In essence, J.K. Rowling said she wasn't aware that she was writing fantasy, and that she wasn't a huge fan of fantasy. The interviewer used J.K. Rowling's comments to launch repeatedly into his own rants, putting down religion, putting down fantasy, elevating secularism, claiming that C. S. Lewis would have been a Death Eater had he been a character in Harry Potter, etc. Terry Pratchett took issue with the article in a letter to the Times, made a cheeky comment about J.K. Rowling's cluelessness, and journalists cherry picked his letter to sensationalize a bloody battle between two top selling English authors.Original article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1083935,00.html (Whether you are liberal or conservative, you will probably agree that this was not an interview as much as it was a polemic for the interviewer)
Here is Terry Pratchett's letter to the editor (or the most full excerpt available online):
'WHY IS it felt that the continued elevation of J K Rowling can only be achieved at the expense of other writers (Mistress of magic, News Review, last week)? Now we learn that prior to Harry Potter the world of fantasy was plagued with "knights and ladies morris-dancing to Greensleeves."
In fact the best of it has always been edgy and inventive, with "the dark heart of the real world" being exactly what, underneath the top dressing, it is all about. Ever since The Lord of the Rings revitalised the genre, writers have played with it, reinvented it, subverted it and bent it to the times. It has also contained some of the very best, most accessible writing for children, by writers who seldom get the acknowledgement they deserve.
Rowling says that she didn't realise that the first Potter book was fantasy until after it was published. I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?'
Here's the BBC article that sensationalized Terry Pratchett's response: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4732385.stm
Here's Neil Gaiman's insightful take on the kerfuffle: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/07/storms-and-teacups.asp
Here is Terry Pratchett's attempt to dowse the fire: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.harry-potter/msg/c4d91c122d8d07f1
Another followup a month later: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.harry-potter/msg/f13be03e7efd5070
6 comments:
Thank you for posting that!
Very interesting links there. I remember the interview referred to where JK Rowling was reported to have loved C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia--so yes...it's amazing to see the 'change' of her point of view further into the series...
It makes you wonder what she *really* thinks/thought all along...
Hahaha, she probably thought that 'fantasy' referred only to high-fantasy epics. That's what most of the people I know (who are non-writers) think. Well, wait, no, they all thought that HP was fantasy, too. I don't know what was going on with JK. :)
Wow! alt. groups still exist! Usenet! Usenet! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Thanks, Douglas, for posting those articles. Now I really want to know exactly what it was that J.K. said.
Myself, I suspect that all Rowling's comment meant was that when she began writing the Harry Potter books, she was just writing the story she wanted to write and wasn't even thinking about genre or the specific fantasy audience.
I don't think it means that she didn't recognize the stories as fantasy once she stepped outside them. But that probably didn't happen until the first outside reader commented back to her saying "I loved your fantasy!" I can easily imagine she had a reaction like "I'm writing fantasy? Oh. Why, yes I am!"
But...how can you write about magic and wizards and Muggles who live outside the world of magic and NOT know you're writing fantasy?
It's not just a make-believe element in the world, but an entire magic system and a magical, fantastical world.
It seems to me that in this case there was a perception that 'fantasy' is one kind of writing and there is *another* kind of writing, which means you've prevailed over the genre and are now writing 'literature.'
I do think, whatever the case, that there is surely the matter of 'Shoddy Journalism' afoot.
There have been interviews where JK Rowling said that Narnia was among her favorites. The Harry Potter Lexicon quotes: 'C.S. Lewis is the author of The Chronicles of Narnia series, which is frequently cited by JKR as amongst her favorites and which she has re-read many times. "Even now, if I was in a room with one of the Narnia books I would pick it up like a shot and re-read it."
Meanwhile, the Times magazine reported:
'Rowling has never finished The Lord of the Rings. She hasn't even read all of C.S. Lewis' Narnia novels, which her books get compared to a lot. There's something about Lewis' sentimentality about children that gets on her nerves. "There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex," Rowling says. "I have a big problem with that."
So...which is it?
By book six, perhaps Rowling just realized that she'd created a phenomenon and wanted to claim it all her own--along with her world of magic (NOT fantasy...) and magical fans--and part of that was to distance herself from the rest of the offerings under the 'fantasy' umbrella.
Understandable, since 'editing and rewriting' can happen in more than first drafts or books....
Huh. I always thought it was vanity that Susan found.
Remind me never to become famous.
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