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libriselvaggi · 3 years

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three books that changed how I viewed the pandemic

1. Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace

“You’ll never have as much time as you do right now” seemed to be the mantra circulating at the beginning of the infamous Quarantine during Spring of 2020 to boost morale and motivation to get in shape or discover a new hobby. There will never be enough time to read every great book, but I decided to plunge right into reading with Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace’s 1,079 page capolavoro. I did not know what the book was about, but from what I had heard, I knew it could change me in some way. I mistakenly ordered the book from libby, an ebook service through my public library. It was a painful few days of reading because of the sheer complexity of the book. I patiently awaited the paperback I later ordered and revisited IJ with gusto and a highlighter. My first great revelation was that my multilingual vocabulary was an embarrassment to DWF’s eloquence and creativity. I found myself repeatedly looking up words and tried not to be discourage in adapting to the DFW’s English. I did not want my copy of IJ to end up on my shelf unfinished and unconquered as what happens to many victims of book’s the difficult structure. The so-called “experimental” endnotes are not to be overlooked and play a fundamental role in the precision of the novel. The book, written in a mosaic of stream of conscious prose, narration and dialogue must be read slowly and given time to process.

Some of the major themes of IJ are addiction, competition, familial relationships, depression, which work together to offer an answer for the essential question of what makes us human. DFW’s characters are all looking for something as it becomes clear to the reader which aspects of IJ’s characters they embody. I found the chapters with Kate G particularly striking although seemingly non-essential to the book’s main characters, members of the Incandenza family. (N.B): this post will be written in more detail once I am able to retrieve my copy of IJ from home full of notes, post-its and highlights).

DFW was a visionary and saw things in the 90′s that are still relevant. The passage on video calling is comical and pertinent to the Zoom era. In reality, we don’t want to video chat with people because we have to give them our full attention instead of discretely multitasking and we have to look presentable, which in Wallace’s world resulted in people replacing themselves with models. Wallace also predicted the rise of capitalism with his calendar of sponsored years as a form of advertising. He even could see the rise of the influencer. “The Entertainment” the holy grail of the novel in a sense, exposes the most beautiful girl and viewers are so incapable of looking away that they will die soiled in their couch. Is being the star of “The Entertainment” what influencers are aspiring to be? Over the past year, we are all trying to escape the boredom of staying at home. I absolutely fill my days from beginning to end to try to forget about the loneliness that DFW so poignantly represents in each of his characters. I know myself and I have tendencies towards addiction whether that be to certain habits, clothes, Netflix, even my own thoughts. DFW himself was a self-proclaimed TV addict, or he would have been he said if he owned a television. Especially through reading I have been trying to escape the boredom without trapping myself in something that will be unproductive and unhealthy. This book can be difficult to swallow because you will be confronted with your own addictions, sadness and relationships to loved ones. I will need to read this book again one day to truly understand and appreciate it. For now I am still ruminating and reflecting on my own search for distractions, which is what the book suggests makes us human.

I reached the last page of the book with a sense of accomplishment for myself and both hope and disillusionment towards the world: hope that it is possible to understand and express such complex emotions, but disillusioned that this sadness and overwhelming amount of “distractions” (some good, some bad) still exist.

2. The Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio

English: As an Italian major I am completely biased in choosing this title as part of my quarantine reading list. It is also the focus of my senior thesis, which I have also received a scholarship from Cornell to complete. My work is titled The Decameron in the Time of Coronavirus and has therefore earned a spot on this list. I began reading the Decameron in its original 600 year old Italian during the outbreak of coronavirus (Spring Semester 2020). The Decameron is a collection of 100 stories framed by the Brigata comprised of seven women and three men who escape the plague-ridden Florence during the Black Death. When I took this course on the Decameron I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the parallels between the Black Plague and the novel Coronavirus. At the time I was concentrated on the theme of the Decameron I had chosen to write my anthology on: adultery. I wrote 40 pages on all kinds of infidelity present in the Decameron and how it connects to social class, religion, gender, and the larger context of the Plague.

The Decameron tells stories of love, wit, generosity, trickery, social class and religion and fate. Superficially it is seen as entertainment created by the Brigata to survive isolation during the Plague, much as we are entertaining ourselves now more than ever with film and literature. However, the Decameron presents a lot of themes under the guise of raunch or humor that can be endlessly analyzed, especially in the light of the current pandemic. If you are not up to the challenge of reading 100 stories, I highly recommend at least reading the author’s introduction for a description of the 14th century plague. It is chilling similar to how many have responded to Coronavirus: widening social gaps, abandonment and selfishness characterize Boccaccio’s eyewitness testimony and are clearly still relevant in a modern outbreak of a pandemic. In another post I will discuss some of my favorite novellas or stories from the Decameron as well as analyze the modern adaptation by the New York Times. 29 writers were asked to contribute stories taking place in the time of Coronavirus. The Decameron represents so much linguistically as Boccaccio was one of the first major authors to pen the Italian vernacular largely unchanged to the modern language and he realized the importance of empathy and storytelling in times of crisis.

