http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/03/23/jk_rowling_s_twitter_feed_is_ruining_everything_i_love_about_jk_rowling.html
I know the writer chosen for the article won't resonate with /lit/, but do you guys agree with the gist of it?
I mean, imagine if you got to see Pynchon or Salinger tweeting about football, politics or just general banal shit.
i love how these fucking people cannibalize their own so often
they just always need some kind of thing to be upset about.
>>7845050
What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.
But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?
It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."
Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.
Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.
>>7845057
what?
>>7845065
memepost
I love Mira Gonzalez SOOOOOOO much
>>7845065
I'd actually like to hear what Bloom old boy had to say about writers on social media.
Social media terrifies me any time I'm ready to post even the most banal shit, but even I can recognize it's basically a necessary evil at this point. I don't know how things are going to be going forward.
Just imagine if Bloom could have read Shakespeare's Twitter. Or Cervantes. Or Joyce for God's sake.
I mean, exactly how much would our perspective of historical greatness have changed.
Are you kidding me? Whatever Pynchon tweeted about it'd be good.
>>7845102
I like her too. I wish she would work on more full length works like Tao did
>>7845111
Yeah until he tweets some really dumb shit that would make it difficult for you to take his work seriously ever again
I'm glad that at least most of the respected people in history were spared the indignity of having a Twitter account
>>7845168
Their prose is actually pretty good
>>7845185
No. It's fucking not.
Here's where you get to say, "well that's just like your opinion, man," and, "well good thing literature and art is subjective," and there's nothing I can say in response because that's the world we live in now. So have fun.
>>7845210
expect there are objective qualities that make him a good writer
I tweeted to Neil Gaiman and sempai didn't notice me ;_ ;
I took the courage to tweet him since he seems to respond to people. Maybe they are people he knows... It felt weird asking him a /lit/ question like just asking one of my friends. Why won't sempai notice me /lit/?
>>7845333
I suspect that by "he" you mean "I" because the shit you just said has nothing to do with this thread or the article and it couldn't have made sense to anyone else.
You're genuinely obsessed, take a few days away from 4chan and social media
>>7845065
>When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.
Kek'ed cause that was exactly how I got into reading. Harry Potter then binged in Kings short stories. Although most people stop at Harry Potter. I went on to sci-fi and fantasy which then got me into history.
Nowadays, I'm either reading history (non fiction), or grimdark fantasy cause some men never grow up.
>>7845065
>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.pdf
>ctrl+f: Stretched his legs
>1027 results
>>7845430
That's 2054 legs!!
>>7845111
No it wouldn't. That's the whole problem.
>>7845111
pynchon is already shit
>>7845439
And yet, somehow, it was also the book standing on its last legs.
>>7845430
This can't be real.
>>7845430
0 results actually
If a writer doesn't tweet banal shit, and tweets amusing and interesting things, they can seem more human and relatable to an extent pre-internet didn't offer. You gave examples who are famous recluses and surely would at the least lose that charm if they were on twitter; but most writers aren't recluses, don't need to be, and don't need to just be a scary intimidating name with no human dimension beyond their books.
>implying I'd actually read a slate article desu
>>7845225
Fuck off Tao, I'm not reading your shitty book.
>>7845468
It's not.
The word "stretched" is used 7 times total in Philosopher's Stone; almost always as "stretched out" or "out stretched". "Stretched his legs" is in there zero times.
In the rest of the series:
Chamber of Secrets: "stretched" is used 10 times.
Prisoner of Azkaban : 18 times
Goblet of Fire: 25 times roughly I wasn't paying attention. The Sphinx "stretched out her legs" once in this which is the closest match to the original string.
Order of the Phoenix: Just 2 instances of "stretched".
>>7845409
Why are you on lit then?
>Nowadays, I'm either reading history (non fiction), or grimdark fantasy cause some men never grow up.
Dude go back to /v/
>>7845409
You proved that pasta so right.
>Gone is the sense of the novelist posting belabored messages that seemed like they had been fished out of bottles that washed ashore—a special kind of loss when that writer is the creator of one of the most airtight, fantastical, fully imagined worlds we’ve ever had.
Plebus maximus.
I unironically disagree with Bloom and think that the Harry Potter books serve their purpose well (although they shouldn't be enjoyed by anyone above the age of 14 or 15). However, I do get annoyed with J. K. Rowling's innane SJW nonsense. The worst was when she implied that anyone who was unhappy with a black actress playing Hermione was racist by smugly announcing that she'd never mentioned Hermione's race in the books, even though she literally did mention it, and also drew Hermione as white in pictures for fans earlier on her career. When will 'progressive' politics end lads?
