From: isleofcapri@gmail.com   
      
   On Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:14:23 -0500, John VanSickle wrote:   
      
   > On 12/5/2010 4:45 PM, Draco Malfoy wrote:   
   >> My burning issue with PS/SS is that I'm surprised it ever got into   
   >> print. If I were the publisher it was presented to I would have   
   >> rejected it.   
   >   
   > I haven't checked, but I doubt that HP was accepted by the very first   
   > publisher to see the manuscript.  Many successful books were rejected   
   > multiple times by editors before being accepted and published.   
   >   
   >> There is also a lot wrong with PS/SS as a book for children:   
      
   > This is your first serious error.  Harry Potter is not a children's   
   > story.  JKR has stated such more than once.   
      
   Rowling uses a child protagonist whom other children can empathize   
   with. Harry does what every other child does, in that he occasionally   
   breaks rules, sometimes does his homework, and that he has both   
   friends and enemies. The book cleverly uses a magical fantasy realm in   
   the setting of Hogwarts School.   
      
   It is not (strictly speaking) a fairy-tale has a very strong   
   narrative, and is quite a long, heavy read for young readers, although   
   it is very gripping and fast paced, so children may not mind the   
   length of the book because of the way in which they are pulled along   
   by the story.   
      
   To argue that HPPS is not a book aimed at the children's marketplace   
   AND adults is fanciful.   
   >   
   >> 1) There is a male lead, and the major female character is presented   
   >> in an unflattering light for most of the book.   
   >   
   > Perhaps you perceive this, but many of us do not.   
   >   
   >> 2) Joanne Rowling is clearly a woman, and boys may well be put off by   
   >> a woman author. Indeed the publisher insisted on the androgynous form   
   >> J K Rowling.   
   >   
   > The gender of a book's author would never cause a fair-minded editor to   
   > reject the book.   
      
   It would one with an eye on profits and market coverage.   
      
   >  Both the Hardy Boys series and the Nancy Drew series   
   > were written by a whole host of ghostwriters, all of whom used one   
   > pseudonym for the Hardy Boys series and another one for the Nancy Drew   
   > tales.  Both men and women wrote for both series.   
   >   
   >> 3) The vocabularly used is above the reading age of most adults! What   
   >> is a philosopher¡¦s stone? Do you know the meaning of alchemy, boater,   
   >> gummy walnut, ickle, knickerbockers, moleskin, swagger stick, tailcoat   
   >> and tyke? All these are in PS/SS.   
   >   
   > I knew seven of these terms before cracking the book for the first time,   
   > and figured out the rest as I read.  People are not as ignorant as your   
   > position requires them to be.   
      
   People are not as knowledgeable about fantasy and child's play as you   
   would expect them to be.   
      
   >> 4) The first chapter (that prospective publishers would have seen   
   >> first) is a pre-quel about a baby ¡V quite a difficult device and theme   
   >> for a child¡¦s book.   
   >   
   > And that caused every editor on the planet to reject it.  Oh, wait, it   
   > didn't.   
      
   Right and your point is...?   
      
   >> 5) The book is culturally restricted.   
   >   
   > *Every* book is culturally restricted.   
      
   Right and your point is...?   
      
   >> 6) The book is personal. JKR dedicates it to her daughter, mother and   
   >> sister (a real contrast to say Deathly Hallows) as if she was writing   
   >> primarily for herself. There is a sense that JKR needed to write   
   >> because she needed to write, not that she was writing for a clearly   
   >> defined audience.   
   >   
   > Seriously, nobody cares whom an author dedicates a book to.   
      
   Seriously, tonnes of people care just because you don't makes no norm.   
      
   >> 7) In both PS/SS and CS it is possible to work out in quite some   
   >> detail what Dumbledore must be doing chapter by chapter (presumably   
   >> JKR had done this as part of her plot planning). There is an implicit   
   >> plot as well as the overt plot, which is an odd device for a   
   >> children¡¦s book.   
   >   
   > But since Harry Potter was never intended to be a children's story, this   
   > is not a problem.   
      
   Then Rowling truly is a lucky, forging, copyright-stealing   
   bitch-dunce.   
      
   >> Maybe it is a form of genius that it is possible to get these issues   
   >> wrong and still write a best-seller!   
   >   
   > The only one getting issues wrong is you.  You have compared what you   
   > would do, which is based in part on huge gaps of knowledge and   
   > unwarranted assumptions, with the actions of people who know better than   
   > you and who haven't made your assumptions.   
      
   Since when did you become the Imperial Asshole Of Potter Knowledge and   
   speak for "all others": as if you had a shred of credibility to do so.   
      
   If *you* have an opinion, speak it. let Moses, Mohammed, Jesus and   
   others of similar ilk speak for "all the others".   
      
   Moron.   
      
      
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