I'm more fortunate than many; I don't have conflicting feelings about Rowling because I never thought her writing was any good.
I picked up the first two Harry Potter books, I think after the third book came out? and found Sorcerer's Stone to be badly written, unoriginal, tedious, patience-trying and twee. I could not see what people saw in it. I didn't even start the second book.
I was so disenchanted with Potter, in fact, there's an incident in my autobiography where I loudly take the piss out of it. I found the idea that society's rejects can look forward to being whisked away into sainted approbation and actualization 'by the expediency of a heretofore undisclosed noble birth' absolutely infuriating. Don't fight back, don't rock the boat, just close your eyes and soak up the abuse and wait for the wizards to rescue you, because you're one of the beautiful people. Arrgh. (I may have made one of my students cry. I've done that before.)
And yet, secure in my convictions, I felt a little guilty. "Goodness, Holly," I said to myself at the time, "that's awfully harsh criticism of an apparently nice person who's only trying to write whimsical books for children." And then all this happened.
Subsequently I've felt it might be better to elide the incident from my autobiography, because I don't want people getting the wrong idea, that it's a political statement rather than a critical one. It annoys me that she's made her actual writing bulletproof by clouding it in personal controversy. If only I could use that trick with my publications, I'd have a display case full of Nobels.
['Excerpt the incident here?' you ask. Maybe.]
'You didn't loooove Harry Potter?! Obviously you're an unfeeling, soulless automaton with no wonder in your heart.' Well, duh. I work in academia!
In fairness, Harry Potter is a very British story, where the protagonist triumphs because he's a scion of nobility and from the better sort of people; and my response to it is very American, given our national myth that any pathetic nobody can lift themselves up into greatness if only they work hard enough; and so Harry basically being Boris Johnson really chaps my ass.