Italian: Mi laureo in italiano e quindi sono molto sbilanciata verso la letteratura italiana in questa lista di libri da leggere durante la quarantena. La mia tese di laurea e la mia ricerca, per la quale ho vinto una borsa di studio dalla mia università si concentra sul Decameron nei tempi di Coronavirus. Ho cominciato a leggere quest’opera di Boccaccio di un italiano da seicento anni fa durante il semestre in cui il coronavirus si è scoppiato. Il Decameron è una collezione di 100 novelle raccontate dalla brigata di sette donne e tre uomini che sfuggono dalla Firenze infestata dalla pesta nera. Quando ho seguito il corso sul Decameron non pensavo tanto ai paragoni tra la Pesta Nera e il Coronavirus. Invece mi sono messa a scrivere per un’antologia dell’infedeltà che caratterizza tante storie d’amore nell’opera. Ho scritto quaranta pagine sull’adulterio nell’Decameron nel contesto delle classi sociali, della Chiesa, dei ruoli dei sessi e certo della pesta.

Il Decameron racconta novelle d’amore, arguzia, munificenza, inganni, del divario tra le classi sociali, di religione e fortuna. Sulla superficie si vede il Decameron come un tipo di divertimento creato dalla brigata per sopravvivere l’isolamento durante la pesta proprio come oggi noi ci divertiamo con libri e film. Comunque il Decameron ci presenta tanti temi sotto il pretesto di un po’ di volgarità e umorismo che possono essere analizzati senza limiti, sopratutto vista la pandemia di oggi. Se non vorresti sfidarti con una tale lettura di cento novelle, ti consiglio di leggere almeno l’introduzione e il proem del Decameron. La descrizione di Boccaccio è spaventosamente simile alla nostra risposta al Coronavirus: si vedono l’abbandono dei cari, una disparità sociale e l’egoismo, tutti ancora rilevanti durante la pandemia. In un altro post vorrei scrivere della versione moderna del Decameron scritta da 29 scrittori invitati dal New York Times per scrivere un racconto dei nostri tempi. Il Decameron rappresenta tanto linguisticamente nella cultura italiana e dobbiamo ricordare questo lavoro anche per l’empatia e l’importanza di raccontare come aveva notato Boccaccio.

3. Blindness José Saramago

English: I had heard a reference to a book about an epidemic of blindness in an Italian film. Living in a pandemic, I quickly discovered a remarkable work of “plague-literature” a new genre recurring on many reading lists over the past year. Blindness underlines the role of government and bureaucracy in disarming the invisible enemy, an epidemic. The first to fall ill are treated like lepers and essentially thrown into what feels like a prison for the sick. Fear of the unknown seems to blind even those who have not been infected. The wife of a doctor sacrifices her sight in order to remain by her husband’s side. Her compassion serves as an immunity to the mysterious disease. Using blindness as the characteristic symptom highlights the delicate human nature and our need for empathy and each other. There is such a raw, human nakedness that comes with suddenly being unable to see. The epidemic that unfolds made me think about whether I too have fallen ill to this disease; what in this world am I not seeing? Similar to Boccaccio’s description of the Black Plague and the empathy the Brigata develops by their decision to return to Florence, the darkness of the character’s fate is met with the brightness and warmth of compassion. Although it may seem like a grim choice, this book was surprisingly uplifting and is certainly a challenging read with a rich vocabulary.

Português: Ouvi falar de Ensaio sobre a cegueira em um film italiano, ou seja sobre um livro que raconta uma epidemia de cegueira e depois achei o livro de Saramago . Vivendo durante uma pandemia, eu descobri um gênero emergente de literature que se chama “literatura de praga” que aparece em muitas listas de livros de 2020. A cegueira como epidemia salienta o papel do governo e da burocracia no desarmamento do inimigo invisível, a doença. Os primeiros a ficarem doentes são tratados como leprosos e jogados no que parece uma prisão para os doentes. O medo do desconhecido cega mesmo aqueles que não foram infectados. A esposa de um médico sacrifica a sua visão para ficar com seu marido. A sua compaixão torna-se uma imunidade à misteriosa doença. A cegueira como o sintoma caraterístico sublinha a delicada natureza humana e a necessidade de empatia . Há uma crua nudez humana que acompanha a cegueira repentina. A epidemia do livro me faz pensar na minha própria cegueira, ou seja o que na minha vido não estou vendo. Eu li este livro não só para aprofundar perspectiva sobre o vírus como também para encontrar mais literatura portuguesa.

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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When Harry Met Enid

by Dan H

Wednesday, 20 December 2006

In which Dan dismisses Harry Potter as a jolly hockey-sticks boarding school romp.~

My childhood was almost embarrassingly suburban. We lived in a semi-detached house with privet hedges. I spent my evenings doing my homework, watching Children's BBC or reading. To fully round out the picture of cosy BBC normalcy, I should add that my preferred reading material, as a child, was a mixture of Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton.

I always preferred Dahl. His stories were strange, macabre, often surreal. His worlds were familiar yet peculiar, whimsical and disturbing. They were nice places to visit, but you most certainly wouldn't want to live there. It is perhaps interesting to note that, Great Glass Elevator aside, Dahl never went back to his worlds once the book had finished. His stories were self contained, they began at the beginning, and stopped at the end.

Blyton, of course, created a very different world. Teams of children with solid dependable names like Dick and Anne had very proper adventures while drinking lashings and lashings of ginger beer. Unlike Dahl, Blyton did write long-running series, the St Clare's and Malory Towers books followed the same cast of characters through their stint at boarding school, and of course the Famous Five and Secret Seven had endless adventures. Unlike Dahl, Blyton's world was ultimately a safe place, and gender aside I would have been quite happy to spend a summer term at St Clare's. I was and still am guiltily fond of Enid Blyton's 1950s utopia: it's nice sometimes to forget about the troubles of the real world, and escape to one where hardened criminals get their comeuppance at the hands of a gang of plucky twelve year olds.

