[MysticCat]

Originally posted by Sistermadly
Saw this on a listserv for children's literature. Offered as information -- I don't particularly agree with this viewpoint.

Harry Potter and the Childish Adult
by A.S. Byatt

... Ms. Rowling's magic world has no place for the numinous. It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip. Its values, and everything in it, are, as Gatsby said of his own world when the light had gone out of his dream, "only personal." Nobody is trying to save or destroy anything beyond Harry Potter and his friends and family.

... Ms. Rowling's magic wood has nothing in common with these lost worlds. It is small, and on the school grounds, and dangerous only because she says it is.

... In this regard, it is magic for our time. Ms. Rowling, I think, speaks to an adult generation that hasn't known, and doesn't care about, mystery.

I agree with much of this article, including the "roots" of Harry Potter. But as for the sections I quoted above and others like them, I have to wonder: Has this writer actually read the books? Way off base, I think.