XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien, alt.fan.harry-potter   
   From: giles@poetic.com   
      
   On 10/10/2010 9:49 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:   
   > On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:25:41 +0200, Troels Forchhammer   
   >   wrote:   
   >   
   >> Jason Fisher has produced a blog entry titled "J.K. Rowling among the   
   >> Inklings", [1] commenting some parallels Jason has noticed between   
   >> passages in Rowling's works and couple of passages in Williams'   
   >> novel, _War in Heaven_.   
   >>   
   >> I have no idea whether Rowling knows Williams, or if this particular   
   >> idea may exist elsewhere (with a possible source of inspiration   
   >> common to the two) -- if anyone knows, I'm sure Jason would be   
   >> delighted to learn more.   
   >>   
   >> What attracted my attention, however, was the statement that   
   >>       But Rowling, like Sayers, is frequently described as an   
   >>     ?onorary Inkling? or said to be following in the   
   >>     tradition of the Inklings. The latter is certainly true.   
   >   
   > One of the reasons Sayers is sometimes described as an "honorary Inkling" is   
   > that she was a fairly close friend of some of the Inklings, though she never   
   > attended any of their gatherings. That would not, of course, apply to   
   Rowling.   
   >   
   >>   
   >> Is Rowling really 'following in the tradition of the Inklings'? Just   
   >> because people say it, that doesn't make it true, of course. I was an   
   >> avid Rowling enthusiast for some years, but my enthusiasm began to   
   >> cool after the fifth book (_Harry Potter and the Order of the   
   >> Phoenix_) and since the last of the Potter books (_Harry Potter and   
   >> the Deathly Hallows_) it has been more or less dead, though I still   
   >> consider the third book in particular to be a very good (children's)   
   >> book. When I was following the news about Rowling, I saw many   
   >> laudatory claims about Rowling's writings that I, even then, found   
   >> questionable, but I haven't been following things for the last 4 - 5   
   >> years, and much may have happened in the meantime.   
   >   
   > "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is certainly the one I liked   
   least   
   > of the Harry Potter books, though I thought the series picked up a bit   
   towards   
   > the end. But I still liked the first three books best.   
   >   
   > They have in common with the Narnia series and "The Hobbit" the genre of   
   being   
   > children's fantasy, but I don't think that is enough to make anyone an   
   > honorary Inkling. The other Inklings didn't write children's fantasies, and   
   > some of them didn't write anything at all.   
   >   
   > The thing about the Harry Potter books is that they came after a dearth of   
   > decent children's books. For a long time all you could get was R.L. Stein and   
   > the "Goosebumps" series, which were mediocre, to say the least. And now you   
   > have the "I'm a lovesick teenage vegeterian vampire" kind of thing which are   
   > as bad as the "Goosebumps" lot, though my son, who works in a bookshop, says   
   > they are now selling a lot less of those than of Harry Potter.   
   >   
   >> In this particular blog entry, Jason is invoking Charles Williams,   
   >> and I have to admit that besides Tolkien's work, I have read next to   
   >> nothing of the Inklings (the Narnia books in a Danish translation   
   >> targeted at children is, IIRC, all), so I am _not_ going to judge   
   >> whether the above statement is actually true; hence my bringing it up   
   >> here.   
   >   
   > I've been meaning to read his blog post, but haven't yet. I see little   
   > resemblance. Neil Gaiman's "American gods" and "Neverwhere" are a lot closer   
   > to Charles Williams than the Harry Potter books are, but I'm not sure that   
   > that would make him an honorary Inkling.   
   >   
   > Over the past few years I've challenged Williams and other Inklings fans to   
   > write books in the Charles Williams genre in NaNoWriMo (National   
   Novel-Writing   
   > Month), but there have been no takers.   
   >   
   I'm with Steve.  While I have enjoyed the Potter series, even the movies   
   to some extent, I don't see the connection.  The post skirts by, barely,   
   the fallacy of saying "A looks like Z, therefore A is Z".   
      
   I would say that one of the traditions Rowling is following is Lewis and   
   Tolkien, rather than the Inklings. And it should be no surprise: she's   
   educated in the British system, read Classics, and is heavily influenced   
   by the Arthurian tradition and Chaucer as well as classical texts like   
   the Aeneid and the Odyssey.  There's no question she's influenced by the   
   same texts as Lewis and Tolkien, and in addition by those authors as   
   well as by T. H. White among other things.  So sure, following at least   
   in part the tradition of the "Inklings", but hardly an honorary Inkling.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)