A lot of people (JK Rowling first amongst them) like to talk about how much more there is to Harry Potter than to other children's books. They talk about the real danger that Harry faces, about how terribly, terribly dark Rowling's world is, and about how it's all very serious and mature. One Times reviewer, comparing Potter to the Worst Witch series writes:

But though Mildred, the Worst Witch, like Harry Potter, gets into scrapes with bullies and teachers, there is never a twinge of real terror in Murphy's imaginary world. Harry Potter experiences not only the ordinary trials and triumphs of the boarding-school genre, but repeated attempts to murder him.

This critic, I think, misses two important points. Firstly, while I admit that my memory of The Worst Witch is a little hazy, I am fairly certain that there actually is a villain in TWW who actually does have a plan to kill everybody in the school. Secondly, the repeated attempts to "murder" Harry are carried out by the most ineffectual, bungling, non-threatening group of incompetents ever to grace the pages of a children's book. Harry Potter's encounters with the Death Eaters are no more frightening than the Secret Seven's frequent run-ins with thieves and smugglers, and they represent no greater physical danger.

Now, I don't think this is a weakness in itself. When Harry and Ron confront the troll in Philosopher's Stone it's a genuinely exciting scene. We understand that Harry and Ron are willing to risk their lives for their friend thereby displaying the cardinal virtues of Courage and Friendship and Pluckyness. This scene is in no way marred by the fact that I do not on a rational level actually expect Harry, Ron, or Hermione to be killed. However, I do not think that the troll-fighting scene involves any more danger or sacrifice, or has any greater merit than (for example) the bit in The Naughtiest Girl in the School where Elizabeth risks detention in order to buy a birthday present for her less wealthy best friend. Both sequences involve the protagonist choosing to place themselves in danger (either physical danger in the case of Harry, or social danger in the case of the Naughtiest Girl) in order to help a friend. It doesn't matter whether the risk is of death or of detention, the point is the decision that the character makes, and the consequences that follow from it.

Thinking about it, it's this fixation on the physical events of the series (Harry Gets Attacked, Harry Goes Into The Dark Forest, Harry Fights Death Eaters), rather than the narrative points behind those events, which is responsible for most of the utter tosh that gets written about Harry Potter. The fans say "Harry Potter is placed in real, physical danger, this means that the Harry Potter series is Dark and therefore Good" the detractors say "Harry Potter is not placed in real, physical danger, this means that the Harry Potter series is Not Really Dark and therefore Not Really Good." Both of these groups of people completely miss the point. Harry Potter is a children's series about the importance of friendship and courage. Whether it chooses to illustrate those points with midnight feasts and ginger beer or with trolls and dragons and the occasional deaths of significant characters is completely beside the point. It is what it is, a children's adventure story set in a boarding school, with some wizards in it.

And that should be the end of it, and it would have been had something peculiar not happened to the series around about book four.

Harry Potter books 1-3 are excellent children's books. They combine exciting adventure with boarding school cosiness to produce thoroughly engaging stories about wizards and magic and the importance of friendship and courage. Books four to six (and I strongly suspect book seven will follow suit) are sub-par fantasy about Wizards and Magic.

Normally, this wouldn't annoy me as much as it does. It'd be a shame, but I'd cope. However I actually think that the course taken by the Potter books has actually had a detrimental effect on Children's Fiction as a whole.

It is absolutely right and correct to say that books for children are in no way inferior to books for adults. It is absolutely true that children are capable of dealing with issues far more complicated than adults give them credit for. Unfortunately this leads some people to the conclusion that there should be literally no difference between children's books and books for adults or, worse, that the merits of a children's book should be weighed according to how similar it is to a book for adults.

So many of the things which the later Harry Potter books are praised for the richness of the world, the complexity of the overarching plot are attributes which belong to adult, not children's fiction. That is not to say that children's fiction cannot be complex, but that its complexities should lie in areas other than the intricacies of the backplot and the precise functioning of Horcruxes.

To put it another way: Snape in the first book is complex in precisely the right way for a children's book. We start out thinking that he is Bad, but it turns out that he is Good. This is a nice twist, and children are smart enough to appreciate the moral complexity of it. Snape is horrible, but he is a good person. Snape in the later books is "complex" in precisely the wrong way for a children's book. He is a tangle of conflicting motivations, which may or may not actually make very much sense. He's probably going to wind up having been in love with Lily Potter, and blame himself for her death and blah blah blah.

Now I'm not saying that children are incapable of understanding characters with complex motivations. I'm saying that children won't gain anything by being asked to understand characters with complex motivations (particularly when said motivations are spurious and rather cliched). When you hear children talk about the Potter books, they always talk about how much they love the wizards and the broomsticks, you hear remarkably few people saying "well I'm really interested in the formative childhood experiences of Severus Snape."

