8 Responses to “Right here on this hill”

• #1

  Rob

  March 8, 2022 at 4:42 pm

  OK, so I’ve never read the Potter books and I have watched assorted Potter movies when it’s been raining and I literally couldn’t be arsed finding anything else to do or watch (the remote was sooo far away), but JKR is awesome in this context! That ‘rattles’ tweet is just a fucking moment. I suspect Dodds and her entire staff flinched when they read that.
• #2

  Ophelia Benson

  March 8, 2022 at 4:54 pm

  Exactly. I actively disliked the few chapters of the first Harry P I read, and read no further, and I was underwhelmed by a couple of her non-HP novels, but her political commentary is a whole other story.
• #3

  Eava

  March 8, 2022 at 6:26 pm

  As a huge Harry Potter fan, you have to get past the first two books. Order of the Phoenix is one of the most subversive books I have ever read and probably the best of the series. It is all about children not obeying oppressive authority. And the books are so much better than the movies.
• #4

  Sonderval

  March 9, 2022 at 12:00 am

  I agree with Eava. Especially since so many people now criticize the house-elf arc of the story which on the surface seems to justify slavery. But actually it is more subtle then that: Rowling asks “What if there actually were a race of intelligent beings that feels best when serving others? Would it be kind to try and free them against their will?” I think you could spend hours in an ethics class discussing this (slightly reminiscent of D. Adams “restaurant at the end of the universe”with that animal that wants to be eaten.). And of course those house elves seem to be a bit like the classical, stereotypic image of women, feeling best when caring for others.

  People seem to think that since the society of the wizards with its feudalistic structure is not destroyed in the end that Rowling endorses this society, but I don’t think that this can be justified from the text. Yes, Voldemort is destroyed, evil has been vanquished, but this does not mean paradise on earth…
• #5

  Blood Knight in Sour Armor

  March 9, 2022 at 12:37 am

  Pratchett exceeded her on social commentary via fiction but she’s got a bigger platform and greater reach in the real world (also still alive) so I applaud her efforts. She’s also great at writing about pain.
• #6

  Bjarte Foshaug

  March 9, 2022 at 1:52 am

  Eava #3 Sonderval#4

  Same here. I haven’t read any of the books for many years now, but as I recall reading them at the time, I’m pretty sure we were meant to sympathize with Hermione and be disappointed by the indifference of Harry and Ron (as well as everyone else) on the house-elf issue. I also think it was heavily implied that Kreacher does lead the house-elfs to their freedom in the end. It also seems obvious to me that we’re meant to find the whole business of sorting students into different houses based on the preferences of the founders as well as the grossly unfair and biased system of awarding or subtracting points from each house in the House Cup appalling. People are free to think whatever they want about Rowling as an autor, but at least I think she’s clever enough to lead us to these conclusions without spoon-feeding them to us. If there’s a real issue with goblins being based on anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews, it certainly didn’t register with me at the time.

  Some of the objections I have seen are not based on anything in the books at all as far as I can tall. E.g. I don’t recall Rowling ever making any particular point about Harry’s “blood-line”. That kind of thinking is pretty much universally associated with evil (most notably Lord Voldemort and his followers) or at the very least extremely unpleasant (e.g. Draco Malfoy) people. Harry’s parents are portrayed as admirable, but not exceptional. Lilly Potter was Muggle-born and James, it turns out, was a real jerk asshole in his youth, but presumably grew out of it.

  I also don’t find the “Muggle” label particularly problematic, since it would by necessity include Rowling herself (as well as all of us since there are no real witches or wizards). I’m just as inclined to see it as an exercise in consciousness-raising: “We think nothing of applying all these labels to other people based on all sorts of arbitrary characteristics, but to a witch or wizard, we might as well be called ‘Muggles'” etc.

  I read the books as an adult and found them flawed, to be sure, but no more so than, say, George Orwell’s 1984 (Julia as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl *shudder*) which still seems to be one of the most admired and highly praised books ever written. I still found them entertaining, and, on occasion, deeply moving. I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed them as a child too, while the books adults thought I ought to enjoy at the time mostly struck me as obviously preachy and deadly dull.
• #7

  Michael Haubrich

  March 9, 2022 at 3:53 am

  I enjoyed reading the books to the kids and often found myself reading ahead as they fell asleep in the latter books. I think that she either improved as a writer for each book, or else she staged the writing so that as she released each book she assumed that the readers were growing, too. So they would want more advanced reading that they had in the earlier books or they would get bored. The first book read very much like a kid loose in a candy store (a very dangerous candy store,) while the final book was aimed at young adults who were coming in to the age when they are usually called on to fight old men’s battles. So, unlike many series the books were aimed at growing kids to young adults. She timed her story development to reflect the stages that the majority of her readers would be at for each book.

  As for A Casual Vacancy it seemed more like a set of character studies than a story, but there were scenes in it that were so descriptive I actually found myself getting emotional over them.

  It was amazing to see her taking off the kid gloves yesterday, but also communicating with and replying to “every day” tweeters, too. She doesn’t consider herself any sort of royalty.
• #8

  Bjarte Foshaug

  March 9, 2022 at 4:37 am

  Michael

  The part about the books “growing” with the reader is so true. On a side-note, I always prefer to read English or German literature in the original language if I can, so I did. Still the Norwegian translations were widely praised, especially for their creative Norwegian-sounding substitutions of the original English names. It did lead to some rather awkward results, though. The character Ginny Weasly was given a very childish name in the Norwegian translation which sort of made sense in the first two books where she’s portrayed as this cute, shy little girl who’s in love with Harry and keeps turning pink and hiding whenever he’s around. But as she gradually evolves into this seriously badass warrior-type over the course of the series, the name becomes an increasingly awkward fit and even kind of insulting by the end.