Tuesday, October 23, 2007

and another thing...

The more I have talked to Chowder about this, the more I realize that what is really bothering me is that this is a control issue. It reminds me so much of something my mom would do. She is famous for giving gifts and then telling you what to do with them. The amazing thing about great literature is that we all come to it from different places and get so many different things from it and our interpretations are all different.

Can you imagine if Emily Dickinson showed up and told you how to interpret her poems? I was given the gift of Harry Potter and now she wants to hang over my shoulder and make sure I'm interpreting it the way she intended. Too bad. I never read Dumbledore as gay. I read him as asexual. kind of like a monk. And now I'm pissed that the know-it-all author is showing up and telling me that my reading of the character is wrong! If she wanted him to be gay then she should have written that. She can't keep "clarifying" the characters for us. It is ruining the books. She needs to stop giving interviews about the whole series.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"and besides I'm still convinced that there was something going on with McGonagall"

ditto. I agree with the rest, too - she should just let it lie. One reason I often don't like movies made from favourite books - I've already got a picture of the character in my head and hate to have it ruined. (Not so much with Harry Potter, since by the time I read the first book, the movies were out and my images came from there, and the movies are quite true to the books, anyway). Actually, if it weren't for you and Dani, I'd not have heard about any of it. Guess I'm not too up on current events. ;)

Anonymous said...

I totally agree!! Even if she is the author, she needs to leave it alone already.

You are right that people get out of a book what they bring to it. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings...some people will see Frodo and Sam as gay because that's what they want to see. Whatever! Just don't try to make me see it that way!