What does /lit/ think of Harry Potter?
I think it definitely deserves the title of /lit/core as it really gives the reader an understanding of how good a childrens book can be.
>>8150595
>I think it definitely deserves the title of /lit/core
No it doesn't. Get out.
>>8150595
Are you new here, anon?
Harry Potter is not even a good example of a good children's book.
>>8150616
name a better one
>>8150622
If you're here to argue about young adult literature, you're here for the wrong reasons. Take off the name. Now.
>>8150622
Watership Down
The Little Prince
Tintin series
The Dark Materials trilogy
The Hobbit
The Wind in the Willows
Various Beatrix Potter stories
A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh
Tove Jansson's Moomin Series
Don't get me wrong, Harry Potter is entertaining and I have nostalgia attached to it, but there's much better children's literature out there more deserving of a classic or /lit/core status.
>>8150629
>Various Beatrix Potter stories
>A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh
>The Little Prince
Im gonna be honest with you,these are the best Childrens fiction has to offer
I'll add
>Mark Twains childrens fiction
>>8150595
Shit.
It is a children's book written by an SJW. Nothing more. I am not a child so why would I take is even remotely seriously. At this stage of life I have been exposed to literature which is in a completely different league.
>>8150643
>blaming the shit of harry potter on an author being "an sjw"
>not judging it on its terribly dull style that relies heavily on the marketability of its plot
If you're going to think this lightly about what makes literature good or bad, what's the point? I mean, what's the point in being here?
>>8150622
A series of unfortunate events was a personal favourite. Enjoyed the Saga of Darren Shan too.
>>8150629
Good list. Would also recommend Jules Verne's stories too. Although not necessarily children's literature, it's the sort of literature to entice kids through adventure and could inspire them to read later in life.
Absolute shit, but most of you retards are either blinded by "nostalgia" or think it's a "fun" read.
>>8150629
What are some other fantastic children's books?
>>8150629
>not including "The Adventures of Asterix"
gay as fuck. only acceptable for girls to read it.
>>8150787
B...but I liked it when I was a kid.
>>8150794
You're gay.
>>8150629
Oscar Wilde had some pretty good children's lit too.
>>8150787
What a great post. Thanks for the great post.
J.K. Rowling or John Green? Only one.
>>8150802
You always make me cum when you compliment me, anon.
>>8150803
Bite the bullet with J.K. Rowling. At least she had a varied setting that wasn't middle class white high school students snogging. White middle class high school students snogging with magic and goblins.
If dark wizards don't have any use for the patronus, because dementors are natural allies of dark wizards, why are the dementors effective guards for Azkaban, a prison containing dark wizards?
Hermione is kind of a slut,
>>8150646
>Implying /lit/ is some citadel of high-quality literary criticism, and not filled with empty-headed /pol/ and sjw pseuds who don't read shit.
a faggot girls book written about a male witch lmao. any man that reads it sucks cocks tbqhwy
>>8151063
>Implying /lit/ is some citadel of high-quality literary criticism
I never suggested it was, but lowering what little we have to simplify it to the degree of "TOO REDDIT! TOO TUMBLR! I DON'T LIKE THIS! SJWS! REDDIT!" shouldn't be encouraged. We've seen what happens when boards give in to this sort of posting in otherwise interesting threads.
>>8151069
>girls
*children's
>>8151080
What's the difference? AYOOOOOO
Read it while I was a kid and loved it. I don't care one bit about what /lit/ has to say on this matter, because a bitter adult legislating over what's good for a child to read is pathetic.
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.
>>8151085
There's plenty of difference. It'd be more appropriate if you described them as little boy's books.
>>8150595
A modern classic. Hermione is a top tier children's heroine in the same level of Anne Shirley and Jo March.
>>8151121
lol
>>8150595
First couple books are pretty good then it becomes commercialized typical YA bullshit we see today where the stakes are never higher and the only ones who don't have anything bad happen to them are the three main characters.
I never understand the random leaps in thought it takes to think like this
Generalization is basically the least useful tool available to anyone for any purpose
You can't even get people who are genetically related to agree on most things, let alone any greater subset of humanity
Even if you can find people who agree on something, they usually arrived there in different ways and for different reasons
And so in light of this, you locate an exception - one of the most wildly celebrated book series of the last decade
If you asked 50 people on any streetcorner whether or not they like Harry Potter, most would probably give an enthusiastic yes
You take this exception to the one place most likely to hate it, you make up a random fucking criteria in your head about what /lit/ would consider good
And then you think yeah, I'll just slot this right in there. They'll surely come around and agree with me, even though I made no case for or against it
And so here you are, probably knowing full well what the responses will be before hand - a mix of accusatory reactions and memes
Knowing that the result will have no effect on your previous enjoyment or established opinion of the books
Where are we? How did we get here?
Each of your brains are made of applesauce, and you think like rusted farm machinery.