Just look at the great classics of children's literature (particularly fantastic children's literature). We aren't asked to analyse the motivations of the Mock Turtle, or wonder whether the Queen of Hearts is really as bad as she seems. Nobody expects us to be interested in the political climate of Oz (well ... Gregory Maguire does). Children's books shouldn't be preoccupied with the same petty minutiae which fill up so much adult literature (particularly fantasy literature). In pandering to the fans' desire to speculate about the inner workings of her magical world (guess what folks, it doesn't have any, it's completely nonsensical) Rowling is breeding a generation of "book lovers" accustomed to the worst excesses of the fantasy genre.

Dahl, Carroll, Baum and the others may not have had the "moral" heart of the Harry Potter books (at least, that's Miss Rowling's analysis), but they had an imagination which far exceeds the few simple ideas which JK spins out over the Potter series. They may not have had long running plots, or complex character arcs (like the "Lupin shacks up with Tonks" arc or the "Harry goes out with Ginny for all of five minutes" arc), but for pity's sake children get enough of that sort of thing watching Eastenders.

JK Rowling is raising a generation of children to value world above plot, plot above meaning, and volume of written material above everything.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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Rami

at 14:07 on 2006-12-20I don't read Harry Potter, but I agree with your points about Children's Fiction As A Whole - it *shouldn't* just be adult fiction with shorter words and more colorful packaging!

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Wardog

at 13:04 on 2007-01-01And Harry Potter, of course, has its range of "adult" covers, as if to further distance itself from the rest of children's fiction. As I shall surely write in an article of my very own, JK seems to be no longer writing books for children, she's writing books for Harry Potter fans which is actually a completely different thing.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 17:59 on 2012-04-21"Snape He's probably going to wind up having been in love with Lily Potter, and blame himself for her death and blah blah blah..."

Wow! You're a prophetic genius! How _do_ you do that? ;)

You hate JK Rowling as much as I hate Dan Brown. Let's get together and do coffee! :) Though I actually enjoyed the Potter series *ducks* I recognize it for the big magic soap opera it is. I have no illusions that it's great literature, but I think fellow fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett are just a _mite_ jealous that she captured the youth market before they did.

Whatever you may think of Rowling, you gotta give her credit for getting young kids around the world excited about

reading

. That's no small feat. Sorry if the visual image of a 5 year old hugging the latest Harry Potter tome to their elated breast gives you the vapors, but I find it inspiring. :P

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Dan H

at 22:32 on 2012-04-21

Whatever you may think of Rowling, you gotta give her credit for getting young kids around the world excited about reading.

Obviously getting kids to read is good, but I'm genuinely not convinced JKR actually increased the amount of books read by children - I strongly suspect that the sorts of kids who read Harry Potter are the sorts of kids who would have been reading anyway. I think the anecdotal evidence gets skewed here in the sense that for kids-who-read, there is likely to be a particular author who you remember as being the author who got you into reading (for me it was Dahl with a side order of Pratchett) and while I think there's a generation of kids for whom that author was Rowling, I don't think that's quite the same as Rowling getting kids to read. It's like the Yoko Factor in reverse, the kids got themselves to read, Rowling was just there at the time.

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Arthur B

at 00:31 on 2012-04-22Plus: getting lots of kids to read is benign enough. Getting lots of kids to

all read the same stuff

brings me out in chills.

As a young person the most valuable books I read were the ones which were strictly speaking not actually intended for people my age.

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Sister Magpie

at 06:03 on 2012-04-22I could swear I remember reading some actual research about this idea with HP. The basic result was, unsurprisingly, that while HP did certainly get kids interested in reading those books (just as Star Wars got kids interested in seeing Star Wars), the number of readers (meaning kids who read for pleasure) was basically the same.

So essentially the same idea--there are now a lot of adult readers whose first amazing books were HP, but the generation that were kids when HP came out don't have a higher percentage of readers as a result.

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James D

at 06:56 on 2012-04-22Man, that's kind of depressing. There must also be kids out there whose 'first amazing books' were the Twilight series.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 15:17 on 2012-04-22Yeah, some kids are just readers. They'll read whatever's in front of them, whether it's Harry Potter or the cereal box. Kids who don't like to read because reading is hard or boring will just wait to see the movies, as always.

I'm honestly impressed with Rowling for tapping exactly the right cultural vein at the right time. I mean, the woman literally wrote books that managed to appeal to *every kind of person everywhere*. Even people who hated the books enjoyed hating them, and often for very different reasons. She tried to give everyone everything and failed spectacularly, but she did manage to give everyone something. And she did it just by being herself and writing the kind of books she would want to read.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 16:22 on 2012-04-22I'd like to see those statistics about how the number of kids reading Potter were "reading kids" anyway. I'm writing from the states and let me tell you, seeing American kids

under

7 years old _pack_ bookstores (and I'm talking the

big

chains here) just to read a story was a new phenomena to me. Kids that young usually are not into reading as a rule.

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Arthur B

at 16:25 on 2012-04-22

I'd like to see those statistics about how the number of kids reading Potter were "reading kids" anyway. I'm writing from the states and let me tell you, seeing American kids under 7 years old _pack_ bookstores (and I'm talking the bigchains here) just to read a story was a new phenomena to me. Kids that young usually are not into reading as a rule.

Were they packing the bookstores year-round or just around the Potter release dates? Because if it's the latter, that might just be a side effect of them all being keen to read the same books by the same author rather than being particularly more keen to read than their forebears.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 16:28 on 2012-04-22

James D: Man, that's kind of depressing. There must also be kids out there whose 'first amazing books' were the Twilight series.

