For quite a while now, at least several years, I have been trying to
understand what makes a book "quality literature", especially with
reference to upper elementary and young adult books, which seem to be my
primary interest. I have joined and left several online news groups
and I remain a member of 3 of them now, whose attention is focused on
discussing these books. Two of those groups are composed primarily of
teachers, librarians, and authors, who are, presumably the ones who
understand this literature the best and who can provide in depth,
critical analysis of those books. The third group is made up of adults
who simply enjoy discussing the Harry Potter books.
And
yet, when any given book comes up on the two professional groups, there
are, in most cases, at most 20 posts regarding the book. Many of these
posts are of the nature of "I really liked/disliked this book, it was
better/worse than his/her last book. I thought the main character was
appealing/whiny/unrealistic. The book reminds me of X/Y/Z book, which
does {genre} better/worse."
The non-professional group,
which discusses the Harry Potter books, is now up to message number
182,288. Recent posts have discussed the issue of house-elf enslavement
- its morality and its implications; the sacrifice of one boy to save
the world - again, morality and implications; the origin of the names
Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus (the Peverell brothers) and their
mythological significance.
Now, admittedly, the Harry
Potter books number 7 plus the two textbooks, so if we divide the
182,288 by 9, we only get 20,000 posts per book. Still, that is
considerably more per book than most of the books discussed on the
professional groups. I also concede that with hundreds of books to
discuss, there really isn't time to discuss them in the same depth as
people who are interested only in the HP books can discuss. And yet, the
thing is that, on the professional groups, the Harry Potter books are
not considered to be very high quality literature. These books have
outsold most other books besides the Bible, but that is dismissed (just
marketing); they have inspired high quality discussion (people with too
much time on their hands). But when I ask on the professional groups
why they think HP books are just hype, the only thing that I get is that
the writing is "B Grade". For example, in the first books, she uses
the grammatical construct "s/he said {adverb}" too much. This is true,
but I must admit that I never noticed it until they pointed it out. And
if that is all of the criticism they can offer, it is a bit
insubstantial in my eyes.
None of this would bother
me, I am obviously a fan of the Harry Potter books, except that I am
trying to understand what professionals regard as excellent writing.
Since they have dismissed books that have evoked massive interest, what
is it that they are looking for that is better than huge popular appeal
and critical adult interest? So far, I haven't found all that much.
Effective use of metaphors is one thing that is mentioned. Other than
that, it seems the evaluations are very personal. Some like elaborate
descriptions, some don't. Some like off beat characterizations; some
find them annoying or unrealistic. Some like tight plotting; some
dismiss plotting almost entirely.
So, I am gradually
coming to the opinion that I am going to have to search for my own
definition of quality in literature. One thing I know is that I enjoy
books/movies that have some sort of moral dilemma, preferably one where
the solution isn't entirely clear, even after you have finished the
book. Was it right for Dumbledore to plan to sacrifice Harry and hope
that it would work out? Was it right for Ender to be duped into wiping
out an entire race of sentient beings? Was is right for Will Hunting to
leave a promising job to go in search of Skyler? What should be done
with/for geniuses of Will Hunting's caliber?
I will leave grammatical analysis to the professionals.
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