On a less autistic note, I read the series sometime last year after I had surgery. I enjoyed it.
If you can't separate language from the story being told, you've made an extremely odd choice in hobby.
>>8150622
Skulduggery Pleasant
The writing style is childish at best but god damned do I love to story and the dialog
>>8150595
In all the years I've been visiting 4chan, I've never been able to get into /lit/, and this post is the prime, unadulterated reason why.
Once a year or so I come here, thinking that maybe I've gained some kind of maturity that I lacked before that would illuminate me as to why this board is essential and what I was missing before that denied me that experience, and every time I come away with the same bitter taste in my mouth.
This board isn't about people who love literature, it's a bunch of children who have barely achieved the mental capacity to understand anything more complicated than Y/A fiction engaging in a circle jerk about how theyre better than everyone else they've ever known because they pretend to enjoy Pride and Prejudice or Ethan Frome. And the best part, my favorite part of this experience, is that few of these people cam validate these opinions. Sure, there's a few of you that actually enjoyed The Odyssey or Moby Dick, and can explain why, but the vast majority just give some half assed "the plot is just too complicated for you" type answer.
And, even better, is this weird hatred for anything popular written after the 1950s. Oh, sure, you guys enjoy LoTR like the rest of the peasants, but only because you get the, "true, deep tones," that no one else does. But woe be to any book written after 1955 that has any semblance of popularity.
And this stuff about Harry Potter. I stopped enjoying the Harry Potter books in my early teens, simply because I had read them too many times to enjoy them anymore, but /lit/ really hates them, and is incapable of giving an in depth reason beyond, "SJW TRASH LOLOL," or, "MUH SIMPLE STORYTELLING."
It's a kids series, a wildly popular kids series, and /lit/ only has to see as far as how many copies have been sold to know that they'll hate it.
But who the fuck knows, maybe I'll come back next year and the fog from my mind will be lifted, and I'll be just like the rest of you assholes, bragging about my "advanced" literary tastes while denying the validity of anything with any semblance of popular enjoyment.
God I hope not.
>>8150595
so what's the verdict /lit/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/10/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-spoilers-here-s-the-plot-of-the-play.html
>>8151968
>And, even better, is this weird hatred for anything popular written after the 1950s
Do you even browse this board, anon?
>>8150643
while i think harry pooter books are trash, is this picture suggesting that little kids read the inferno?
>>8152127
its a quentin troll image
>>8151968
/lit/ has a lot of shitposters at the moment, we don't need another one clogging up our board. Please go.
>>8150595
Black Hermione <3
>>8152120
No he doesn't, he said he only lurks once a year so disregard what he said
>>8151839
Because he contributes to the board actually being good instead of shitposting like you.
>The basic premise of Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea (Parnassus, 1968), in which a boy with unusual aptitude for magic is recognised, and sent to a special school for wizards, resembles that of Harry Potter.[48]
>Ged also receives a scar in his struggle with the shadow which hurts whenever the shadow is near him like Harry Potter's scar when Voldemort is near him.
>Le Guin has claimed that she doesn't feel Rowling "ripped her off", but that she felt that Rowling's books were overpraised for supposed originality, and that Rowling "could have been more gracious about her predecessors."
>"My incredulity was at the critics who found the first book wonderfully original."
>"She has many virtues, but originality isn't one of them."
>"That hurt."
>>8151968
I spy with my little eye some fresh pasta
>>8150622
the presocratics
>>8150987
>If dark wizards don't have any use for the patronus, because dementors are natural allies of dark wizards, why are the dementors effective guards for Azkaban, a prison containing dark wizards?
It doesnt work like that.
First of all, it's not that dark wizards don't have use to one, it's that most dark wizards (emphasis on 'most') can't cajure patronus because of a series of reasons.
A patronum is the epitome of white magic. It requires a sort of benign power that the dark wizardry abhor. For example, the power of a patronum is similar to the power of the 12th room of ministry of magic, the room never opened. It's the power that harry is filled with, the power given him by his mother, a power that voldemort detests. It's the only magic he can't conjure and cast. Perhaps less evil rooted death eaters would still be able to summon a guardian through great effort, like Lucius... Umbridge for example, despite being evil, had no strings attached to black magic, was able to perform a patronum.
Now about dementors... it's not that they are allies with dark wizards. It's all but a matter of means and ends. They are the most evil creatures in the wizarding world, though not the most dangerous one. They feed on humans feelings such as joy, hopes and dreams. They need this energy to survive and function, although they can't be killed. They are not wild irrationals like the movies sugest. They are quite capable of thought and are able to obey orders and be dealt with in terms of negotiations. They side with those who offer them greaters advantages. With the ministry of magic, they had their breeding ground and human "farm" where they could feed and haunt. It was enough for most of them. End their persecution in exchange of a small reign of terror. With dark wizards, though, they would be almost entirely free to roam the earth haunting muggles, dooming them to incorporeal unhappiness and gloom. That's why they side with dark wizards, because with them their freedom and feeding ground is far greater.