I see what you did there. :P

God, that would be even

depressing, wouldn't it?

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Sister Magpie

at 17:17 on 2012-04-22

I don't have the actual statistics, but the upshot of what I read was the opposite. It wasn't that the books were read by kids who were readers anyway. They were also read by non-readers because they were a huge thing everyone wanted to read. But they didn't get kids interested in reading so much as interested in Harry Potter. So it didn't create readers, it created HP fans who read that.

Though in my experience having worked at a kids' bookstore there are plenty of kids who would pack a bookstore to hear a story. There just aren't huge events where a specific book coming out brings in the crowd all at once--which of course was true for adult readers with HP too.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 17:21 on 2012-04-22I think if the goal was to get kids to start reading Harry Potter and then graduate them to actual good books, it didn't work. There are kids who read Harry Potter and nothing else, which doesn't quite make them "readers."

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 20:09 on 2012-04-22

I have no illusions that it's great literature, but I think fellow fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett are just a _mite_ jealous that she captured the youth market before they did.

That was never the problem- Pratchett, at least, was annoyed at the way she was presented in the news as if she was the first person ever to put MAGIC in books for CHILDREN, etc, in pieces obviously written by people who do not read fantasy (and yet think they know what's what in the genre).

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http://lonewolf-eburg.livejournal.com/

at 21:07 on 2012-04-22The main problem with Harry Potter isn't that the books stop being "children's books" halfway though. "These books are no longer for children" is a statement that implies something that is nor positive, nor negative.

The problem is that in the later books, "childlike" elements inherited from earlier ones uncomfortably mesh with the new "adult stuff". I'd argue that in HBP and DH this is particularly noticeable, though two previous books suffer from that as well. As a result, both the series and every particular post-PoA book taken in itself have a hard time realizing who the hell is their primary audience. That results in a lot of dissonant Mood Whiplashes, aborted storylines and themes as the narrative merrily goes from "childlike" to "adult" and back again, and inconsistent characterization.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 21:19 on 2012-04-22TheMerryMustelid:

I have no illusions that it's great literature, but I think fellow fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett are just a _mite_ jealous that she captured the youth market before they did.

http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

Didn't Pratchett also take Rowling to task for effectively saying her books

weren't

fantasy? Like she was trying to distance her series from the "taint" of the genre or something. If she did say something as bone-headed as that, I don't blame him for jumping down her throat.

I love Pratchett and am happy to see him finally getting a wider audience in the States. For many years it seemed he was almost the American fantasy geek's best kept secret. I used to sneer at Terry Brooks readers while I clutched the latest then-hard-to-find Pratchett tome. But that was way back and Pratchett has had good american distribution for at least a decade now.

Ogg is my Co-pilot. :D

To get back on topic, if it's statistically true that Rowling didn't inspire more kids to read beyond her series, that is too bad, but is it necessarily her fault? One of my little pet theories is that fantasy in general has benefitted from the Harry Potter frenzy, because during the waits between Potter books & after the series ended, readers needed something to fill the void. So in effect, Rowling did help other fantasy writers by making fantasy more popular than ever before, even mainstream.

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Sister Magpie

at 00:04 on 2012-04-23I don't think anybody would say it was her fault. It came up, I think, because there were a lot of people crediting her with single-handedly boosting literacy rates etc. That idea has gotten repeated a lot, so it just gets corrected. Blaming her for not performing that feat is like blaming her for not actually being able to fly a broomstick--I don't think anybody could do it!

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Dan H

at 09:37 on 2012-04-23

The main problem with Harry Potter isn't that the books stop being "children's books" halfway though. "These books are no longer for children" is a statement that implies something that is nor positive, nor negative.

I think I disagree, but only margainally. I think "these books are no longer for children" does in fact imply something negative, simply because it implies - well - all of the stuff you mention later.

The reason I would suggest that it was bad for a series of children's books to become a series of books for adults is simply that it is inevitable that the "for kids" stuff doesn't fit with the "for adults" stuff. Part of the problem here is that people seem to forget that you can have a dark, serious story in which bad things happen to people which is still fundamentally a children's story, or a lighthearted wacky romp which is still for grownups.

Rowling's error - essentially - was that she mistakenly believed that the only way to engage with the "serious" themes she wanted to engage with in her children's stories was for her to stop writing children's books.

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http://lonewolf-eburg.livejournal.com/

at 15:16 on 2012-04-23I agree that JKR's OMGADULT!change was always going to have some problems, but I also think that she could've done more to alleviate the problem of thematic discordance. She didn't seem to be aware that she has a problem that needs fixing at all.

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Frank

at 17:04 on 2012-04-23I, too, recall reading that HP did not increase readers. My understanding is that the series may have increased literacy within age groups. Increasing one's ability to read books does not necessarily make one a reader of books.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 17:24 on 2012-04-23I agree that after about book three Rowling was no longer clear which market she was targeting, and it didn't matter because she was solidly hitting all of them. I can imagine her and her publishers having their minds blown by their success and wanting more of it, without really being sure what was working and shouldn't be changed and where they had room to let her go crazy and do what she liked. There may not have been a conscious choice to turn the books "adult," but an organic growth in that direction, which no editor ever bothered to sit down and take a good look at and realize just how fucked up it was.