>>7845050
Marlon James is the same way.
I read all his books and loved them, and then followed him on his facebook feed. He spends half the time baiting white males or defending the actions of blacks without and reason, or championing the "safe space" crowd. Shit doesnt offend me, its just like another political uncle that spams facebook when I really just want to see pictures of my family.
>>7846066
>When will 'progressive' politics end lads?
Never, but epole will continually be eaten up by the SJW hordes, even the former SJWs
>>7846088
Its not something new.
Imagine if you were a rather well off merchant or farmer in France with contracts to serve the army from the 1780s until 1880.
Every 10 years some Jacobin or Bonapartist asshole just wants to shake up your businesses because of "muh ideals". If they can confine themselves to twitter, thank god.
>>7846066
Why would you care if Hermione is black though? Think of all the black girls who grew up reading those books, why would you just shit on them if they wanted to have a character that looks like them in a random play?
And I'm a full blown reactionary so you can't paint me with your Leftist brush. I simply can't imagine giving a shit about the expanded universe of Harry Potter
>>7845111
he'd probably turn out to be a 9/11 truther
>>7846111
he's not exactly secretive about it ...
also
>2016
>thinking the us govt. didn't do 9/11
back to /pol/ you republican dicksucker
>>7846066
Hermione is a character whose race isn't important to her development at all.
I would understand outrage if it were a historical person or an important racial/ethnic culture character, but she's not. She's a witch from a children's novel. Having a black actress portray her is a ridiculous non-issue.
>>7845050
>tweeting about football, politics or just general banal shit
>be a poet, 1920's
>work as a journalist for a living
its the same shitfor exmple Ady Endre, Hungarian poet, he actually did quality journalism
>>7846095
Personally I don't care, because I moved on from the Harry Potter books a long time ago and don't really care how they progress one way or the other. I just get annoyed when a character is changed like this for purely political reasons. The same thing is happening with James Bond. Why can't James Bond be black? Because he was written as the son of a Scottish father and a Swiss mother, who grows into an Eton-attending posh Englishman, who is described as white in the novels. Having a black Bond doesn't make sense becuase it just doesn't fit with the character's development given the context in which he grew up. I understand that the films are resembling the books less and less as time progresses, but this would be a step too far for me.
>>7846123
That might be so, but the fact of the matter is that J. K. Rowling clearly did envisage her as white, and then pretended she didn't so that those who were opposed to a black Hermione would seem racist. There's no reason for having a black Hermione other than framing it around some diversity issue, and that's what I disagree with.
I think the lesson here is to avoid authors on social media
>>7846139
As far as I'm concerned Daniel Craig was such a shitty Bond that the franchise has already morphed. He had basically none of the qualities he was supposed to have. He was like a sensitive romantic for fuck's sakes.
Again though who gives a shit about James Bond really
kids dont need to learn about Deleuze Derrida, hell they dont even need to read Carroll, it's great that some got started that way, but HP is a fine introduction to reading, specially in today's world.
I started reading more thanks to Harry Potter, before I got into that I had read Treasure Island, Moomin, Alice, and even the Godfather, all of which I enjoyed, but they didnt encourage me or made me read more. To this day I've only read a handfull of Stephen King's stories and while they are entertaining I recognize they're inconsequential so Bloom is a fucking idiot for generalizing.
To be fair to her I read Harry Potter when I was younger and I turned out okay, though I also read other things first like Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton and I was reading stuff like Treasure Island and LotR at the same time. It's very easy for young children to get into because the way it's laid out is like a movie with focus entirely on the plot and it keeps you engaged through clichés and cliffhangers, it's certainly better than reading nothing but it shouldn't be heralded as the saviour of children's literature.
>>7846092
NAPOLEON DID NOTHING WRONG
>>7845050
>UUGH this person wont stop tweeting about her intersts!! more harry potterplzzz
save yourself the trouble lads, the article is shit and the person who wrote it is juvenile as fuck. completely unnecessary article about how someone is posting things unrelated to what her image of that person's feed should be.
could have saved themselves the troouble by just unfollowing her and shuting the hell up and not drawn up a damn blogpost about it, which they finally admitted to doing at the last fucking paragraph.
>>7845821
I have to go play video games because likes fantasy and fiction? What type of fucking logic is that?
>>7847010
Fantasy and history *
