H2Andy
Contributor
my sister asked me to review the last book for her work newsletter, and here is my first draft.
any thoughts are welcomed, but i got to get it to her by the end of tomorrow.
let me know what you think:
I won’t go into the plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. By now, everyone knows who died, who lived, and how the book ends. And, seriously, is there anyone out there who believed J. K. Rowling would end the series with anything less than a total, obliterating, unequivocal, earth-shattering, and epochal triumph of good over evil?
Also, let’s get this out of the way. What can you say about a first-time writer who pens a children’s book which goes on to become a publishing phenomenon, and who, ten years, four movies, and seven books later, still lines readers up at midnight to buy the new book? I think it’s fair to say that nothing like Rowling’s Harry Potter magic has been seen before and likely won’t be seen again for a long time to come, if ever.
Nevertheless, Rowling has been criticized for her style (or alleged lack thereof), for her uninspired prose, and for dishing up insipid narrative that, like a McDonald’s meal, fills you up but gives you no real nutrition and, worse, clogs up your arteries and ruins your esophagus (or whatever). Here are my thoughts on Rowling’s writing.
Rowling is not a wordsmith who surprises us with a fine turn of a phrase or delights us with unexpected choice of words. Her sentences do not ring, say, like C.S. Lewis’s do. Think back through the seven books and see how many memorable sentences you can recall. There aren’t many. In fact, there is precisely one in Deathly Hollows: “Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste.” I was so startled by this sentence that I literally stopped reading for almost thirty seconds, just to take it in. It was as if I had just seen a dodo waddling about in the local duck pond.
Nor does Rowling use tone and diction to shape different moods and occasions, as J.R.R. Tolkien did so masterfully. In fact, Rowling has two modes of narrative: slow (where nothing much is happening and the kids are stumped and/or doing boring stuff) and full warp speed ahead (where everything is happening at once and spells are flying this way and that).
No, Rowling is not a master (or should I say mistress?) of the nuts and bolts of the craft that is prose writing. But neither are many writers who make the best seller lists. Certainly no one would claim that The DaVinci Code is a model of literary writing, popular as the book was (and is). And how many times has Jackie Collins been in the New York Times Best Seller List? (Hint: lots and lots of times; she is currently at number six with Drop Dead Beautiful.)
I think it is unfair to hold Rowling to a standard that few other writers are held to. Do we really expect all best-selling authors to transcend their craft and pen only immortal jewels of English prose? Or do we acknowledge that different writers have different strengths and weaknesses, and take them as they are?
Rowling is a phenomenal story teller, a master (or should I say mistress?) of plot development. Basically, that is what the Harry Potter saga is: a tale so phenomenally good and imaginative that even a writer of Rowling’s limited craft “couldn’t screw it up” to use the vernacular. The wonders of Harry Potter are the wonders of the imagination and magic, of characters who have kept us company for ten years and whom we have grown to love, and of a world that existed only in the mind of one woman but which is now shared by millions and millions of readers.
Will Harry Potter become a classic? He already is. Like Tom Sawyer and Alice, the boy wizard, his friends, and his world, have already become a part of our collective imagination. That is Rowling’s amazing accomplishment, one that few writers ever achieve, and we must give her all the credit she is due.
The author holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Florida. He taught writing and literature courses at both UF and Santa Fe Community College before going to law school and joining the Death Eaters.
any thoughts are welcomed, but i got to get it to her by the end of tomorrow.
let me know what you think:
I won’t go into the plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. By now, everyone knows who died, who lived, and how the book ends. And, seriously, is there anyone out there who believed J. K. Rowling would end the series with anything less than a total, obliterating, unequivocal, earth-shattering, and epochal triumph of good over evil?
Also, let’s get this out of the way. What can you say about a first-time writer who pens a children’s book which goes on to become a publishing phenomenon, and who, ten years, four movies, and seven books later, still lines readers up at midnight to buy the new book? I think it’s fair to say that nothing like Rowling’s Harry Potter magic has been seen before and likely won’t be seen again for a long time to come, if ever.
Nevertheless, Rowling has been criticized for her style (or alleged lack thereof), for her uninspired prose, and for dishing up insipid narrative that, like a McDonald’s meal, fills you up but gives you no real nutrition and, worse, clogs up your arteries and ruins your esophagus (or whatever). Here are my thoughts on Rowling’s writing.
Rowling is not a wordsmith who surprises us with a fine turn of a phrase or delights us with unexpected choice of words. Her sentences do not ring, say, like C.S. Lewis’s do. Think back through the seven books and see how many memorable sentences you can recall. There aren’t many. In fact, there is precisely one in Deathly Hollows: “Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste.” I was so startled by this sentence that I literally stopped reading for almost thirty seconds, just to take it in. It was as if I had just seen a dodo waddling about in the local duck pond.
Nor does Rowling use tone and diction to shape different moods and occasions, as J.R.R. Tolkien did so masterfully. In fact, Rowling has two modes of narrative: slow (where nothing much is happening and the kids are stumped and/or doing boring stuff) and full warp speed ahead (where everything is happening at once and spells are flying this way and that).
No, Rowling is not a master (or should I say mistress?) of the nuts and bolts of the craft that is prose writing. But neither are many writers who make the best seller lists. Certainly no one would claim that The DaVinci Code is a model of literary writing, popular as the book was (and is). And how many times has Jackie Collins been in the New York Times Best Seller List? (Hint: lots and lots of times; she is currently at number six with Drop Dead Beautiful.)
I think it is unfair to hold Rowling to a standard that few other writers are held to. Do we really expect all best-selling authors to transcend their craft and pen only immortal jewels of English prose? Or do we acknowledge that different writers have different strengths and weaknesses, and take them as they are?
Rowling is a phenomenal story teller, a master (or should I say mistress?) of plot development. Basically, that is what the Harry Potter saga is: a tale so phenomenally good and imaginative that even a writer of Rowling’s limited craft “couldn’t screw it up” to use the vernacular. The wonders of Harry Potter are the wonders of the imagination and magic, of characters who have kept us company for ten years and whom we have grown to love, and of a world that existed only in the mind of one woman but which is now shared by millions and millions of readers.
Will Harry Potter become a classic? He already is. Like Tom Sawyer and Alice, the boy wizard, his friends, and his world, have already become a part of our collective imagination. That is Rowling’s amazing accomplishment, one that few writers ever achieve, and we must give her all the credit she is due.
The author holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Florida. He taught writing and literature courses at both UF and Santa Fe Community College before going to law school and joining the Death Eaters.
