The American Spectator

Michael Tomlinson| 7.28.09 @ 7:57AM

The only thing I know about Rowling, from interviews she gave in anti-Chriatian Austin, TX, is that she's an antagonistic to Christianity and people of faith. Thus, not an author to point our children to as an exemplar of faith and morals.

As for her being a hack that might be true, but she's a rich hack an illustrative that in a free society even a "hack" can make it big with the right product or good PR. Sort of like Barack Obama being President.

Michael Tomlinson| 7.28.09 @ 7:59AM

Forgive the above misspelling of Christian.

WRTolkas| 7.28.09 @ 8:17AM

I was surprised at Mr. Smith's comment: He was particularly irate because Harry spends the new movie "cheating out of a textbook that has all the answers written in the margins." Worse, says Smith, "his punishment for this is . . . nothing."

When I was an engineering student in university, my first pick for subject textbooks were the used books. Why? Well first, as these books were already used, I felt comfortable writing in the margins; secondly, the equations, the professor's comments, the answers written in the margins, the underlined important text, and the notes were of great importance.

Harry was directed to the older used books. Any student would have known this was a potential gold mine. The easiest way to identify my office books is by the notes jotted down on the pages.

And I think Kyle Smith forgot one premise: when you take the mid-term or final, the book is not with you. What Harry and Ron were performing were laboratory exercises.

Anyway, that is my opinion on this subject.

Regards,

WRTolkas

A.J.| 7.28.09 @ 8:31AM

If you read the books, instead of watching the movies, you'll realize that Voldemort's ultimate objective is the complete subjugation of the entire human race, not just the wizarding community, and that in book 7 he makes GREAT strides toward this goal. World Domination is about as epic a scale as one can hope to attain... easily on the level of Sauron or Adolph Hitler, and not at all "childish." I do, however, find the timing of this rant entertaining, as the sixth movie was just released a couple of weeks ago, and Mr. Smith appears to not have read book seven yet. In fact, though he says the word "books," he constantly refers to the characters as "played by Emma Watson," or whoever. Mr. Smith, in my humble opinion, the movies, with the possible exception of the first one, are terrible. The books are, as Harry would say, "Smashing!" Rowling corroborated on the films, yes, but Hollywood edited.

Siegfried X| 7.28.09 @ 9:10AM

JK Rowling is a hack. These books are total garbage, both for the lack of quality in the writing and the amorality of the characters.

Rowling began with a great idea, a fantasy world which deservedly made her wealthy. However she destroyed her own world.

It's particularly amusing to see a Republican / conservative site praising Rowling, because one of the things which warped her books so badly was that she used them, by her own admission, to teach political lessons. Rowling said that the evil, dictatorial school officials in her books represented the Bush administration and the war on terror, as well as British conservatives.

Brian Mueller| 7.28.09 @ 9:16AM

Hmmm... I wonder if Mr. Smith stayed the whole time and watched as Harry used some of the information "immorally" gleaned from that textbook (the "Sectumsempra" spell). When Harry unknowingly casts that spell on Draco malfoy, his boy nemesis, Malfoy is so gravely injured that he might have nearly died. In the book at least, Harry is sentenced to detention for every weekend he has left at the school for casting such a spell.

The whole premise of Smith's article is based on an untruth, and therefore he spends the whole thing making himself look like an ignoramus who doesn't bother to learn what he's talking about.

And @Michael Tomlinson: I'd like to see the interview in question, which sounds like it might actually be a fake article by TheOnion.com, a satirical website, which was widely circulated as being true when it was written as satire. Indeed, the series ends in such a way that one cannot help but see it as Rowling's statement of Christian faith. She is a Christian: http://beholdaphoenix.blogspot.com/2007/04/jk-rowling-christian.html

Brian Mueller| 7.28.09 @ 9:23AM

And @ Sigfried X:
The irony is, although there are some obviously anti-Bush themes in the later books, Rowling has written a truly conservative set of classics. The caricatured school teachers whose all-consuming obsession with control over education is meant to make the right look bad; in fact it is the left in our day and age who desires total control over young minds, and students will now be wary of government overreach in education. She makes the bumbling Ministry of Magic look like they care more about lining their own pockets than fighting evil, and indeed paints them as ignoring a real terror threat with strong parallels to al Qaeda, all because admitting that the threat is real would be harmful to the careers of those in power. She might have been aiming at the right, but by writing well, she hit the liberals square in the face.