Basically, I think Rowling was a decently talented newbie who was deeply injured by her early success, and it'll be interesting to see whether she ever recovers from it as a writer.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 17:34 on 2012-04-23

She didn't seem to be aware that she has a problem that needs fixing at all.

I think closer to the end, her only thought was "finish these fucking books so I can get the fuck on with my life." It's probably more that she simply didn't care what she wrote anymore as long as she got words on paper, and her editors cared even less.

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at 20:06 on 2012-04-23

She didn't seem to be aware that she has a problem that needs fixing at all.

Given that her next book seems to be a satire on the State of the Nation, I'd say she does at least realise that a work primarily for adults will allow her more room to engage with the ideas she wants to in the manner which she would like. As Dan and others have noted, the social commentary in HP was hampered by the fact that it was ultimately a story about the Chosen One defeating the Dark Lord.

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at 20:29 on 2012-04-23I think that Scipio is correct here. To make her later books truly "grow" and be consistent at least in themselves (even if we disregard the earlier ones), JKR needed her books to change from "ultimately a story about the Chosen One defeating the Dark Lord". But while some fanfiction writers could do that (with varying degrees of success), Rowling, understandably, couldn't afford it.

That's why GoF and OotP weren't as bad as DH. In then, JKR could allow herself to deviate a little. HBP, IMO, is just plain badly written.

"I'd say she does at least realise that a work primarily for adults will allow her more room to engage with the ideas she wants to in the manner which she would like"

To be fair, sometimes fantasy can be a good vessel for real-world commentary. But then, see the previous points made on the thread.

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at 19:05 on 2012-04-24

To be fair, sometimes fantasy can be a good vessel for real-world commentary. But then, see the previous points made on the thread.

Oh, definitely. One of my favourite fantasies of the moment is Shadows of the Apt, which tries very hard to engage with race, privilege and the nature of prejudice and discrimination in general. I just think that a series for children is perhaps not the best medium for that sort of thing.

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #Roald Dahl #Enid Blyton #J.K. Rowling #Dan H

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juushika · 6 years

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DS9 is the boy’s rewatch of choice, he puts it on to go to sleep to, and normally I hardcore ignore it (I did a complete series rewatch--like, first revisit since adolescence--in two huge chunks a number of years ago and it was absolutely exhausting, especially the second chunk which was just the last few seasons and was plot, war, and profound stress all the goddamn time; when I raised this issue with the boy he was like, oh, yeah, I sometimes skip some of the later seasons in my casual rewatches, and I was like, you think????)

but when I moved back here and had multiple overlapping sources of stress and then got sick, I started tuning in, in the sense of “lying on the bed as a profound lump, watching endless rows of episodes and existing only in found family alien feels land”

and then I scaled it back to ~1 ep a night that I watch when he’s falling asleep, and it’s literally my favorite part of the day

I love TOS/TNG/VOY/DS9 all (and haven’t seen any of the other two, and don’t regret that rn), and before this would probably have put Voyager at the top of my list, but tbh our joint rewatch of that didn’t hold up super well? the characters and premise are superb, still probably my favorite in concept; but the episodic nature hamstrings the plot, it doesn’t fulfill potential

(TOS and TNG do episodic way better, and I also love those casts)

but DS9 is sincerely a step above, insofar as its openness on overarching plot AND reliance on the occasional Star Trek traditional episodic/throwaway/standalone lets it fulfill a potential unreached by the other series while maintaining a profound, sometimes easy, watchability, notwithstanding the whole later season plot-war-stress thing

but the DS9 cast and tropes and speculative concepts--especially the speculative concepts--are so far and away my bag that I can’t summarize it even in an unedited ramble that I expect no one to read. religion with a real, provable, but not inarguable basis that confronts characters with a faith that they don’t want and raises uncomfortable questions about the faith they already have! symbiosis, a people who define themselves by--but do not all have access to--symbiotic relationships; how identity and loneliness operate in a symbiotic and multi-generational relationships! every ST show as that not-human character who constantly raises the question of what it means to be human, and I love them all, but Odo is the best, Rene Auberjonois’s acting is above superb. I don’t care a ton about Ferengi but I care a lot about actors who champion their roles, who make them more meaningful, consistent, robust than they were ever written/intended. Klingons!! I wish I were married to Keiko but she is 200% too good for me!

Like, I have a lot of Star Trek feels, I grew up on Star Trek, but nothing so consistently inspires that profound longing as does DS9, that sense of want to be there, of want to inhabit that

(especially the Trill)

anyway so when things went from “only bad because life is occurring to me, someone incapable of participating in the real world” to “legitimate nightmare hellscape of suffering” b/c of my dad’s diagnosis, I was like, is this a good idea? 1) if I use it as comfort watching now, will I forever conflate it with The Cancer Time? 1b) will The Cancer Time also make it impossible to successfully lose myself in it, thus ruining it twofold? 2) are feelings like this healthy--I mean, “how much escapism is healthy” is a question I’m historically shit at answering, but I don’t care about the answer rn; I have bigger issues to worry about--but is it catharsis or a trigger when you turn to something, aka Star Trek, which consistently turns out to be emotionally devastating? am I finding a productive outlet or just making myself more miserable? is there even any way to answer that question in this situation?

