Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Faith and Harry Potter
JK Rowling has announced that the next, and final, book in the Harry Potter series will be released on July 21. No doubt this will lead to the usual ignorant rants by some on the religious right that the whole series is evil, leads kids from God, et cetera.
But that isn't what I want to talk about. Rather, due to some discussion of my novel on dKos earlier today, and a subsequent post on my own blog about writing, I got to thinking about faith. No, not Faith in God, or the hereafter - faith in an author.
Way back when, shortly after the first Harry Potter book had been released, a couple of friends told me that I should read it. "A children's book?" I thought, "they must be joking." But as these were intelligent, educated adults whose opinion I respected in other matters, I thought I'd give it a go.
And I gave up about three or four pages in. The book just didn't 'hook' me at all.
My friends insisted that I had to try again. And again I failed. I just couldn't get into the book - couldn't get past the notion that I was reading a children's book.
Finally, a friend said "Look, here's the problem: you're not giving the author enough credit. She hasn't written a children's book - she's written a book about a child. Just read the whole thing, and you'll see what I mean."
Well, it didn't take that long for me to grasp what was going on. Just a chapter or two in, I was hooked. It only required me to change my perspective and have a bit of faith. That faith was not betrayed - Rowling paid dividends on the investment of time I spent getting past my initial barriers. I admire her as an author, and am happy that she's now one of the richest women on the planet. I actually consider this to be one of the most hopeful signs for humankind to come along in a long while.
Now, I don't mean in any way to compare myself as an author to JK Rowling. Nope. Not going there. My ego does not need to be smashed that badly. I just thought that it was interesting to note that my own skeptical nature sometimes needs to be kicked to the side, as anyone's does when entering into an author's world.
And I wanted to draw out the distinction between this kind of faith in an author (or any other human), and the kind of Faith which the religious have in God(s). I can test my faith in an author by seeing what they do with the trust I give them. Do they tell a good story, answer the questions that they pose, resolve the story arc in a satisfactory way? These are all judgments I make, granted, but they are external, objective results. With religious Faith, the only kind of test that exists is internal - do you have enough Faith to continue to believe in the face of the overwhelming lack of evidence?
So, I guess I am a person of faith after all, in spite of what I've told people for many years. I just need to be a little more clear in how I mean that.
Jim Downey
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Harry Potter and faith
Wise Old Saying I Made Up: “We carry within us all our previous selves.”
Inside me there is a 5-year-old, and a 12-year-old, and a 19-year-old, and a 35-year-old, and even, now, this 54-year-old.
I don’t think becoming an adult means we close ourselves off from the younger people inside us. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. I cherish all of those selves, and feel comfortable with each of their viewpoints. I can appreciate sweeping epic stories of history, but I can also laugh at fart jokes.
As long as the entertainment is not manipulative, over-sweet goosh, I can genuinely enjoy movies and books aimed at a very broad range of ages.
Harry Potter is surprisingly adult, pleasantly complex, and even deliciously heart-warming in the traits the main characters display. We should all have friends as bright as Hermione, as loyal as Ron, as brave as Harry.
No, it’s not “War and Peace.” But have you tried to READ “War and Peace”??
The highest praise I can give a novel is to say "It was a good yarn."
Every one of the Harry Potter books is a Good Yarn.
...
Re: “Faith” in a writer
I never use the word faith, except to explain why I never use the word faith.
Some words are so muddy, so adulterated, so BENT, that you can never use them without producing a miscommunication.
If you find yourself having to carefully explain your use of the word, every time you use it ... don’t use it.
In this discussion, I’d bet the words “trust” and “confidence” could probably convey what you really mean better than the word “faith.”
I understand how you feel
I grew up during the 80s and 90s, so I grew up watching mostly cartoons. What live action I did watch fell into 3 categories: Star Trek, Nature Series and Stuff Parents Watched. As a kid I found the stuff that my parents watched (particularly Westerns, kung fu movies and James Bond) to be childish and stupid, not understanding why these were aimed at adults when they were obviously at the intellectual level of a child. As a result when I reached the age at which I was interested in watching something a little more mature than Duck Tales I was initially quite put off by live action, thinking that anything done with real people (with the exception of Star Trek and Nature/National Geographic) could not possibly be as good as something done with animation. As my tastes have matured I've found that, no, I wasn't underestimating the majority of American movies, they really don't grab me, and no, I don't find James Bond any less childish than when I was a kid, but I do like Mash now. I've learned to apreaciate the uncomplicated nature of TV (especially when I'm eating, and can't use my hands for video games or holding a book), but I still don't see what the big deal is.
Personally, I like Harry Potter, it's not the kind of book that I gush about and it's not like I read the thing several times in a row. I'm looking forward to the last book and I genuinely wonder how it will all end.
fanaticism is weird
I've read the series, trying to see why people get obsessed with it. It's kind of like the Stephen King or Dean Koontz thing. I'm like "this one book is ok, but..." but other's are just gushing over it. "omigawd harry potter harry potter harry potter harry potter!!!!" Yuck.
The Series
Continues to not grab me. I will read the last one, just because it is a cultural phenomenon, but not with any anticipation of great enjoyment. They are not bad, they are just 'heh'.
As far faith is concerned I would dearly like to have faith in my species. I would like to have faith that they will pull through. That Homo Sapiens (the ironically named Wise Man) will suddenly live up to that name. I would like to have faith that we will become courteous fellow passengers on planet earth and not the crazed mass murdering fiend with toxic waste gushing uncontrollably from every orifice which is what we are now. We have the potential to achieve anything which can be done. I would like to have faith that we will acquit ourselves well. I would really, really like to.
But I don't.
I've only read the first Harry Potter book...
I liked JKRowling's style - I found that she didn't talk down to children (like a whole lot of children's book authors do), so I found it quite enjoyable to read. However, I never did catch on to the Harry Potter mania - and some of that mania has actually pushed me away from reading the other books in the series. They are on my to-read list, but pretty far down, past all the non-fiction that I want to read first.
-Radi
Well, as indicated above...
...I actually respect her as an author quite a lot. I was lucky in that I got going with that first book early on, before the hype got really bad - otherwise, I too would have been pushed away by it all.
Among the many things which she does well is to allow each of the books to grow in complexity (language used, sentence structure, even the underlying concepts) as her main character grows and matures. That's a tough trick to pull off, but most people don't even notice that she does it.
But her work doesn't suit everyone, as Alon demonstrates. YMMV.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Rowling is a bad author
Harry Potter is a long series of overdone clichés spruced with monochromatic thinking. The first book can be good as a parody of English boarding schools. Apart from that, the entire series sucks.
Yeah, I expected...
...that I'd get that kind of response from at least some people. Well, to each their own.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Faith and gullibility
Religionists love to equivocate about the word "faith". One the one hand, their faith is what makes them special, holy and virtuous. They say, "I believe because it is absurd, because there is no evidence." In any other area, this would be called gullibility, but because they have , they are off limits to criticism and we should admire them as superior beings. On the other hand, they say it takes more faith to be an atheist than to believe in their fairy tales. Apart from the fact that it doesn't, suddenly faith is a negative when it's someone else's!
- No More Mr. Nice Guy!