be let in. I kept my thoroughbred gelding, Nicholas, in the paddock at the side of the house and would ride on frosty mornings very early. In winter the house would be wreathed in ghostly river-mist and when it cleared we could see that Ben Lomond was shrouded in snow and in the summer all we could hear was the faint chuckling of the river over stones and the bleating of the merino flock which grazed along the banks. It was idyllic.
I suspect that Ms. Rowling won’t feel too homesick for Scotland and the UK. She is not far from the little towns of Perth and Evandale or the city of Launceston situated on the Tamar River. She will live on the South Esk River and gaze out at Ben Lomond. The surrounding garden ( a participating part of the Australia’s Open Garden Scheme a few years ago) in which she can wander, is filled with a notable display of botanical delights from England, planted by the former owners’ colonial forbears. But more than anything she can maintain that immense privacy that is so important to her life.
I’m quite tickled actually… to think that of all the places in all the world she decided to buy in this wonderful island home of mine. Pretty chuffed really!
You’ve pretty much nailed why I love those books too! 🙂 Started reading them when I was 18, and I too had heard about them but never read any. Then we had a Swedish exam coming up and we got to read excerpts from a few novels, so that we could pick one which we would write about in the actual exam. I read the HP excerpt and was blown away, immediately asking a classmate who had the books if I could borrow them. And then my mum wanted to read them as well! And it’s downhill from there, so to speak. *giggle*
(*cough* The miss-spelling of Azkaban is deliberate, right?)
No! It wasn’t deliberate. Damn, shall have to go back and edit because for sure every fan will pull me up on it. Clever, clever girl.
It was a wonderful discovery for me… can’t wait till the last movie but wonder … what then? I do hope she’s working on a new series.
I tried the Harry Potter books a couple of years ago because I’d heard so much about them.
I think, like Enid Blyton, their main strength is in the plotting. For most children, that’s what they want from a book, so no wonder they’re popular. The ability to tell an interesting story is basic to writing. As we get older, we also want a bit more depth to the characters.
I still enjoy rereading many of the books I read as a child, and the ones I enjoy most are the one’s with real characters whom I can believe in – the children in the Narnia books, for instance, or E. Nesbit, or Swallows and Amazons. Or the now almost unknown, but at one time very popular, Geoffrey Trease or Nancy Breary.
I’m quite sure generations of children will continue to enjoy the wonderful story telling of Enid Blyton and J K Rowling. (I reread the Faraway Tree books recently, and found they were still a pleasure.)
I agree, Gerry. The simplicity of plot is the thing. If any writer, myself included, learn anything it would be to read children’s novels and see how simple a plot might be and how an uncluttered narrative has so much power.
Loved Ransome and Swallows and Amazons. Not such a fan of Enid Blyton, but adored Geoffrey Trease, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Monica Edwards. In fact I re-read The Summer of the Great Secret by Monica Edwards, even now.
But all that aside… I feel JKR can take her place quite confidently by the side of our own favourites… Harry’s development from a boy to a man will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I admire her for the perseverance and tenacity that brought about her success. I have to say that I haven’t read them yet. I’m enjoying the movies, you see, and people keep complaining that they’re nowhere near as good as the books, so I shall wait til the movies are finished and then read the books, which I believe is doing it the right way round.
And the names of everywhere on Tas sound so familiar to me!
Simon, I can’t believe that you haven’t read them yet. You simply MUST become familiar before Marcus gets much older. And in truth, I have no problem with the films. I think the books had such a massively strong following that if they diverted from the books at all, someone would have been hung, drawn and quartered!
I do not know exactly, why I took JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book up in a bookstore. I was not really into reading books for children and Harry Potter was not famous back then. It was still an insider tip at the most and still took quite a while to become famous here in Germany. But when I read the first book, and that is only her starting point and not the strongest in my opinion, I just could not stop. Her fantasy, turning ‘normal life’ round till it became a fantastic parallel world, with all the thought and deepness about names, places, animals, history, children’s development, etc. was infectious. I even infected my older sister with the Harry Potter virus, also a grown up woman.
But from my early starting point with Harry Potter it was quite fascinating to see the hype in the book- and film-world grow.
I can very well understand your fascination with her books and writing style, as I share your admiration for it.