Vern Crisler| 7.28.09 @ 9:45AM

Thanks Siegfried X. I haven't read her books so I didn't know they were laced with liberal prop. However, I do remember she came out a year or so ago claiming that one of her characters was gay. That about sums up the problem with contemporary authors -- political correctness. Can one imagine CS Lewis, or Tolkien doing something like that?

Anthony| 7.28.09 @ 9:53AM

Methinks Mr. Smith is a jealous fool. "Those who can, write, those who can't, critique". The entire Harry Potter series, similar to the cited, "Lord of the Rings", is one huge morality play, with Big Time themes, which, apparently are totally lost on Mr. Smith.
Smith, apparently, is incapable of seperating normal, adolescent behaviors of rebellion and impropriety, i.e. cheating on tests, or even imprudent behavior towards adults, as when Harry is insulting and dismissive of the bureaucrats at the Ministry, who adamently refuse to acknowledge the return of Voldermort, as opposed to how Harry handles the larger burdens of the battle of Good v. Evil, placed upon him from birth.
Through out the series, Harry is forced to take up the fight, while engaging in episodes of heroism, as when he saves the girl and brings back the dead body of his fellow Griffendor, after the Tri-Wizard contest.
Smith ignores Harry's many encounters with the treachery of Voldermorts's stooges, and of course, the ultimate battle, which must take place.
How sad. Mr. Smith, it's best to keep your smarmy and overt jealousy to yourself, rather than show the world what a small and petty man you are.

Appleby| 7.28.09 @ 10:03AM

The problem Mr. Smith apparently suffers from is that he was educated after books were banished from classrooms (save for the dogmatic tomes sanitized for his protection that squeezed all the juice out of life) and he has not read anything since. No doubt Mr. Smith believes that Oliver Stone writes historical documentaries, too.

I'm also going to guess that Mr. Smith does no recreational reading.

Personally I have read all the Harry Potter books (one of them in French) and while my foster grandson was still young (he's 19 now and in the "Don't come near me, people will think we're together" stage) we attended the movies together and discussed them afterwards. He was between 8 and 12 years old during our Harry Potter sojourn, and had no interest in the life of the mind; his reading level was three grades behind and his teachers despaired of his improving it. After the first HP movie he was delighted to find out there were books, and asked me to buy him the first one. I told him I would if he promised to read it. Well, he struggled and sweated his way through that book and to his teacher's surprise h e raised his reading level two grades so he could continue to read not only the next Harry Potter, but "The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe."

We discussed the various points of the movies over the same dinner every time (he was a creature of routine) and after the second movie he asked me, "Is Professor Snape a good guy or a bad guy?" I told him that I thought Snape hadn't made up his mind yet which he was -- and he was astonished to hear that you got to CHOOSE whether you were a good guy or a bad guy. Other such revelations appeared in other movies. And I am sure this is not the only time a child who did not read was led not only to read, but to think.

Every book and movie has messages in it. It takes experience and intelligence -- and dialogue -- to pick it out and learn from it. Clearly Mr. Smith didn't have that opportunity and suffered from it accordingly.

Johnny Knuckles| 7.28.09 @ 10:48AM

Morality aside, reading the first page of the last Potter book convinced me that Rowling could use a capable editor. Someone who could stand up to the $1 billion gorilla.

Joe| 7.28.09 @ 12:04PM

Well,

Since everyone is judging, what is American Spectator doing encouraging workers to use a Role Playing Game that evade knowledge of Employers?

