On that Time magazine interview with JKR (may contain HBP spoilers)

[persephone_kore]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1083935,00.html

I'm really puzzled by a few things here. I'm not the first to comment on what she says about Narnia, nor on the reporter's rather bizarre decision to slam C. S. Lewis further, nor for that matter on the rather perplexing idea that magic makes everything all better in most fantasy novels.

But look at this from page 1:

The most popular living fantasy writer in the world doesn't even especially like fantasy novels. It wasn't until after Sorcerer's Stone was published that it even occurred to her that she had written one. "That's the honest truth," she says. "You know, the unicorns were in there. There was the castle, God knows. But I really had not thought that that's what I was doing. And I think maybe the reason that it didn't occur to me is that I'm not a huge fan of fantasy."

And this from page 2:

Granted, Rowling's books begin like invitations to garden-variety escapism: Ooh, Harry isn't really a poor orphan; he's actually a wealthy wizard who rides a secret train to a castle, and so on. But as they go on, you realize that while the fun stuff is pure cotton candy, the problems are very real--embarrassment, prejudice, depression, anger, poverty, death. "I was trying to subvert the genre," Rowling explains bluntly. "Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he's left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life."

Er? Since these things are pretty clear right from the first book (and she's commented on this elsewhere, that the first book starts with a double murder and yet people act as if it isn't dark), I'm a little unsure how these statements fit together. Also on how much of a subversion this is. There are stories where magic ends up as the solution to problems, but right back to fairy tales there are also stories where it's more of a complication.

Also, while the article says she never finished all of the Chronicles of Narnia (and rather implies that she didn't like them at all), there are previous interviews where she mentioned enjoying things about them. She even told us her favorite character. (Nope, not the lion.)

Now, this is fair enough; there are plenty of stories I enjoy despite points of disagreement or outright irritation. There are series I've started and never gotten around to finishing, or where I like some books considerably more than others. There are authors with multiple books in separate storylines where I like some and find others deadly dull. For that matter, there's still the chance Rowling herself will turn out not to be writing some of the themes I thought she'd set up, things I thought I perceived that drew me deeper into the books than... oh, With a Single Spell by wossname. (Yes, fine, I sound like an H/Hr shipper. Whatever.) I'm more annoyed with the article author; JKR expressed distaste for one of Lewis's story developments, but I don't think she's the one who suggested he'd be a Death Eater!

But having seen RJA note that JKR had previously referred to liking Narnia, I went back to find some more information on this....

She said her favorite character was Eustace! Because he was "a very unlikeable character who turns good." And also funny.

Isn't that interesting.

Comments

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

I didn't like the tone of that article much either - one of those where it sounds like they picked and chose a very few things she said to present a highly coloured view. Which I suppose is the nature of journalism, but even so, I was surprised by the battering of the Narnia Chronicles. I know they have the whole Christian allegory element, which some don't like, but as a child reading them, you don't worry about that. They're still good stories. I also don't see how JKR can have been trying deliberately to subvert a genre that she never even realised she was writing! Not to mention that many childrens' fantasy writers had been there and done the whole 'bad side of magic' thing years before (like Diana Wynne Jones). JKR deserves loads of credit for writing great books, but not at the expense of other authors who've achieved just as good stories.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

It does sound as if they were a bit, ah, choosy. I also got the impression that perhaps neither JKR nor the article author had actually read or paid attention to much decent fantasy. For heaven's sake... want to try telling Bilbo "adventure is so much more fun if it's happening to someone else and you're sitting by a fire hearing about it" Baggins that when you go out into the magical world it makes everything fine? (I'd recommend against telling it to Frodo, especially if Sam's around.)

Now, I could see it being possible that JKR didn't realize what she was doing at first and then continued the later books with the intention of being subversive. I'm not sure she actually managed it, given previous points about magic-solving-everything not really being that common, but I can see her having the expressed intention. It just doesn't make a lot of sense as presented.

Which also supports your contention about the article being deliberately slanted. They did seem to want to focus on how... modern, or something, JKR's fantasy was.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

The Narnia-bashing was ridiculous. The Narnia series are the first books I remember reading, and my copies are almost falling to bits from re-reads; Christian allegory or not, and when you're five you don't notice anyway, they are wonderful children's books. Plus they're giving NZ a chance to add to the list of fantasy places we can stand in for. :P

Interesting comment about Eustace. He is one of the better characters in the series, because he acts like so many others would act if asked to accept that they've fallen through a painting into a different world.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Heh. I really hope the movie's good, especially since it comes out right around my birthday. ;) I mean, I would anyway, but bonus!

Having looked at another recent interview where she mentions Narnia, JKR said that she read them but never finished, never read the last one. And that could actually make sense, that she liked several of them (especially Voyage of the Dawn Treader) but disagreed with Lewis on Point X, and didn't get around to finishing The Last Battle.

