Potter critic misses the mark

  July 13, 2003 at 12:29 PM ET
  Sano Orbis     Wizard News (via The Scotsman)
 


Dani Garavelli of The Scotsman gives her opinionopens in new window of the controversy sparked by Booker prize-winning author A. S. Byatt's scathing review of JK Rowling's work and her fans in this article published in the New York Times. Garavelli puts Potter fandom for adults in perspective, taking particular issue with Byatt's assumption that adults reading Harry Potter do so only for 'comfort'.

"Comfort" is too weak a word for the bitter-sweet sense of loss evoked by reading or re-reading children’s books. Whether or not they were important works of literature, they take you back to a time when it was still possible to be transported into another world - a time when you half-believed in magic, and remained infinitely shockable.

She also praises Rowling's restraint in not giving in to the temptation of replying to such evocative yet fruitless statements.

See Byatt's original article and Garavelli's reply in the links above.

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