Janeway is my favorite captain because of Formative Sexual Awakening Reasons, and just because I love her, but Sisko is so important in ways I’m not best equipped to articulate: this dynamic, decisive, capable, formidable, profoundly loving Black man in a position of power. I have a complex relationship with depictions of bio/nuclear families for complex reasons re: my own family (like, you know, fucking everyone), I’m normally not really Affected by hearttugging family shit because there’s a wall there, if you will (I built it myself)--so I have always loved Sisko for his presence (so much presence! what a voice!) and for the acceptance and faith he shows in his crew; his relationship with Jake I can see as important but it didn’t have personal resonance.

it turns out that when your father is dying, all of the sudden stories about fathers are very easy to resonate with

the “complex reasons re: my own family” are about 95% the fact that I am a difficult family member to have because I am crazy as hell; small sins affect me hugely and I invite them by virtue of being me, so, like, family hurts, I am bad at having one, etc, etc

my father also profoundly, only, wants the best for me; hasn’t always known how to conceptualize “best” or “me,” but that changes nothing

I think what breaks my heart most is what I will never be able to give his memory; I won’t become a writer, or scientist, or undergo profound self-realizations or self-dedications, or self-sacrifices; I am unsure what legacy he leaves with me--nothing good, really; it’s the limitation of who I am. this narrative we are in together will not better me--I’m fragile, it can only hurt me

and I don’t know how that balances that desire, his desire, for my happiness

#this is 50% a lot of Star Trek feels and 50% a lot of personal grief and 100% unreadable #I don't normally vent? esp. about private things?? I guess this is one of those 'I may delete it later' sort of posts???#no one is under any obligation to read; I think I just needed to write it #Juu watches #/////#Star Trek: Deep Space 9 #Star Trek: Voyager #Star Trek #death tw

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magnetic-force-of-a-may · 5 years

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#IStandWithTaylor - A Defense of Taylor Swift

In the past few days, some friends have asked me to explain the “Taylor Swift drama” that has been in the news recently. Why me? (ME!). Because most people who know me know that I am a big Taylor Swift fan, and have been for the past 11 years. But being a Swiftie doesn’t mean I’m incapable of being critical of her work or actions; rather, I believe it makes me a more qualified and generous judge of her character compared to the average listener of her music. Do I ever raise my eyebrows at moves made by Taylor and her team? Yes. But am I also a hardcore fan who will defend her to the best of my ability? Yes. In this post, I hope to elucidate why I believe standing with Taylor is important, especially given the double standards of the toxic, often male-dominated music industry.

Below is an image that Taylor shared on her tumblr:

What happened?

Two days ago, it was announced that Scooter Braun had acquired the Big Machine Label Group (Taylor’s previous label) from Scott Borchetta, and along with it, Taylor Swift’s entire back catalogue. If you are understandably asking who Scooter Braun is, he’s the manager of artists such as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Kanye West (Trump supporter, husband of #KimOhNo Kardashian).

Why is this a problem for Taylor Swift?

Before I delve into what makes this a problem, I want to first address why it’s a problem for Taylor specifically. She puts it best on her tumblr post: Her “musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” Scooter, like many other people in the entertainment industry, has always had it out for Taylor. This takes us back to 2016, when Taylor and Kanye had “beef” over Kanye’s song “Famous.” In the song, Kanye sings, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.” (How did Kanye make Taylor “famous,” exactly? According to him, by interrupting her award acceptance speech in 2009. Even Obama called him a “jackass” for it. ICONIC.) Anyway; Taylor claimed she never wanted Kanye to use her name like that in the song; Kim Kardashian then illegally released a recording of a phone conversation in which Taylor presumably said it was “okay.” It goes without saying that what Kim did was wrong and disrespectful. Not surprising for someone who has just recently tried to trademark “Kimono” for her own clothing brand. But let’s assume that Taylor did say “yes” to Kanye. How many women’s “nos” are manipulated by men into “yeses?” How many women out there understand how difficult it is to say no? How many women are blamed for situations in which they feel like they had no control?

To use a personal example, last night, I went out swing dancing, and felt someone rub my back in an intimate way. I turned around, expecting it was my boyfriend. No, it was a total stranger, who immediately asked me: “Would you like to dance?” My head said no, but what instead came out was, instinctively, “yes.” I spent the rest of the dance regretting it. I realized again, in that instance, that many women are often pressured and conditioned into saying “yes” to everything, when we should have the right to say no to as many people as we want. So, when people accuse Taylor Swift of saying “yes” to Kanye, one of the first things I think about is how easily people (especially men) will assume that saying “yes” is automatic, unconditional, and simple for women. I also think about how t he audio snippet Kim released was blatantly doctored and illegally publicized. And how Kanye later barely received criticism for stripping Taylor’s body double naked in his music video for “Famous.” Scooter was there when Kanye organized his “revenge porn music video” for “Famous.” Scooter was also there when Justin Bieber, Kanye, and some other random dude (see photo above) teamed up on social media to bully Taylor about being “exposed” by Kim. Scooter has, as Taylor rightly says in her tumblr post, been responsible for the “incessant, manipulative bullying” aimed at her for years.

Back to 2019…

So, given this context, you can understand why Taylor is not happy with SCOOTER BRAUN acquiring her masters, her life’s work, her greatest hits, her dreams. This is not “pettiness.” This is injustice.

Why didn’t Taylor just buy her own songs?