Come on guys, I realize you need Advertising dollars, but selling out to Role Play games that state you can do it at work or classrooms without being detected?

sre| 7.28.09 @ 12:24PM

Like Lord of the Rings, the Potter series is about one big theme: The triumph of good individuals over evil collectivists. Neither leave any doubt that there is a right and a wrong; not mere moral relativism. Both celebrate the power of the individual. This isn't conservatism writ large?

Bob Alou| 7.28.09 @ 12:27PM

Having actually read the books and not dependent on information gleaned from other sources; It is my opinion that they are some of the finest writing of the 20th Century. I do not believe they are anti-Bush or that Rowlings is anti-Christian anymore than Tolkien's writing is pro-Christian. Furthermore the idea that the Potter series has more characters displaying moral shortcomings than the Lord of the Rings is debatable.

Derek Leaberry| 7.28.09 @ 1:00PM

J.K. Rowling considers Jessica "Decca" Mitford a major inspiration for her writing career. Decca was the communist sister of the famed Mitford girls. After purchasing the island of Inch Kenneth off the Scottish coast in the early 60s, Decca joked that she'd like to make it a Soviet submarine base. Like the late Miss Mitford, you can bet that Rowling hates all things conservative.

Sylvia| 7.28.09 @ 1:24PM

Appleby...you are right.
I am a librarian and bless you for taking your grandson to see the films and coaxing him into reading the books, discussing them, and developing his critical thinking skills.
And what an added benefit, to learn that we all have a choice to be "good or bad."
As Dumbledore said "it is not our abilities that make us what we are, but our choices"

Tim| 7.28.09 @ 1:27PM

The books are entertaining, whether they will be classics, only time will tell. Sure millions were printed, but that's because modern economics make it possible.
Tolkien and Lewis are still blazing new ground fifty years on.
Harry Potter may still be selling books in 2050, or he may become as obscure as Francis the talking Mule.
We'll see.

Siegfried X| 7.28.09 @ 1:44PM

The Potter series has nothing to do with good vs. evil because there are no truly good characters in it. Harry Potter is a sniveling, cheating whiner. Dumbledore turns out to be a political schemer who begs for mercy.

None of them have half the guts and honor of a Luke Skywalker or Yoda.

Warner| 7.28.09 @ 2:46PM

"Rowling said that the evil, dictatorial school officials in her books represented the Bush administration and the war on terror, as well as British conservatives."

Anby quotations on that. I am a avid reader, and though I agree harry potter is not great literature (nor was it ever meant to be), I keep a close eye on the things she says in interviews, because I enjoy listening to her explain her choices in how she writes and sets her storys in motions.

I can assure you that I have never read jk rowling attack chirstians... whats funny, she is a life long member of the church of scotland, and the final book in the series actually continues her frequent uses of bibilical allegories *snakes and pheonixes for example in book two, with snakes representing evil, and pheonixes representing good. garden of evil with the snake, and the pheonix is a midevil representation of christ and the ressurection) That harry can speak to snakes is crucil, because it represents the truth; no one is immune to evil. christanity says as much. There is a reason my church gets up every sunday and says "oh lord, we confess we are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourself. we have sinned against you in thought, word, and dead, in what we have done, and in what we have left undone."

its not like harry gets away scott free. he frequently is given detentions throughout the series, and made to do boring, mundane, and disgusting tasks as punishment for breaking the rules. yes, he has even been punished for doing the right thing, in book five, when a new teacher forced him to cut into his own hands the words 'i will not tell lies' when he was telling the truth about voldemorts return. that is the closets to the quote above *quoting a interview that technically does not exist*

the closest to that interview claim I quote above from a earlier poster was when jk rowling described the fifth book as a reflection on neil chamberlin's goverment in britian, when horrific things were happening in the world, and he and his goverement offices tried to keep them hush hush, because he felt it was damaging to his country and to political standing to acknowledge them.

the whole point of that was to show how if you shy away from evil in the world, and not engage the fact that injustice exists, you make yourself subceptible to evil. The fifth book points that out when one character tells harry that they think the minister is acting on his own accord and not being controlled, but thats just as dangerous, because as long as he refuses to see that voldemort is back, and dumbledore is not after his job, he will make himself more succeptable to becoming controlled by voldemort and his deatheaters.

jk rowling has never made a comparission of her books and her writings to american politics, or even modern politics. she has only allowed past events in british goverment to influence her works, simply because they are basically british stories.

