8.01.2005

Who's not wild about Harry (Potter)? Terry Pratchett...

In this article, Terry Pratchett points out something that I observed also.
Pratchett, one of the UK's most successful novelists with 40 million books sold, said the media [by focusing on the Potter books and their runaway success] ignores the achievements of other fantasy authors.

At first, one might think this is mere professional jealousy, until one realizes that Pratchett himself is a very successful writer. He isn't actually criticizing Rowling for much, except for wondering why, as she said in a recent interview, she didn't think Harry Potter was actually a fantasy novel.
His full response to Rowling's admission that she did not think Harry Potter was fantasy as she was writing it, was:
"I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?"

As the article mentions, in a recent interview with Time magazine, Rowling said she was "not a huge fan of fantasy" and was trying to "subvert" the genre. Time magazine also said Rowling reinvented fantasy fiction, which was previously stuck in "an idealised, romanticised, pseudofeudal world, where knights and ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves".
Clearly, the writer at Time hasn't been following fantasy fiction very closely.

But this is just the kind of attitude towards fantasy fiction that Pratchett is actually criticizing. As the article says, Pratchett has complained that the status of Harry Potter author JK Rowling is being elevated "at the expense of other writers".

And he's right--there is so much out there that isn't Potter, even in the Young Adult fiction areas. Yet so much marketing muscle and bookstore space is devoted to Potter, that Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper (two writers who I think are better than Rowling yet are overshadowed by the sheer marketing success of Pottemania), and many others are completely overlooked.
It's the same problem that faced Madonna's attempts at writing children's books--if it weren't her name on the books, they would have to compete with books by better writers, and who would be overshadowed by the sheer volume of fame and media blitz that accompanies a big name. Not to mention the fact that beginning children's book and fantasy authors are often ignored in favor of the cash (media?) cow of the moment.

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