the book was just a bystander

[rm]

I have written, at length and not infrequently, over the years about why the Harry Potter books mean something to me, but those statements have been almost entirely about the child I was and the actual content of the books -- characters, themes, etc.

But, at risk of repeating myself, it is also important to me to note that one of the big reasons I am so ticked about the spoiler thing isn't just because I want to experience certain events of the book contextually and in the moment, but because when that book comes out, a big chapter of my life comes to a close. And I don't even mean the Harry Potter chapter, really, since I'll be at Terminus and there will still be the movies and so forth.

But Michael introduced me to those books. I remember sitting in his apartment in Brooklyn the night Book 4 came out. Urban Fetch delivered it, and he said he wasn't going to talk to me until he finished it and handed me the first three.

When I finished the fourth one, I whined to Soren, that I had nothing to read and I was obsessed with Snape and I needed something to take my mind off of it. Soren gave me Swordspoint and said Alec reminded him a bit of me.

So the Harry Potter books have been with me through four apartments and many jobs. They've been with me from before I decided to be an actor. They are directly responsible for several of my romances, two of my most pivotal friendships, and an astounding writing partner. They are indirectly responsible for my life as a fencer, for Patty and I meeting (and she's not even into Harry Potter), and a number of other odd and lovely circumstances in my life.

So while I may grieve the conclusion of the series and the possible passing of characters who have essentially held my hand through a lot of the blinding stupidity I've engaged in in these last years, there is also the simple grieving of this particular story -- not the one about Harry and Ron, Hermione, and yes, Snape -- but the one about me.

It would be intense under any circumstances, but under the circumstances of getting my first credit in a major motion picture, under the circumstances of Patty moving in with me, under the circumstances of Rose's Turn closing, under the circumstances of my finally making real and solid progress with my novel, and under the circumstances of yes, Michael and I being able to exchange friendly emails about his family, it all feels very solid, important, circular. That all these things reach such points of demarcation at once is a little weird, you have to admit.

So when people say "how can these books mean so much to you, they suck for all these reasons?" my overwhelming feeling isn't that they don't get it, or that they're wrong, but that they've overlooked the way the weave of my world interests me so constantly in my own peculiar serendipitous brand of self-absorption.

Sure, I can't wait to read what happens. And the grief part, after tensing up for it for so long, will be a relief. But the secret is, I half expect to wake up on the afternoon of 21st, after having stayed up all night and into the morning reading, and discover that I finally look my age.

And that is probably my last word on that, at least until I've read the thing.

Comments

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[keith418.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that reference. I know you see other things, but you never seem as passionate about them as you do about this other stuff. For example, I think that The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a zillion times better than anything Baz has ever done. It's in a different league. Now, maybe you've seen it too - but I don't feel the passion.

I am looking at my own interest in narrative lately, and part of my frustration with so much of the genre stuff is the stale quality, the predictability of the characters, etc. We all have to look at what we find challenging and I am skeptical of genre's ability to tell me anything I don't already know. That doesn't seem like its point. We go to genre, in part, to be reassured. I saw The Squid and the Whale recently, and thought - why isn't rm passionate about this film? It's set in New York. It has great acting and terrific characters. But none of it is reassuring.

Re: ...

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

I am looking at my own interest in narrative lately, and part of my frustration with so much of the genre stuff is the stale quality, the predictability of the characters, etc.

Yes. I felt that way myself when I stopped reading genre fiction. Nowadays, I go back to it, occasionally, and yes, some of it is fun, but it's . . . different. Maybe along the reassurance/no reassurance lines you describe.

This is not to call anyone "wrong" in enjoying genre fiction. Hell, I have my own film genre I get weirdly psyched about (okay, it's serial killer movies, I'm sad to admit). But I do go to it to be reassured, and I recognize that. The enjoyments seem different to me somehow.

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[keith418.livejournal.com]

No, it's not "wrong" to like genre fiction - any more than it is wrong to like some deserts. But when that's all people eat, then they usually get fat and sick. And the same is true for people who do nothing but consume genre fiction and other genre products. Part of this is, as a friend suggests, a class issue. Poor people comfort and narcotize themselves on junk food and TV. Middle class people numb themselves with sentimentality and too much sentimental genre. Part of what I can't understand is why anyone who was really well-educated and living in a sophisticated, urban environment would find certain kinds of genre so compelling.

It's also the age of the genre fiction. Clark Ashton Smith, for example, wrote some great fantasy and horror stories (as well as some very good poems). But because he wrote stuff in the 1930s, no one cares. Likewise, Robert Aickman wrote some truly disturbing and really challenging horror fiction from the late 1940s into the '70s. But, perhaps because of the fact that his stuff isn't "current", very few people read him.

I know rm is a bright and well-educated person. This is why I am bewildered as to why she spends so much energy on stuff that I think is okay for kids, but... I would think she'd be hunting down and enjoying the weird little books, plays, and films that had escaped the notice of the philistine general public. I am really confused as to why she's not as enthusiastic about this more off-beat stuff. But I'm also confused as to why many of my other, otherwise bright and well-educated, friends, aren't more interested in the outre that much either.

There is an article here that has a number of criticisms of the HP phenomena that resonated me - mostly the lemming-like "coliseum" feeling it seems to have now.

Re: .

