Reply With QuoteCool. I have read all the books, and while I won't be in line to get it or anything, I'm sure I'll pick up the new ones shortly after it comes out. Will be interesting to see how it all ends.
Yep, JK Moneybags has posted the name of the next Harry Potter book as a Christmas present to the world.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Read about it here.
Let the pre-ordering begin! Harry mania to 11!
Cool. I have read all the books, and while I won't be in line to get it or anything, I'm sure I'll pick up the new ones shortly after it comes out. Will be interesting to see how it all ends.
Harry Potter and the Death of My Cashcow more like. Wait another 15 years when she's burned her fortune, and suddenly she'll resurrect him as a mature student.
She's not gonna run out of money anytime soon. I love the books and movies and think she deserves her fortune. The books on tape are particularly good.Originally Posted by krayzkrok
Love the books, I'll be able to buy this at my local gas station at midnight if the last launch was any indication, and I will.
As for Rowlings, ya, she's not going broke anytime soon.
You have vastly, VASTLY underestimated her fortune. Here's a hint: It would be inaccurate to call her a millionaire.
Which is all pretty silly. The books are fun reads, but I can think of a hundred other series as good; marketing is a bitch.
H.
It's also worth pointing out that I don't think she's exactly the sort of person that burns her cash on fast cars, drink and drugs!
Whilst it is easy to be cynical about her rags to riches story, I for one hope she sticks to her plan and really think she deserves her success.
Wow, I thought bitching about people doing well for themselves was a solely British past-time. Save the hate for Dan Brown, the HP series are several orders of magnitude more deserving of the attention and better written than that code book ;)
She could buy a $250,000 car every day for the next eleven years. She will NOT run out of money.
H.
Now that's a whole new level of hyperbole!
Nobody "deserves" that kind of money. I know I'm one of the 4 resident conservatives but it doesn't matter what you're contributed to society. Nobody can possibly be so much better than the average Joe that they actually "deserve" to have a million times more money.
On the other hand, the system that we have rewards people who produce economic value and since producing economic value tends to benefit lots and lots of people simultaneously it means that even somebody as historically insignificant as J K Rowling is "creating" jobs by writing these books. I'm sure the booksellers probably think she's the best thing since sliced bread for instance.
It is the season of excess after all.Now that's a whole new level of hyperbole!
You might want to let a few of your conservative brethren know about this viewpoint, because I don't think most of them got the memo.
I'm not a huge Potter fan by any stretch of the imagination, but "historically insignificant"? She changed popular fiction, possibly for good. She's no less significant than Spielberg or Lucas or Stephen King or any other populist storyteller. Even Shakespeare's writing was the equivalent of Adam Sandler movies for his time. (No, I am not comparing Harry Potter to Shakespeare - don't even try it.)
Her greatest achievement may be that she got a large chunk of the population to actually pick a fucking book up once in a while, particularly young kids. When the Potter generation grows up, that fact could heavily impact how they end up running things, which would make Rowling more than just a footnote in my book.
Yeah, but on the other side of the coin, I find it weird that so many people (in this thread, even) often feel such innate hostility towards the success of others. Does Rowling "deserve" all the millions she's made? I say: who cares? It's not like she stole it, or forced anyone to buy her books. I've enjoyed the Harry Potter books, and I'm looking forward to the next one. I'll pay for it when it comes out, and I'm sure millions of other people will as well, making her even richer. Should that bother me? It really doesn't. Good for her.
That's pretty much my view on it, too. I highly doubt anyone would turn that kind of success down, were it to be within their grasp.
Yeah unfortunately not.
I stand by "historically insignificant." I also consider Spielberg and Lucas and Stephen King to be historically insignificant. I do not believe for one second that people will talk about these guys very often in four hundred years. Rowling much less so.I'm not a huge Potter fan by any stretch of the imagination, but "historically insignificant"? She changed popular fiction, possibly for good. She's no less significant than Spielberg or Lucas or Stephen King or any other populist storyteller. Even Shakespeare's writing was the equivalent of Adam Sandler movies for his time. (No, I am not comparing Harry Potter to Shakespeare - don't even try it.)
I think that suggesting that since Shakespeare's audience and subject matter were mainstream means that he can be compared to Adam Sandler is incorrect.
I seriously doubt that in four hundred years people will be saying “Well I have a microphone and you don't so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!” to impress their friends.
I don't know, SpoofyChop. My daughter still reads books like the Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie series, and those were written like a hundred years ago. I'm sure the Harry Potter books will hang around at least as long.
I guess it depends on your time horizon of historical significance. Will anyone still be reading Shakespeare in ten thousand years?
Why wouldn't they be talked about by then? Far less significant contributers to the cultural landscape are still studied today. At the very least, any entertainment historian will have to have all of the writers/filmmakers mentioned as part of their field of study.
I think you need to read more Shakespeare.
Er...what?