Even the final book ends with a glaringly obvious christian allegory. not just because biblical quotes feature within the text of the book, including a quote at the beginning by a well known christian evengelical theologist (William Penn). At the end of the book, after harry has done everything he could with the help of his friends to make voldemort mortal again after he split his soul by ripping it apart by commiting the most evil act *murder*, and encasing those torn fragments of his soul in objects, which then anchor his soul to the earth so its immortal if his body is destoryed, he walks into the forest to face voldemort, his wand stowed with no intent to fight because he knows he too harbors a fragment of voldemorts soul, and therefore must allow himself to be killed so that the fragment voldemort had no idea had detached from his soul when he failed to kill harry as a baby.

However because of the sacrafice of harry's mother, she imbued harry with the protection 0f her love, and when voldemort got a body back, he took harrys blood to regenerate in hope that he would negate that protection, making harry killable. it actually strengthened it, making harry protected against voldemort. both are knocked out, the fragment of voldemorts soul is destoryed, and voldemort believes harry dead, only for harry to have been playing dead, to return, and with the playing feild even between them, voldemort casts the curse that kills himself because he never sees that love is truly the most powerful magic, which has been stated since book one.

it is a allegory of sacrafice and ressurection that is prevelant within chirstian writings.

Harry Potter in many way represents sin and humanity far better then most chirstian writers. yes, harry preforms magic, but within the realms of a fantasy lense, so does voldemort, and for all characters, it becomes a matter not that you have the ability, but morality is shown in how you use it.

Harry is not perfect, and he doesnt always use magic in the best way. he also doesnt get off scott free when he uses his magic improperly. for example in book six, he uses a spell he doesnt understand against a person who has tortured him abusively for six years. when the spell turns out to be rather dark and potentially fatal, his first reaction is not "no, now im going to be in trouble. " it is "No, this isnt what I meant to happen, no!" in the chapters following, he tries to deal with the fact that he has done something wrong, but struggles, because he knows that because of his foolish, ill concieved actions, he could have done even far worse damage. he never believes or notes that he had done something good, and frequently notes that he is for all intensive purposes guilty. he doesnt argue.

Sadly, in todays socities, there are few people who are willing to admit when they do something wrong, something bad, something hurtful towards other.

compaired to most chirstian writers, jk rowling refuses to do simply the "well, just dont do it", and elects to be more realistic and do the "well, you did it, now pay the consequences". all of her characters face that, regardless if they are alturistic, or selfish in their actions.

as jk rowling put it in a interview around the time of goblet of fire "I am chirstian, but I m perfectly happy that people dont ask me about my religious beliefs often, because if they did, readers, whether aged nine to ninety would be able to figure out whats going to happen in the later books"

Warner| 7.28.09 @ 2:58PM

also, forgot to post this.

I personally think reading politics into harry potter is silly. liberals have read them as liberal to praise them. conservatives have read them as convertative to praise them. liberals have read them as conservative to slam them, and conservatives have read them as liberal to slam them.

People have read them as anarchist literature.

It only goes to show you that critique is subjective. My literature teacher every class reminds of that. She tells us that to pass her class, we have to prove we can leave our presupositions and excess baggage at the door before we analyse the stories we are reading.

But to say these books represent a political value is rather silly. They are fiction, and shouldnt be treated as anything more than that.

Peter| 7.28.09 @ 4:43PM

Part of Rowling's genius is here ability to depict the abuse of political power without tying her story to any real world political event. Her Dolores Umbridge is a brilliant portrait of a power hungry bureaucrat. It doesn't matter whether you choose to see her as Margaret Thatcher or Hilary Clinton. Rowling has captured the essence of an evil that transcends ideology.

