Comments on: ASB vs. JKR

By: corollary

corollary — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 20:31:53 +0000

Use of weapons

Listening to: Palestrina, Missa Aeterna Christi Munera. Just read: Iain M. Banks, Use of weapons. This was another holiday book, one that I read on my flights between Sweden and Britain. It’s quite entertaining, and structured in an interesting…

By: nate

nate — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 10:52:27 +0000

Nate #2:

I still think Quidditch is broken. Sure, if my whole team is supporting the Seeker, you’re scoring goal after goal. Granted. But when we find that thing, the game is done. And the game’s going to be done in a flash. With that many more pairs of eyes looking for the Snitch, we’re going to see it soon, and get it soon.

If nothing else, all the non-Seeker players on a team should be complaining bitterly about how relatively insignificant their role is in the game.

By: Charles Kuffner

Charles Kuffner — Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:35:11 +0000

And 150 freakin’ points for catching the Quaffle — come on!

You mean the Golden Snitch. The Quaffle is the ball the players try to hit through one of the goals for 10 points.

(I agree with you that Quidditch scoring and strategy is screwed up, though.)

By: Nate #2

Nate #2 — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 21:38:37 +0000

Hey #1. My first venture to Polytropos, and I get to read about good ol’ Potter. I’m barely smart enough to read the books (they’re long and don’t have pictures), let alone any of the literary criticism thingies you and your pals are slinging around (where did I put that Thesaurus anyway?), but in my humble opinion, you are right on the money. You expressed my thoughts so well that I didn’t even know I had some of them until you just told me so. Except for one eensy weensy little thing: Quidditch is cool. And the only reason you don’t know this is because you don’t, as far as I know, like any sport. (I believe you once asked me whether Barry Sanders played for the Red Wings). So you’ll no doubt parden me if I express some skepticism about your qualifications (bright and articulate though you are) to comment negatively, positively, or really in any conceivable fashion, about the rules of any sporting event. And if your team was busy “supporting” your seeker (I’m not really sure how that would go — does it involve yelling encouragement?), my team would be busy tossing the Quaffle through your unminded goal and and earning 10 points a shot. By the time your crack unit spotted the Snitch, my team wold be slurping butterbeers in our dorm’s common room.

So – thought it might be good to get a little diversity in here. Good old-fashioned mindless sports talk. Not a big word to be found. But way, way too many parentheticals. (Sorry).

By: jason

jason — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 16:46:54 +0000

Noticed that you’d linked to my blog, but couldn’t figure out why or where… the HP article it turned out. Great that it was useful to someone.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:05:31 +0000

[ some spoilage continued ]

Well done, Nate. I read Byatt’s article with some interest, and while it disappointed me, I don’t have the words to express why. You, it would seem, do, and in spades.

If there’s anything that struck me about her article, it would be this: looking at JKR’s world and her work critically is good, and probably necessary in today’s please-feed-me world of entertainment. But iconoclasticism for its own sake is almost always dangerous. It is a shame that, as you point out, Ms. Byatt completely missed the danger and suspense that Rowling so ably provides once Harry and co. are in the depths of the Department of Mysteries.

By: nate

nate — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 09:44:17 +0000

Ed: Yeah, I kind of knew I was stretching with the sex lives bit. It’s a long progression, but it goes something like this:

You People voted for the top 100 and put Tolkien on the top.
Tolkien is all right — when I’m ill. When I’m ill, I want to rest, and not think about or have sex, and since there’s no sex in Tolkien’s world, it’s restful.
Therefore those of you who read Tolkien all the time and vote for him on top 100 lists must feel all the time the desire to rest and not think about sex that I feel only when I am ill. Your sex lives suck.

Like I said, a stretch.

By: Ed Heil

Ed Heil — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 07:48:31 +0000

Haven’t read most of Rowling or any of Byatt. Read that essay though. For what it’s worth, it brings to mind Lewis’s “Experiment in Criticism,” in which he ends up arguing out of existence the possibility that a critic can actually know that a piece of writing is bad — that is, that it is not capable of providing someone with a true and authentic literary experience. One cannot ever know that it is not one’s own lack of taste, or over-refinement of taste, that prevents one from seeing the value of a work.

It’s kind of a radical conclusion.

BTW, you’re wrong about Byatt taking a dig at Potter readers’ sex lives; she’s talking there about Tolkien, not Rowling, and about how she personally reacts to it. It’s a stretch to take that as far as you did.