Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Mad Dr Jeffe on December 09, 2004, 07:06:04 PM
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I just started reading this book, and its great,.. way better than that Harry Potter tripe.... ;)
I'll keep people posted about it as I read...
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I just saw it in the bookstore, and was tempted to get it. Man, it's huge! But no new books for me till after next Thursday.
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It is huge, and has some black and white illustrations occasionally that I think gives it a very retro charm. Its intelligent, and written in a slightly more archaic fashion that reminds me a little of Dickins.
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This is the book I posted about earlier. It's up for a few mainstream literary awards.
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So 42, have you read any of it yet? I hear it's a true crossover book, moreso than even Harry Potter. Though the typeface was a bit small for a children's book, in my opinion. It looked like a history book, with the footnotes and so forth. But the footnotes were about fairies and witches. Interesting.
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I heard the author in an interview and she had to repeatedly explain that it wasn't a children's book, and that she was a little angry at Harry Potter because it influenced a lot of people to think it was a children's book. After all magic = Children.
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Actually, that association bothers me. It's one of the things I've been thinking of investigating a little more in depth. My research ended up turning away from that direction, but I did a little reading on it at the beginning of the semester, and it really did grow out of an attitude spearheaded by Henry James at the tail end of the Victorian era. He wanted to write about "adult" issues in his novels and didn't want to have to write to a family audience. Prior to his group's movement, most books were considered family reading, not "children's" or "adult." Fairy tales, especially, were considered tales to be told around the fire to everyone, not just nursery tales. During the two huge movements of literary fairy tales, the salon movements, the tales were mostly written by women, and shared with an adult audience during salon parties, kind of like the storytelling contest that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein for.
So, James wanted to write about sex and adultery and a lot of things considered inappropriate for women and children. That's when the gendering and aging of literature really began. Women's literature began appearing, as did books specifically aimed at children. (In comparison, in the 1880s, 6 of the 10 top ten books at any one time were what are now considered children's books.)
Along with that, fantasy began to be relegated to the children's realm, because if it wasn't realistic, James didn't want anything to do with it. Fantasy wasn't serious literature in his colleague's eyes. So it was shoved off to the kiddies--and therefore not valid.
I need to do more research on this, because I really don't understand it the way I want to, but that's the general impression I got after discussions and some readings in my Victorian lit class. The growth of the fantasy genre among adults has helped to dispel that idea, but our culture still generally sees things as fantasy/magic=kids.
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I agree , just to be clear I was making a bad attempt at irony. I think that was the authors point about this book as well. It deals with magic, but that shouldnt make it a book for children. It is a fantasy book, but that also doenst make it for children. The sinister overtones that Ive seen already so far would make me think twice about reading it to my kids, (If I had any)
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Oh yeah, I knew you weren't being serious. But it is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. There's this strange attitude that we have that if fantasy is written for kids, it's great, but somehow it's lesser fiction than realistic fiction, especially realistic fiction for adults. It's kind of a dual attitude, really--because everyone's into the Harry Potter thing, and it must be following in the footsteps of Harry Potter, etc.
Funny thing about Harry Potter. Rowling's American editor, Arthur Levine, has always loved fantasy. I've been reading a lot of interviews with him lately because I was pretending to be him for a project I worked on. He said that he always read fantasy growing up. One of his favorites was A Wizard of Earthsea. Can't remember the others. ... Here it is--Charlotte's Web, LotR, Mary Stewart's Arthurian trilogy, etc. Anyway, he said he took that love of fantasy into his children's book editing, and was an EA who raved to his boss about a new writer named Brian Jacques, and also was Philip Pullman's American editor. So he's had his eye out for good fantasy--but he also said this, which I think is interesting:
"Of course it's tempting to say that Harry Potter raised the awareness of children's fantasy to a new level and I think that is true.... I do believe that publishers were encouraged to try publishing fantasy who had not done so before. And I do think that more british authors are trying their hands at writing fantasy. I think this is attributable to Harry Potter, but also to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and Brian Jacques's Redwall series and other successful fantasies of recent years. Fantasy is a well-established genre in children's literature and always has been. It's not exactly a trend of the moment. A lot of fantasy has recently become available, but what I believe is happening now is that publishers are bringing out great novels that happen to be fantasy. Editors are looking for books that they are passionate about, books that are good literature. This is why they publish fantasy novels. It is not because the fantasy genre is 'hot.'"
The same article talks about Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander, Tolkien, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz as always having been an important part of children's literature. (Article was from "Beyond the Wizard's Wand" by Sally Lodge in the June 30, 2003 Publisher's Weekly, in case anyone was wondering. You can't access it online without paying, so I didn't post a link. I got it through school.)
I'm wandering in and out of a point. Not sure what it was now.
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Im about 200 pages in and every time I put the book down I feel a pang of discontent and anger because I cant read more at the time. The book is fantastic, with a languid opening. I only just met the character mentioned first in the title Jonathan Strange and I like him immensely. I like Mr. Norrel too, but I find myself incredibly frustrated by him and his you must be like me attitude. The novel is incredibly long, almost 800 pages but so far it hasnt seemed long, although it is a ponderously heavy volume.
The book is very Romantic (as in the style) and is reminicent of Jane Austin. I find the stlye charming and it fits the time period well. Some of the magical elements seem like they were written by Mary Shelly and touch upon a very real feeling of horror.
So far it is thouroghly engrossing.
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Apparently, none of these people that equate magic/fairy tales with children's writing have ever read the original Grimm tales.
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But then you get into the issues of what is appropriate for children. Are you saying that Grimm's aren't appropriate for children? You should read Struwwelpeter, which was written specifically for children. Naughty children are routinely dismembered for not obeying their parents--the natural consequence of the little boy who sucks his thumb, for instance, is that his thumbs get chopped off. Written about the same time as Grimm. We just have a very different idea in our culture as to what children should be exposed to. In that day (i.e., a day not saturated with violence in all media), such violent ends were to serve as a warning for children who didn't do as they were supposed to.
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Neal Stephenson in his novel "The Diamond Age" postulates that dark fairy tales, grimmly realistic (pun intended) help children grow up into adults rather than 6 foot children.
His idea seems to be that if you introduce a child to the dark and painful realities of life as they grow up, gently but realistically, they become far better able to function effectively in the real world. In the end, it all goes back to GIGO.
Garbage In Garbage Out. If you raise children to believe that life is what they see in the sitcoms and saturday morning cartoons and everyday children's books (saccharine sweet and everything is alright in the end) then they are going to make decisions in life as if they were in one. Not so good.
Disclaimer: The Diamond Age is not a childrens book and his ideas on the subject of children's lit are purely a sub-text. Great book though.
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That's actually not a new idea. There's a philosopher/critic whose name I can't recall at the moment who talked about that. Starts with a B. I'll remember better when I'm not trying to frantically print out my paper. I've gone through several pages loading of this site on the school computer while waiting for my stinking laptop to pull up a new message window so I can email myself the paper and print it out. It's driving me crazy!
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this thread would combine quite nicely with the other violence threads right now...
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Bruno Bettleheim, The Uses of Enchantment
It's not so much violence--which we really do eclipse the Victorians or anyone else on in graphicness--as it is being able to depict evil without advocating it. The bad guys get it in the end, which resolves the conflict for children. I think he's the one, but I still can't remember quite right.