Opinion: "...A S Byatt is right."
July 19, 2003 at 1:18 AM ET
James
iharrypotter.net (via The Daily Telegraph)
Oh, the power of the printed word. And on that subject A S Byatt is right.
Master Potter is a global triumph … millions of children back to reading, thank Christ for that, but classic in the longevity stakes? I don't think so. A classic is more than a smash hit; it has to have something to do with inspiration and a great deal more to do with some inexplicable magic that places one word before another to create a rhythm and form that defies analysis and, like all art, there is the great, the good and the fabulously successful, but then there is genius.
"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, last Friday, Winnie the Pooh lived in a forest", or "Before the high and far-off times, oh my best beloved, came the time of the Very Beginnings and that was in the days when the eldest magician was getting things ready", or "Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more than oriental splendour" - classic!
Master Potter is a global triumph … millions of children back to reading, thank Christ for that, but classic in the longevity stakes? I don't think so. A classic is more than a smash hit; it has to have something to do with inspiration and a great deal more to do with some inexplicable magic that places one word before another to create a rhythm and form that defies analysis and, like all art, there is the great, the good and the fabulously successful, but then there is genius.
"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, last Friday, Winnie the Pooh lived in a forest", or "Before the high and far-off times, oh my best beloved, came the time of the Very Beginnings and that was in the days when the eldest magician was getting things ready", or "Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more than oriental splendour" - classic!
I might add that Kendall is forgetting one very important thing: The Harry Potter series were inspired, and in this particular case that inspiration came from a ride on the subway when JK Rowling happened to be looking out at a pasture with cows dotted across its length. The inspiration for the Potter series happened quite unexpectedly and suddenly. Would this not be categorized as "genius" or as a "genius moment," drawing upon preliminary mental images of this incredibly rich world in a single point in time?
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