CDoart, i do agree that the first one, maybe even the second, were basic… what Donald Maas might call ‘break-in’ novels, by which she created a following, encouraged readers to become familiar. But by Prisoner, she was into the ‘break-out’ novel, I think and from then on she just built incrementally on her strengths as a writer.
Harry Potter is a difficult one for me. Not in any way to diss JK’s incredible achievements, but I always struggle with this series. I quite enjoyed the first two, but really drifted with the later editions, to the point where I gave up. I just lost interest in Harry and Ron, and even Hermione, as they grew up.
Gerry, in the comments, mentions the true master of children’s literature. Enid Blyton herself. The Magic Faraway Tree was and will remain a classic of child-lit long after Harry Pottter’s star has faded.
So too with Blyton’s Wishing Chair adventures. And of course the simply magnificent The Land Of Far Beyond.
Mark, its very rare that I disagree with any viewpoint you hold but in this instance…
Having said that, an opinion on a piece of writing is always, and shall always remain very subjective. Thus I’d say it is really whatever floats your boat. Enid Blyton never really floated mine.
The thing is, I actually don’t think Harry Potter’s star will ever fade. I think he will take his place amongst the memorable heroes of Childrens/YA literature. You and I mightn’t agree on this, of course, but time will tell.
You’re right, of course. Harry Potter will forever be part of literature’s history, that’s for sure.
And comparing Blyton and Rowling is to compare apples and oranges. They wrote for different audiences, in different eras.
As you say, JK conducts herself magnificently and never plays the celebrity card. I deeply admire her, Just didn’t enjoy the transition from tween to teen in the series. And probably that’s more due to the films than the books.
Back in the UK, for best part of thirty years Blyton was dissed and sidelined by libraries, schools, etc. Her books were, literally, banned in many schools and public libraries and millions of kids missed out. It was an appalling time for children’s literature, when adults tried to take control of what children read. It backfirde big time.
Today the UK has huge literacy problems as a generation has grown up that has never read for pleasure. ridiuclous numbers of British schoolkids leave full-time education with the reading age of an eleven year old.
Harry Potter helped change that, and brought books back into children’s hands. For that I am eternally thankful.
But by the time kids are old enough to appreciate Potter it’s often too late. Potter is for tweens.
As for Blyton, she just keep on selling regardless, and while many schools and libraries still shun her, bookshops know what readers want. Can’t wait till all her books are on Kindle.
Mark, its very rare that I disagree with any viewpoint you hold but in this instance…
Having said that, an opinion on a piece of writing is always, and shall always remain very subjective. Thus I’d say it is really whatever floats your boat. Enid Blyton never really floated mine.
The thing is, I actually don’t think Harry Potter’s star will ever fade. I think he will take his place amongst the memorable heroes of Childrens/YA literature. You and I mightn’t agree on this, of course, but time will tell.
One thing you said on your reply I found interesting:
“But by the time kids are old enough to appreciate Potter it’s often too late. Potter is for tweens.”
When I rushed in to my bookstore to pick up Deathly Hallows, the line wound out of the shopping centre and into the street… hundreds of people of all ages. I stood behind a ‘tween’, a ‘teen’ stood behind me and then there were the Baby Boomers of my own age, and those of my son’s and daughter’s ages (25 and 30). So that apart from having re-ignited the joy of reading, JKR has also cut across age-ist categories like a warm knife through butter. One might argue that it is merely media-hype but who cares? The fact is the series were/are loved and that can only be to the good.
Congrats – you’ll practically be neighbours with Ms Rowling!
I’m a huge fan myself. You put your finger on what fascinates me about the books. And I’m gong to add that I also really love that the series isn’t just about good v evil or about the plot, some of the best stuff is just simple, coming of age, finding your friends and enjoying childhood school years. I mean to say that the books really are about being a child but with the wisdom/ knowledge of a grown adult (the author).
I might have been when we lived in that Georgian house by the South Esk but we have moved since and I’m now about 120 miles away from JKR’s mooted holiday home. How nice it might have been to think that one might run into her in the local deli or whatever. That said and as much as I would love to speak to her, I think I should allow her privacy and space. Its obviously why she would buy somewhere far from the madding crowd as she has.
I did enjoy your post on Pottermore today and can only say I’m looking forward to whatever emerges from Ms.Rowling’s imagination in the future!