Call me crazy...
...but we live in a very exciting time for textual studies.
OK, call me boring instead if you must, but I believe this is true.
We are at a moment when perhaps the greatest (and surely the best-selling) series ever written forr young readers is in progress, when a grand shared narrative has yet to conclude. It has angered Evangelicals while fueling the Apologeticists, has been spurned by public schools and embraced by universities, and likely has nearly as many adult readers as youth.
Yes, Harry Pottter.
Just think about it. Most series that are or will be canonized reached the height of their popularity after the storyline was completed, when we already knew what happened. Never before has the author of a fantasy series had such open access to the critics' and fans' speculations while in the process of finishing the series (and there is evidence that some of her response to critics has made its way into at least one novel). And, this is just the trappings, the context of the reading of the novels. They are fulll of allusion, classic imagery, mythology, issues of race and power and politics.
What a great fucking thing to be able to read and write about.
It will be different for my daughter. She is two, and the series will be long over when she has a chance to start reading it. It will be different for academics, too, that tackle the work after it is over.
It is like we have all agreed to stop reading a great novel at page 150 and talk about it, and know that the author is sitting in and editing pages 151 and on as we speak.
Lumos 2006, here I come.
OK, call me boring instead if you must, but I believe this is true.
We are at a moment when perhaps the greatest (and surely the best-selling) series ever written forr young readers is in progress, when a grand shared narrative has yet to conclude. It has angered Evangelicals while fueling the Apologeticists, has been spurned by public schools and embraced by universities, and likely has nearly as many adult readers as youth.
Yes, Harry Pottter.
Just think about it. Most series that are or will be canonized reached the height of their popularity after the storyline was completed, when we already knew what happened. Never before has the author of a fantasy series had such open access to the critics' and fans' speculations while in the process of finishing the series (and there is evidence that some of her response to critics has made its way into at least one novel). And, this is just the trappings, the context of the reading of the novels. They are fulll of allusion, classic imagery, mythology, issues of race and power and politics.
What a great fucking thing to be able to read and write about.
It will be different for my daughter. She is two, and the series will be long over when she has a chance to start reading it. It will be different for academics, too, that tackle the work after it is over.
It is like we have all agreed to stop reading a great novel at page 150 and talk about it, and know that the author is sitting in and editing pages 151 and on as we speak.
Lumos 2006, here I come.
posted by JJisafool at 10:28 AM
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