Rowling’s writing, like King’s, is plot oriented and scene descriptive. Their themes are simplistic and of the sort that appeal to the white middle class. Bourgeois themes like “redemption” and “the magic that protected you was love.” Subsequently, this is the kind of writing that appeals to Hollywood because it wants those middle class dollars.
Rowling and King’s writings are both, even if they had not been championed by Hollywood, subordinate to the cinematic art form. I.e. they write like people who watch a lot of movies. Neither of them is producing the sort of books that I’d cherish for their ideas and/or bookishness. Good fun, yes. But not the sort of novel-for-the-sake-of-the-novel that Atwood or D.F. Wallace or Toni Morrison produces/produced.
Still, I wouldn’t call either of them “bad.” They are very good at what they do. To compare them to the literary elites seems unfair. They are creating an entirely different product.
Jane Austen is given some slack since she is one of the few female writers from her era. She writes witty comedies about manners because ladies were forbidden to go off and have adventures. (She wrote what she knew.) Thus, I think Austen needs to be read with a pinch of feminist history in mind. If, given today’s modern freedoms, Jane might have turned her wit to novels about quantum physics or animal cruelty or whatever struck her fancy.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 06:03 pm (UTC)Rowling and King’s writings are both, even if they had not been championed by Hollywood, subordinate to the cinematic art form. I.e. they write like people who watch a lot of movies. Neither of them is producing the sort of books that I’d cherish for their ideas and/or bookishness. Good fun, yes. But not the sort of novel-for-the-sake-of-the-novel that Atwood or D.F. Wallace or Toni Morrison produces/produced.
Still, I wouldn’t call either of them “bad.” They are very good at what they do. To compare them to the literary elites seems unfair. They are creating an entirely different product.
Jane Austen is given some slack since she is one of the few female writers from her era. She writes witty comedies about manners because ladies were forbidden to go off and have adventures. (She wrote what she knew.) Thus, I think Austen needs to be read with a pinch of feminist history in mind. If, given today’s modern freedoms, Jane might have turned her wit to novels about quantum physics or animal cruelty or whatever struck her fancy.
Peace.