Peter McGrath| 7.28.09 @ 5:21PM

Never read a Harry book. But found the "Order of the Phoenix" film to be quite engrossing, and the latest film even more so. My 8 year old Godson wholeheartedly agrees.

Smith really does need to lighten up.

JK Rules!

Vern Crisler| 7.28.09 @ 7:37PM

Thanks Warner,
While your punctuation and spelling leave much to be desired, your passion for the subject has persuaded this old CSL and Tolkien fan to keep an open mind about it. Maybe I'll give Harry Potter a read after all.

Mervin Hellville| 7.28.09 @ 10:23PM

Dumbledore was gay, according to Rowling. Thanks for standing up for gay rights. Fight the power!

Sharon W.| 7.28.09 @ 10:33PM

I think that Rowling is a modern genius: what a delightful picture she painted in the first Potter book, with magic and fun and humor. Sure, later books did become more 'serious', with some deeper political and philosophical issues underlying that an adult reader would recognize, but still, very readable and entertaining. I want my grandchildren to read her work when they are old enough! Thank you, J.K. Rowling! Mission,Texas

Amy P.| 7.28.09 @ 11:05PM

However, I do remember she came out a year or so ago claiming that one of her characters was gay.

Yes. In a fanatical post-publishing attempt to make a PC statement. If you read the books without being aware of this statement, there is NO contextual evidence in any of the seven books that would make one believe the character in question is gay.

As to the rule-breaking, it's ultimately an English school novel, in the tradition of English school novels where kids OFTEN break the rules. It's a non-starter argument.

Star*Dagger| 7.29.09 @ 3:54AM

They celebrate Easter and Xmas in these movies instead of the original holidays of spring equinox and winter solstice. It would have been great to see these portrayed in a positive light in her books and movies.
Christianity is dying, its so called adherents in the usa would kill someone like jesus on sight.
Capitalism, their true god is also dead *the tree is falling, people just dont realize that it is coming down.

TIMBER!!!!

Yours in Pagan Plasma,
Star*Dagger

Jim Wilson| 7.29.09 @ 3:36PM

Rowling is a hack in one sense; there's not one original thing about the magic in her series. It's very poorly thought out and too inconsistent to make any sense. Magic is just a throwaway literary device, and great books don't use such.

That being said her books are quite enjoyable and some of the characters are interesting. I never much cared for some of the principle characters, especially Dumbledore and Ron, and I don't much like Harry himself. In the 5th book he showed some promise, but that was dashed in the last two and he ended up just an age-old 'fortunate fool' character. This doesn't mean the books are valueless, and there are many little nuggets and fun characters scattered through the books (and movies). In one sense Rowling certainly isn't a hack; she's trying hard, not just tossing off a formula novel.

Wardog| 7.29.09 @ 6:11PM

My reaction to the revelation that Dumbledore was gay was to realize that it didn't make any difference to the story. And I think that was a powerful message that JKR wrote into the story. My thoughts on Dumbledore had nothing to do with his sexual orientation but on his actions and deeds. That is how it should be in the real world too.

name| 8.3.09 @ 7:56AM

UGG Boots

UGG Classic Cardy Boots

UGG Classic Short Boots

paul Smith

Paul Smith Bags

Paul Smith Shoes

DVD

DVD

DVD

DVD

fdde| 8.30.09 @ 3:52AM

Thank you for your work.This is our website.
http://www.toopghd.com

fddssaa| 9.11.09 @ 10:53AM

polo shirt
Men's popular Polo shirt

dfdssd| 9.11.09 @ 11:02AM

cheap Polo shirts
high quality Men's Classic-Fit Polo shirts

ddcxsssa| 9.11.09 @ 11:30AM

softwares
practical Microsoft Windows XP softwares

dferw| 9.15.09 @ 3:45AM

Discount Ugg Bootscaught many people's eyes.Also like
Dicounted Ugg Matala Sandal
all very hotsale.do not hesitate,you can have it now.

pollor| 10.8.09 @ 12:22PM

We are having our own shipping network which enable us to ship goods for our customers to all parts of the world conveniently.
Cheap High Prada
Cheap Nike shoe