But what yiu say is more or less true. Dementors guarding dark wizards is contradictory for two reasons:
- in any dark magic insurrection, dementors will always be the firsts to ally with dark wizards.
- the powers of dementors do affect dark wizards as well. But they are gar more harmful on good people. By having dementors as guards, you're punishing precisely those who least deserve. In instance, it's not clear how bad can a dementor affect someone like voldemort. On the other hand, the person who is most susceptible to dementors is harry, the best, purest and kindest person, filled with his mother love. Non coincidentally, harry's patronum is the strongest one.
That's why wizards like dumbledore always spoke against the alliance between the ministry and the dementors.
>>8153749
>similar to the power of the 12th room of ministry of magic,
12th room in the department of mysteries, my bad. The room that is always closed.
>>8153749
That's all your own fan fiction. All you're said to need to conjure a patronus are positive feelings. Just one happy experience was enough for Harry to do it. If burning up the corpses of infidels make you happy, you could channel that into the spell. Oh wait, except you can't because Rowling just retconned it on twitter, as she found the idea to be personally distasteful!
>>8153762
Not really, all I said comes from the books, I could quote everything if you'd like.
>>8153762
It's not a "pleasant" memory. Thinking about pleasure won't get you a patronum.
It's happiness in a more platonic way. Overall happiness, as in good and benevolence. It goes against everything a hardcore dark wizard preaches.
Besides, even puting the "can or can't dark wizards conjure patronus" aside and focusing on your original question, as I said, this is a debate present in the books. More than once dumbledore speaks against dementors in askaban. He advises the ministry to call off their deal as soon as voldemort arises. The ministry doesn't listen, and the mass fleeing starts. But as early as 1982 dumbledore already showed great discontent about dementors in askaban. Most of this is in book 4. Some more information in book 6. I could give you the pages.
Everything about them is lazy, dull, and cliche. Their widespread popularity has seemed to have stunted my generation both intellectually and creatively.
>>8153749
>harry, the best, purest and kindest person, filled with his mother love
But Harry is a self-centered, arrogant, jealous, petty little shit.
>>8151839
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/
It taught an entire generation to read again, so no matter how much you contrarians turn your noses up at it, I respect it.
>I didn't like it therefore it should not be considered literature
Do people honestly think the 'critiques of prose' or even subject matter are anything other than their own confirmation bias trying to heighten themselves up to the grandiose other-world of lit-elitism?
Harry Potter are fine books as far as children's novels go, liking them does not make you some kind of tasteless troglodyte. If people read it and enjoy it then the author has done their job and the world is a better place for it. Does Harry Potter have problems in terms of the deeper connotations of the subject matter? Perhaps, but kids aren't going to get it and if you want them to get it telling them their taste is shit and they should be reading some obscure Victorian author they neither know nor care about is only going to serve to make you look like a pretentious jerk face.
I think it's an excellent example of world-building in a children's book and not much else.
>>8153831
>taught
>to read again
Contrarian? Kek what, the people who read harry potter don't go on to read kafka sorry m8.
>>8153931
I know this is anecdotal evidence but I read Harry Potter as a child and I read Kafka now. Just saying, sometimes the people who read Harry Potter do go on to read Kafka.
>>8153941
I read Harry Potter as a child and read Kafka later, but I also read books before picking up Harry Potter and it has nothing to do with anything.
>>8153931
>>8153941
Make that two of us, I think that makes it into scientific data.
Also HP was fucking great for first three books. It had the tone of that Roald Dahlesque kind've nasty-surrealism (BFG/Charlie), using magic to express the way the world seems alien and alienating to an eleven year old.
(What child between 10-13 is not hurled headfirst into what might as well be a 'new world' where unfamiliar social and physical rules operate? -- i.e., puberty. It's a Freudian thing for sure)
Rowling's mistake (as an author, not as a loadsamoney rich as fuark celeb) was she fucked up in the last four and laid out the template for Hunger Games and that shit, with all the romance and the power struggles.
>>8150796
Projecting this hard
>>8150595
STRETCHED
>>8153999
You're right, I'm hard.
Pessoa was a literary man by nature but he admitted to reading pleb trash detective stories. He says that he read them precisely because they are easy and take his mind elsewhere, whereas more formal literature draws the attention of his mind towards the literary form and away from the narrative. This is a legitimate point. It's exactly why even lovers of classical music listen to popular music, because classical music requires attention to the form which is rewarding but exhausting. So plebeian art has a place in society, and some plebeian art is clearly better than other.
>>8154001
Hi hard
Im Such A Nerd xD
>>8153989
>the world seems alien and alienating to an eleven year old.
lmao not everyone is born an autist
>>8150643
this image is pathetic
