tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post4724199145923040964..comments2023-11-03T04:39:50.760-05:00Comments on Galley Slaves: The Man Who Hated Harry PotterJonathan V. Lasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17426165197358366129noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-63771576643577425102007-07-18T15:54:00.000-05:002007-07-18T15:54:00.000-05:00I've never gotten into a book written for fifth gr...I've never gotten into a book written for fifth graders, you know went through that whole teenage years, etc... <BR/><BR/>What makes adults cringe at the adults who read Harry Potter is the freakish cult-like devotion they have to this franchise. I mean back in the 1950's right thinking adults would have been ashamed to read this sort of stuff in secret, let alone actually be proud of it. For this we have nobody to blame but the d@mn hippies.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14848352600815719457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-59433132728964490592007-07-17T17:08:00.000-05:002007-07-17T17:08:00.000-05:00Is this the open thread on Emily Bazelon's self-co...Is this the open thread on Emily Bazelon's self-congratulatory Slate column about her motives for getting a Prius, where her precocious spawn supply their simple wisdom to the adults?<BR/> http://www.slate.com/id/2170228/fr/flyout <BR/><BR/>Because I could go all day on that.<BR/><BR/>If it's just about the Harry Potter hater in the Post, then how did this guy really read 3 1/2 long books in a dazed monotone to a little girl who didn't want to hear them? That's hundreds of hours of reading. It's almost--almost--hard to believe that a kid would sit through ten minutes of anything that bored her. But it is such a cute column starter.<BR/><BR/>I would like to suggest two things:<BR/><BR/>1. New WaPo & Slate law: columnists cannot use the wisdom of their children for any purpose in any column, even a family column. Stop!<BR/><BR/>2. New contest: The Five Most Slately Columns of All Time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-40331198912000623122007-07-17T14:39:00.000-05:002007-07-17T14:39:00.000-05:00I too took that "cultural infantilism" remark a bi...I too took that "cultural infantilism" remark a bit personally. I mean, OK, I am playing my way through Lego Star Wars II on X-Box right now. But still, my love of the Harry Potter books does not stem from a stunted-at-childhood appreciation of literature. It's because the books deliver narrative stories of high quality. Sadly, the basic human desire for narrative story goes largely unsatisfied -- if not unrecognized or even deliberately rejected -- by contemporary "literary fiction." By Charles's standards, my preference for Dickens over DeLillo also marks me as a cultural infantilist. I want literature to tell a good story first. Technical innovation and lyrical pyrotechnics come second, and interest me only if the writer is also telling a good story. <BR/><BR/>I would submit that real "cultural infantalism" is expecting readers to prefer stylistic slight-of-hand to storytelling skill when judging literature.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com