Folks have been saying that Taylor once “had the chance” to buy her own music, but “passed.” As Taylor makes very clear in her tumblr post, however, the deal offered to her by Big Machine Records, a.k.a Scott Borchetta, was anything short of liberating. In order to own her previous albums, Taylor would have to ” ‘earn’ one album back at a time,” one for every new one she turned in. This would take at least 10 years. Taylor walked away to set herself free. Borchetta, who genuinely believed he was doing himself a favor by sharing the following photo, posted an exchange between him and Taylor on his website. His post includes one text from Taylor, informing him of her decision to leave Big Machine Records, and one text from himself, notifying her of Scooter’s purchase. It does not take a genius, or even an English major like myself, to note the marked contrast in tone that both texts present. Firstly, I’m pleased to know that Taylor begins her texts the same way I begin my emails: “I hope this finds you well.” Secondly, one line in Scott’s text jumped out at me as carrying the saltiness of a salty, salty ex-manager: “I wanted to pass along to you the same courtesy that you passed along to me in regard to my future.” I saw no courtesy there. Honestly, go read the exchange, and tell me whether you see it.

Why does Taylor’s fight matter?

Scooter’s wife, Yael, addressed Taylor on Instagram, saying that Scooter “believed in you more than you believe in yourself.” Are you kidding me? Do I even need to expend the energy to rebut this? She also tells Taylor to leave her kids out of this drama, whereas Taylor had never, anywhere, in any way, mentioned Scooter’s kids. So. Perhaps it’s true, as Yael says in her post, that Scooter reached an “olive branch” out to Taylor. But after everything Scooter has done toTaylor, why should Taylor invoke the energy to respond to Scooter? Do people have to forgive or even interact with those who have hurt and traumatized them? No.

In the aftermath of Taylor’s tumblr post, different celebrities and media outlets have spoken out, each with their own story, each with their own way of reframing the narrative. Taylor herself is a master at framing narratives. After Kim called her a snake in 2016, Taylor rebranded her next album to successfully and cleverly incorporate the snake motif into her music. Her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down,” is an LGBT-anthem (or at least wants to be) that brands herself as a strong ally (although not without controversy) after years of her political silence. But I don’t want to make this about narratives or social media or celebrity gossip, which is what the tabloids want. This is “drama,” but as Taylor says, “I don’t love the drama, it loves me.” Try to ignore the gossip swirling around Taylor’s post (which albeit invokes it) and focus on the simple, straightforward fact that Taylor Swift is an artist who would like to own her own music and is fighting for other artists to also have that right. People point out that even The Beatles don’t own their own music. So? Since when has established tradition been a reason to preclude future change?

Taylor Swift “grew up in a pretty house,” but has not had an easy time in the spotlight. She is in a position of immense privilege, but also has had to make a number of sacrifices (like, privacy) to get to where she is today. There are articles out there saying that Taylor’s struggles are nothing compared to those of laborers who are also fighting for their own rights. People will say that Taylor has no right to complain, given her wealth and status. But if Taylor Swift, one of the most powerful and influential women in the world, is also subject to outrageous injustice and manipulation, what does that say about our world? That even those with the most power cannot have it all? Or that the profit-driven, business-minded, and often male-dominated music industry can always trump creative thinkers and artists?

The bottom line is that music written, sung, and produced by Taylor Swift, alongside many other artists, is now in the hands of someone who had absolutely no part in making it. It is in the hands of someone who has not been a friend to Taylor Swift. It is in the hands of someone who should, honestly, NOT have it. Whether or not you like Taylor Swift, take a moment to think about the implications of this transaction. Some might say that now that Scooter has Taylor’s music, he’ll want the best for her (now, he has a stake in it). While that kind of ownership mentality is toxic in itself, the facts speak for themselves: recently, Scooter’s team has been re-uploading Taylor’s catalogue onto iTunes and rebranding it; Fearless has gone from being under the “Country” category to “Pop,” erasing the contributions that the album made for country music in 2008. One of Scooter’s friends congratulated him on social media for having “bought Taylor Swift.“ The Big Machine deal between Scott and Scooter would have been nothing without Taylor’s catalog. Taylor’s years of hard work now enlarge the status and bank account of a man who has wronged and disrespected her on many occasions. Imagine if you were Taylor in this situation. Just think about it.

Since the start of her career, Taylor Swift has always been an easy victim. She’s been ridiculed by the media for her dating life when few other artists have experienced the same slut-shaming she was subject to; certainly, no men were victim to such media scrutiny. People love to say that Taylor can’t write her own music, even after she wrote the album Speak Nowentirely own her own to prove a point. People criticize Taylor for remaining silent on political issues and criticize her when she uses her voice. Too often, men treat women like easy targets, and assume that their casual “bullying” will have no consequences. Too often, men assume forgiveness. Too often, men think they can get away with anything.

What angers me about the Scooter-Scott deal is the way in which it reinforces notions of gender inequality and the soul-sucking nature of many business deals. But what gives me hope is the fact that I believe Taylor can make a change for the greater good. In the past, she has used to power to leverage deals with Spotify, Apple Music, and Universal Music Group to increase artists’ wages and agency. “People throw rocks and things that shine,” but “snakes and stones never broke” Taylor’s bones. Taylor Swift doesn’t have to say “yes” to anyone anymore. I believe that, in the years to come, she’ll be able to make the music industry a better and more equitable place. And that she will continue to be a role model for women and emerging artists everywhere. And for those reasons, #IStandWithTaylor.