It has been a long time, but finally once more I bring to you another post about my world as a reader.
When Harry Potter hit the shelves in 1997 a change in young adult reading was formed. It is all thanks to the wonderful author J.K Rowling. But as you will find from this post, not only do young adults read this wonderful tale, but people as old as 86 can enjoy it just as much
I am talking about my Grandmother. I was having a coffee with her the other day and the conversation started with Cornelius, my cat, and where his name came from. I said
“no he’s not named after the ape from Planet of the Apes, nor is he named after Cornelius Fudge from Harry Potter” and she goes
“I thought you would have named it after Cornelius the monkey. [This is a large toy monkey that’s been in the family for 35 years] Are you excited about the Harry Potter movies by the way?”
And now it begins
When I started reading Harry Potter I leant them to my Grandma and we both got really into them! But she never wanted to see the movies because she didn’t want the image of Hogwarts being ruined for her. Her idea of Hogwarts was something she knew would be different to the director’s point of view because it’s his opinion of what it should be. When explaining this to me she then said
“What do you think makes a good story? One that can pull all ages under its spell, but how does it do that?”
Usually my answer to this question is good language AND slanguage (slanguage being the colloquialism to suit a certain age group) but of course, how can J.K Rowling write such a story that suited both my 86 year old Grandma and me, an 18 year old teenager.
I paused and thought back to what I learnt in my course trying to search for a clue to how authors seem to be able to do this. And finally I came to Wolfgang Iser. I said
“It’s being able to ask not what the text means, but what the text does to the reader. To you and I, we both picture our own Hogwarts, our own Harry, our own magic world depending on the life we’ve led so far. It’s what the text does to the reader like you and I, and not what J.K Rowling tries to pull out of the text for us. It’s just like Wolfgang Iser said, we have to create our own implied reader to gage what to expect in a story individually”
Think back to all the times you’ve read a story and leant to someone older or younger than you. Did they enjoy it on the same scale as you? What were their expectations compared to your expectations?
Jinx xx
When Harry Potter hit the shelves in 1997 a change in young adult reading was formed. It is all thanks to the wonderful author J.K Rowling. But as you will find from this post, not only do young adults read this wonderful tale, but people as old as 86 can enjoy it just as much
I am talking about my Grandmother. I was having a coffee with her the other day and the conversation started with Cornelius, my cat, and where his name came from. I said
“no he’s not named after the ape from Planet of the Apes, nor is he named after Cornelius Fudge from Harry Potter” and she goes
“I thought you would have named it after Cornelius the monkey. [This is a large toy monkey that’s been in the family for 35 years] Are you excited about the Harry Potter movies by the way?”
And now it begins
When I started reading Harry Potter I leant them to my Grandma and we both got really into them! But she never wanted to see the movies because she didn’t want the image of Hogwarts being ruined for her. Her idea of Hogwarts was something she knew would be different to the director’s point of view because it’s his opinion of what it should be. When explaining this to me she then said
“What do you think makes a good story? One that can pull all ages under its spell, but how does it do that?”
Usually my answer to this question is good language AND slanguage (slanguage being the colloquialism to suit a certain age group) but of course, how can J.K Rowling write such a story that suited both my 86 year old Grandma and me, an 18 year old teenager.
I paused and thought back to what I learnt in my course trying to search for a clue to how authors seem to be able to do this. And finally I came to Wolfgang Iser. I said
“It’s being able to ask not what the text means, but what the text does to the reader. To you and I, we both picture our own Hogwarts, our own Harry, our own magic world depending on the life we’ve led so far. It’s what the text does to the reader like you and I, and not what J.K Rowling tries to pull out of the text for us. It’s just like Wolfgang Iser said, we have to create our own implied reader to gage what to expect in a story individually”
Think back to all the times you’ve read a story and leant to someone older or younger than you. Did they enjoy it on the same scale as you? What were their expectations compared to your expectations?
Jinx xx
i want ur cat. simple. hand it over to me and u get to live.
ReplyDeleteno. sorry but he's miiiine.
ReplyDeleteand no you can't have the big monkey toy either!!
Did you see in the cinema the woman in front of us? All i saw was a head of curly white hair but she was chuckling along to the same things we were. I've always thought that age was just a number and Harry Potter truly endorses that. As you said, inevitably, we read it and watch it for our own interests. In the end, people are people regardless of their age. I'm discovering more and more that there is not much difference between harry potter fans. Sure, we may be different genders, different ages, different races, but we admire all the same qualities. It is also due to the fact that Harry Potter is under a wide spectrum of genres. Its not JUST fantasy. Its romance, its action, and in the final book, its even horror.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think what is so engaging is the theme of courage surrounding all of the novels. You will rarely find anyone so courageous as harry - even in the darkest of moments, he seems to prevail. I think thats a fascinating and admirable quality that we wish we all had. And inevitably, that makes people wish to keep reading the novels. It truly is an incredible series.
OH I forgot about her! yes yes I do remember her laughing. Wasn't she on her own as well? Poor thing.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you as well. Harry Potter appeals to all audiences because of its large amount of genres, engaging characters and its ability to have a language to suit all audiences. Theres a little magic in all of us ^^
LOVE YOU TOR