(Actually, I think I remember taking a couple of tries to get into that one myself -- it seemed sadder than all the rest, and with the main evil being deceit I think it felt... dirtier. And, erm, I was very young. As in, this was probably before I read Anne of Green Gables and decided that I wasn't interested in the sequels, at least not yet, because I felt that Anne was getting too grown up!)

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

The Last Battle was always my least favourite, not because of the religion but because of all the nasty things that went on - and what happened to Susan. I think it's her fate more than anything else that millions of females hold against C S Lewis, because the whole "if you like lipstick you don't get to go to heaven" thing? SO contrived. She was one of the best characters, and then it's all like "Sorry, she isn't there because she wore stockings!!!!"

Although part of me also sympathises with not liking the type of girls who "waste all their school time wanting to be [teenagers], and spend the rest of their lives trying to stay that age", but Susan WASN'T that type of girl. She was cool and brave and kick-ass with her bow and arrows. She was a Queen of Narnia, for heaven's sake. And Lewis just dumped her.

[alphabet26.livejournal.com]

I don't know; Susan did have trouble "keeping the faith," to continue the metaphor. Remember in Prince Caspian? No one but Lucy could see Aslan at first, but Susan had the hardest time with it. Totally adored Edmund there. "Let's follow Lucy--I'm sure she's right." And I thought that in Voyage Susan got to go to America, because she was the beauty and needed opportunities. I thought I remembered that she was becoming a bit stuck-up. I haven't read the Chronicles in a long time, though.

[kaesa.livejournal.com]

...okay, even as an agnostic areligious Jew, I love the Narnia books. Although yeah, The Last Battle has to be my least favorite, and my favorite characters are also Eustace and Edmund, both of whom fit the choices/free will themes of the HP books better than the others. The Last Battle doesn't necessarily not fit it - the dwarfs (who I suppose would represent me in any number of ways) have the choice to see Aslan for what he really is - but it becomes somewhat grating for me in that they're being left to die at the End of the World^TM for being jaded. I'd sort of tend to assume that JKR hasn't read The Last Battle, though, seeing as it seems to say she hasn't.

...um. End random rant. (Incidentally, I generally don't know what I'm talking about. I just like Eustace. And Edmund. And. Yes. Also, I think Jadis has sort of stuck in my mind as Most Horrifically Evil Character Ever since my mother read me the books when I was four. This may have something to do with her ability to manipulate people to her will, but I have a feeling it's more because, coming from the Midwest, winter goes on quite long enough, and my birthday's just after Christmas. ...I apparently share it with Tom Riddle, actually. Yay for me.)

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I suspect her of having picked it up and put it down again, but I could be wrong.

There's somebody who posts on the Sugar Quill forums as Jadis Lestrange. I'm sure she's actually very nice, but her username creeps me out.

[kaesa.livejournal.com]

Hrm. That could be it. There were places in my Narnia reread a couple years back where I wanted to just skip a couple of pages to get to the good parts. But then, there were places in my Brief History of Time reread a couple years back where I wanted to just skip a couple of pages to get to the good parts, so I figured I just had a short attention span. I generally don't do that with books I haven't read, though, so. :\

...and in my experience, people who act evil are generally faking. So yeah, she's probably really nice and kind of embarrassed of it.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Well, I was just thinking, if I quit reading a series because I don't like something about it, I usually have to have at least picked up and looked at the part I don't like. (Sometimes inertia will carry me through one or two books and I later wonder why I didn't quit sooner, in fact, but sometimes I just don't bother to finish.)

Of course, there's also the possibility of not having one of the books available and losing interest in the interim, but that seems less likely with Narnia.

Er, says the girl who only had five of the seven for the longest time because Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader had gone missing.

[kaesa.livejournal.com]

I pretty much feel the same about series that I end up disliking, although I have to wonder why she wouldn't finish the last book in a series. It just seems kind of... well, silly. Especially since (and I know that this is a terrible way to compare books, but) the Narnia books are nowhere near as long as HBP or OotP or GoF.

And, heh. I'm not nearly as far along in Discworld as I could be because I don't have The Next Book. I forget what the next book is at the moment, but I'm like that about reading books in order.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Well, always with the disclaimer that I have no idea if this is actually what JKR did or thought or not....

...There are series where I have stopped reading because I did not want to acknowledge The Next Book. Not that it would have been much trouble to read it, but I just didn't want to read that everything ended that way. And I could see taking The Last Battle that way, even if I don't so much. (Well. I know the allegory and all, but I admit I didn't want it to be over. Even if there was obviously lots and lots in between that we never saw.)

[kaesa.livejournal.com]

...ahaha. I tried to write The Eighth Chronicle of Narnia in first grade. Got about one paragraph in before I realized that it wasn't going to work and decided to start ripping up the pages of the construction paper "book." And then my teacher came and yelled at me for it and I was dubbed "slow in reading" and "uncreative." Ah, the glories of bad ideas for fanfiction.