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

I like the way the WP article to which you linked put it:

So we're experiencing the literary equivalent of a loss of biodiversity.

More to the substance, though, didn't both Jonathan Lethem (in criticizing J.R.R. Tolkein's influence on fantasy) and Stanislaw Lem (in criticizing the whole sci-fi genre) have similar observations about the routinizing tendencies of those genres? And this is from authors who "fit" into those genres.

I don't know what to do about any of this. On hand, this loss of "literary biodiversity" saddens me. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that direct criticism ever works--people just dig their heels in. I mean, I see that happening in other contexts as well. So. I'm still figuring out how to be a better advocate for the sorts of works I like.

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[keith418.livejournal.com]

Yes the "biodiversity" line is killer. And that's what it is. But we look at the Internet and especially services like abebooks and it's easier to get weird and strange little forgotten texts than it ever has been before. So you'd think there would be this blossoming of interest in the stuff that's sort of out there and hidden - because it is so easy to get. I was amazed when I could find, say, a small press edition of Arthur Machen's wife's autobiography! Great stuff. So what is everyone excited about?

You're right, though, that the critique just makes people dig in their heels. But at a certain point, you hate yourself if you don't say something.

Re: ...

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

So you'd think there would be this blossoming of interest in the stuff that's sort of out there and hidden - because it is so easy to get.

Oh yes, you'd definitely think that. I've found everything from foreign-published English translations of works that for some reason I can't find in the states, to neat bulk deals on a packages of Oulipo authors. At the same time, my online purchasing has probably contributed to the little bookstore across the street (which I like, honestly!) going out of business.

And isn't that, in the end, what all the internet scholars argue about--whether ease leads to diversity, or whether the increased ease will lead to all the weaker players getting swamped by competitive pressure?

You're right, though, that the critique just makes people dig in their heels. But at a certain point, you hate yourself if you don't say something.

I'm a lawyer. I've learned not to say all sorts of things I'd rather be saying, just to win in the long run.

Re: ...

[rm.livejournal.com]

As others have noted below, the tonal quality of this discussion becomes appalling, and I wish I had had the time before class last night to respond to this part of it before the thing ran off the rails, but alas I did not.

I saw the Squid and the Whale and thought it was perfectly well done, but I wasn't moved by it, and I wasn't informed by it. It struck me as all too like the relationship drama I lived with my ex for years, just with kids and a tighter structure. So even with the moments of truth and recognition it provided, it didn't make me recognize anything I hadn't recognized before in any way I hadn't recognized before.

As to Luhrmann, my main interest in him is not his films, which I do enjoy greatly and have a very important place because they developed a lot of new vocabularly in terms of how films are built, but rather the art that is his life. He's a self-inventor and mythologizer like, say, David Bowie, or, if I was inclined to make that argument, Alexander the Great. How one lives life and makes art and constructs a universe and conveys that world to others fascinates me, and he's one of the masters of it. He and his writing partner are also two of the most diligent researchers who have ever worked in the business. Regardless of anyone's opinion of the end products (mine included) their choices are all entirely deliberate and informed and documented, and aside from being interesting to me as an audience member it's an invaluable resource for understanding process as a creative person myself.

Since it's raised later, I have read the article (opinion piece!) you link to, Jonathan Strange (read on flight to Australia, hence lack of journal commentary) and His Dark Materials (which, I should note: a) made me bawl like a baby, b) falls down in the third book because Pullman finds no way to fill the vacuum left by his destruction of christian oppression, and c) is fanfiction itself that raises some really interesting issues about gender, sin and the idea of the adversary).

We have different tastes. We respond at times to different symbollogies and narratives in different packages and there are definitely large patches of that where in we don't understand why. I don't find this earth-shattering, disturbing, annoying or important in the sense of wanting to "solve the issue" or convert you to my point of view and I really don't get why you do to the point that you feel the need to denigrate the totality of my life (yes, that's how it comes off) because you happen to have contempt (which you're welcome to) for one part of it.

There's a difference between admiration, approval, and respect. Too often, people hesitate to be respectful to others, lest it convey some sort of approval or admiration they don't feel. I understad that, and your absolute drive to state your worldview whenever you feel it needs stating -- that is your act of creating your world, as much as my life and interests are my act there of. It's my respect for you that and that, that I just don't go "Oh, Keith's an asshole, I'm going to kick/ban him 'cause he's ticking me off" even if that's how I sometimes feel. You, perhaps, are similar in that you're still reading me despite the swathe of Harry Potter and who knows what else I do the irritates or appall you. Cool. But that theory of the world really needed to extend to this conversation and really hasn't in my view.

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[keith418.livejournal.com]

I try hard not to ban people from my own LJ just because they disagree with me. You will, at times, see people being, well, a little snotty to me there and I seek to tolerate it - often because I want to hear what they have to say and not have them sugarcoat it. Even the people I disagree with I want to understand. I think part of the problem with modern life is that it becomes too easy for us to hide from and dismiss the people who disagree with us. Bill O'Reilly hides behind a time delay and pre-screened guests and calls, and those on the left do the same in their environments. This is, I think, part of the "escapist" nature of our culture. In the end, it tends to make us weaker because we have fewer and fewer experiences in which we can actually defend our ideas and our values and positions.

You're a fighter and you know it.