Actually, the Little House books were written in the 1930s and '40s, so it's been more like 75 years since the oldest were published. I actually loved the Little House books as a kid, despite being a boy, so while I'd like to think that they'll be timeless pieces of American children's literature, I'm not sure they will be. However, there are some unique differences between Little House and Harry Potter, so let me discuss them.
I'll begin with the admission that I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. I read the first book and was underwhelmed. As a teacher, I think it's great that HP has turned kids on to reading, but, when I first started teaching in the mid 1990s, it was the Goosebumps series that was getting kids to read, and I thought that was great, too. (Yes, I do believe that HP trumps Goosebumps in literary terms.)
Part of the success of Little House has been its idealized (appropriately so for children's books) version of American westward expansion. It lends itself to elementary classrooms in the U.S. very well due to this. I know when I taught in South Dakota, the books were required reading.
Harry Potter, though, doesn't have such a close relationship with the sometimes very provincial American education system. I think middle and secondary school English teachers will look down their collective noses at fantasy, as they typically have done for both fantasy and sf (particularly in novel form), so a curricular place seems unlikely. The exception to this may be that as people who fondly remember reading HP as kids become adults, those who go into education may agitate for its inclusion. Similarly, it will be interesting to see if the movies stay as lasting touchstones for the kids who saw them. If so, things could be different. There have been wildly popular children's series in the past that have faded with time. (Another unique exception to HP is that it straddles children's and young adult as a series.)
I suppose in writing this meandering piece, I have changed my mind somewhat. Will HP be read in 100 years? Barring revolution, probably--although not to the widespread extent it is today. Will it sell well enough that Rowling will be able to at least live comfortably for the rest of her life (less than 100 more years, surely)? Definitely. (Assuming she doesn't develop coke or gambling addictions, I suppose.)
"To be or not to be, --that is the question:--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?"
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."
"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."
"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."
Adam Sandler <<<< Shakespeare
Exactly my point! I put a famous Adam Sandler quote in my post and you don't recognize it.Er...what?
See? You're contemporary of Sandler, and you still didn't recognize his equivalent of "this above all, to thine own self be true."
Talk to any (especially independent) booksellers, and they will tell you (like they told me when I interviewed them) that JK Rowling and the Harry Potter books are a freaking godsend. Those books *did* put more money in the hands of lots more people other than JK Rowling, including all the bookstore clerks who worked extra hours during those insane launch times. And that's just one teeny slice of an economic pie that spreads over every aspect of the publishing world--all thanks to one woman's imagination and writing ability.
The fact that a book series can cause that kind of frenzy is not insignificant. Nor is the fact that it is an international phenomenon. When the last book came out, I was in France on launch day. We drove about 50 miles to get to a bookstore in Cannes so we could buy it, and when we got there, you could see people--grownups and kids alike---all over the place parked in cafes, lawns, benches, devouring it already. It was crazy. You can dismiss some of it as cultural zeitgeist, bandwagon frenzy or whatever. But I think her impact is more far-reaching than that, and I'm happy for her success.
No, no it's not.
The entire concept of whether someone "deserves" their money is a slippery slope. She has her money, she got it legally by participating the the capitalist system and delivering value for value (and I'll be she pays her taxes). In that regard, I'd rate her as more valuable to society than eBay PS3 flippers, drug dealers, or stock market day traders.
I think you confused conservatives with communists.
Last edited by Angrycoder; 12-22-2006 at 11:25 AM.
Maybe I should reiterate that my point was not to draw a comparison of quality between Hamlet and The Wedding Singer, but to note that something being populist entertainment meant for the masses does not necessarily condemn said work to historical obscurity.
"To be, or not to be..."
"The price is wrong, bitch!"
We'll see who wins out in 200 years!
Egalitarian socialists vs. free-market capitalists, round 2EXP30000, fight!
And Ben, I'm with you. I look forward to making her wealthier come July. She's given me many hours of pleasurable reading/discussion; I've given her money. Fair trade.
I'm a Reformed Utilitarian, myself.
And am I the only one who sees Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows of Death every time he reads the thread title?
When Herman Melville was writing Moby Dick, who was the best-selling novelist of the time?
I learned the answer at one point, but I've since forgotten it, because everyone else has too. I do remember that Melville actually met the fellow at one point and was rather awed and impressed to be in the presence of such an august personage, and was a bit depressed about his own writing at the time.
Just goes to show.
I have an issue with the Harry Potter books, and it is not that they are or are not good, or that Rowling does or does not deserve her money; it is that they are not by any stretch of the imagination THAT MUCH better than any of a multitude of other works on the market. Their tremendous success is the result of marketing - of apparent value, not actual value. As such there are books out there that deserve attention they're not getting, and authors who have stopped writing (or never really started) because they can't sell - and this is entirely due to the accident of who decided to do what marketing work for what book. This isn't Rowling's fault. It's not justice either, though.
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