Seems like my entire generation somewhat revolved around this series.
I have seen the movies but I don't know if reading the books is worth it.
I've heard people say that JK Rowling isn't a very good writer. A lot of criticism on how she does dialogue:
"..." said Snape angrily
"..." said Ron Bravely.
So can you honestly recommend this series? Is it actually a fun and engaging read or are people just overreacting because it was their first somewhat deep experience with a book?
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They're bad. Not worth reading for anyone at any age.
Why is dialogue such a chore to write well? Every time you include an indication of who is speaking, it makes the writing look uglier, unless you use all kinds of tricks to paint over it.
They have good characters and the books were very planned out with meticulous foreshadowing. If you are a fan of the movies, there are a lot of scenes the books have that the movies don't. Including some foreshadowed things that were left out of early movies because they seemed unimportant at the time, even though they later became major plot points.
Her prose is nothing special but it's nothing terrible either, she is a better writer than most modern YA authors.
It depends on what books you like, if you read mostly light fiction there is no reason for you not to have read it by now.
If you have to ask, you need to lurk more.
What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.
Not true. I'm not even a fan and think only elitist try hard asshole would say something like this. They are alright books about kids going to a school of magic. It's decent enough OP, read it or don't. You shouldn't be expecting mastery of the English language from a fucking Harry Potter Book in the first place. Like I said, it's good enough to make the story readable and understandable. It's for little kids after all.
The first ~four books are good for what they are.
If you missed out on reading them as a child when they first released seeking them out now is a giant waste of time, they have absolutely no merit beyond entertaining children.
But my favorite is the 6th...
Just read The Worst Witch.
They're much smaller and simpler, clearly for small children, and they're obviously much higher-art than Harry Potter. Not to mention Rowling clearly stole a lot from them.
What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.
But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?
It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."
Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.
Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.
Don't a shit ton of people on Veeky Forums love Stephen King books?
No, King is shit.
It's a matter of snobbery. King has indeed, some few good ("It" and "The Shining", may be), yet simple, books. It's not about the author
some times, but the books. Fortunely, many of us can still enjoy anything we find good, even though many people in Veeky Forums call it a bad meme.
And yeah, Veeky Forums, /mu/ and every board in Veeky Forums usually hates anything that's popular.
Harry Potter power ranking:
GOD TIER:
>Half blood prince
>prisoner of Azkaban
GOOD TIER:
>sorcerer's stone
>chamber of secrets
>goblet of fire
Decent tier:
>deathly hallows
Overwritten tier:
>order of the Phoenix
Kill it with fire tier:
>deathly hallows epilogue
>some times
Just fuck me. I don't even know why did I put a space there, but I don't want everyone to fuck with it, ok?
King's only redeemable book is Rage, and he took it off the market.
Why would he do such a thing?
Yes. The first three are a grind when reading as an adult, but after people start dying in book 4 they pick up considerably.
Honestly, unless you grew up reading them they may be completely lost on you.
Because he wrote it before the US had a school shootings every couple of weeks, and it's about !Holden taking his school hostage.
Most of the time it isn't even necessary, the reader gets it from context (i.e. if there's only two people, it normally just alternates between them).
>not Danse Macabre
I started reading the harry potters when I was 9 and they kept coming out until I was 15. They were the first books I ever enjoyed and introduced me to the idea that I could enjoy reading. Since then I've read through everything(ish) ever written by Freud, Jung, Adler, Rogers, Ellis, Frankl, Huxley, Sagan, Dawkins, Chomsky, John Mcwhorter, R.E. Schultez, Gordon Wasson, Albert Hoffman, Terence mckenna, Rick strassman, HG Wells, Arthur C clarke, Frank Herbert, Philip K Dick, Orson scott card, Isaac Asimov CS Lewis, Jrr Tolkien, Douglas adams, and a lot of authors I'll never remember. I realize this list is about as pleb as it gets, and you think it proves your point, but I'm halfway through a linguistics ba and it's been easy thusfar and would not have been if I hadn't started with harry potter and stuck with it into my teens.
(btw i've also read moby dick, the marriage of heaven and hell, IJ, and The Divine Comedy in english.)
I agree with you about my generation being dumbed down, but you've lost a lot of perspective if you assume that just because someone enjoyed harry potter they're doomed to stupidity.
That's great. I'm going to read it, then. Don't call me edgy or anything, but I've never read anything related to school shootings, and I just think it'd be fun.
>So can you honestly recommend this series?
not unless you're prepubescent
> it was their first somewhat deep experience with a book?
it was not
Break up the 'said's and 'asked's with some actions:
John picked up his cup of coffee. "It's gonna be a long day."
>it was not
Not for you or me, but consider how many people growing up at the turn of the millennium must count Harry Potter as the first novel they actually enjoyed reading outside of school.
Or just have nothing at all. You can ping-pong back and forth between two people in a conversation and have the reader follow it without dialogue tags, especially if each character has a distinctive voice.
Underrated post
Half Blood Prince is a damn fine book
Either this is pasta or I've read your posts before
> kill it with fire tier
That the part with Harry and his kids and he married FUCKIN GINNY WHAT A CUNT
Ginny is the worst character in the series. She only exists for Harry to have someone to hook up with. Even though he obviously had more chemistry with Luna.
Exactly. Also who wouldn't want to tap that Irish darlin's backside over that scruffy ginger sweat cunt?
edgy
Given how incredibly famous Harry was why wasn't he swimming in pussy? Shouldn't he have been CHAD?
He only ever hanged with his only two dork friends.
...
It was written by a woman. Women don't understand these things. They think the point is to find THE ONE, not to try a different cock-sleeve every day. Pffft.
so who here started the rumor that rowling only made the first 3 books and the rest where from ghostwriters?
...
First post best post.
I have seen HP fanfiction better than the original. And that's not because HP fanfics are good.
No, elitists hate things like Sanderson, Robert Jordan, and Frank Herbert. Anyone with half a goddamn brain hates Harry Potter.
Kek, never gets old
Is there ever a bad reason to read a book? Worst case scenario you learn why it's bad, why it was successful, and how you could do better. Anyone who tells you NOT to read something is a fool.
When you've read enough bad books, you realize they share a lot of qualities in common so eventually you'll learn enough. It's not worth it at all to be a connoisseur in shit lit. Great literature is much more varied and you'll never learn enough from it.
Even Rowling admitted it was a mistake and wish she had paired Harry with Hermione.
I'll admit I enjoyed the series, but I thought the epilogue was entirely uncalled for and actually hurt the series as a whole.