All that, & written w/ words that never distract as [mere] poetry-lite, but roll off the tongue & you find yourself repeating them for [years] afterwards.

Bukowski is on my short list. As is e.e.cummings. Etc. And, if you forgive me, Karl Edward Wagner (heroic fantasy in the vein of Robert E. Howard’s “Conan”)

Eh? Heroic fantasy(?!). Well, in UCBerkeley Comp Lit classes, they made a big deal of the distinction between “Literature” (capital ‘L’) -vs- “literature” (small-’L')… the former being the ‘classics’ & the latter being Danielle Steel. Some of the paradigmatic distinctions between the two would be focus & audience; whether there were lots of allusions to the Great Texts; & whether the author was addressing the Big Questions… but often it just boiled-down to whether the ‘critics’ liked the work, vs whether it was popular w/ the hoi polloi. Thus, I have no truck w/ self-consciously “Literature” like Calvino… but greatly appreciated the Comp Lit Grad Instructors who assigned texts like Gibson’s “Neuromancer” & Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight”, & then un-self-consciously had us compare them w/ Shakespeare, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, et al.

Literature (sound, sense, enlighten & delight) is wherever you find it… & the critics are usually last on the bandwagon. Funnier still– Shakes, Chekov, & Fyodor were in their day “just getting by”, often popular writers, sometimes not, but all trying to get read. It’s only thru the distance of time can we (attempt) to attribute to them ‘selfless’ qualities, as if they ‘wrote for writing’s sake’ rather than to bring home the bacon. Nothing so simple– the Great authors/artists speak to themes they feel passionately about, and they manage to translate those glimpses into clearer images the rest of us can see.

But they remain fixed on those passionate feelings, images, themes… & are never satisfied w/ kitsch. JKR, like King before her, manages to traverse the arc from discovery to boredom, in only 7 books. It took Whitman his whole life, re- & re-writing his essential “Leaves of Grass”, until he finally forgot his original inspiration. Compare his original version, vs. the ‘deathbed’ one, & you’ll see what I mean. Compare King’s “Shining” vs. anything he’s written in the last decade.

Or compare the first “Harry” w/ the last. ‘Nuff said…

My bad reaction to #7 was wholly in response (reaction?) to all the knee-jerking JKR o’philes, kissing her every word. Even Stephen King went all ga-ga on her butt, when he himself has been known to write awesomely (“Green Mile”, “Rita Hayward”, “Shining”).

If I may be forgiven, here’s another filmic reference: compare Xmen 1 & 2, with 3. All 3 have basically identical action/adventure & special effects splendour… it’s just 1 & 2 were made by someone who really *cares* about the lot of a person forever misunderstood (ie, Singer)… & you can see it even in the smallest scenes. The action is secondary; the characters’ feelings are *primary*. However #3 was made by hackmeister Ratt, who’d rather spend $1M blowing something up than spend 1 minute asking (good) actors to dig deep, & *feel*.

JKR wasn’t ‘feeling’ anything in #6 & #7, or I’d bet you’d walk-away remembering that ending.

They have a saying in H-wood: “If it’s not in the script, it’ll never get on the screen”. Peter Jackson isn’t the best director in the world (cf. “Kong”), but there was *something* in JRRT that inspired literally 10+ years of work, & 3 nearly flawless films. Sure JRRT picked & chose from early Celtic myths & went a bit too gaga on impenetrable Elvish songs… but he created a similarly wonderous world, forever coloring our understanding of Good & Evil (a completely non-geeky acquaintance just referenced Sauron in a conversation w/ me yesterday!)… & better– gave us hope, inspiration, & wonder.

And I damn well love his words… I’ll trade him w/ Nabokov any day, even if he does read better in his native Russian.

But most telling? Nobody needs (or wants) to spend hours debating “what really happened” in book#1 (or 2, or 3, etc). What happened is right there, on the page, with real characters living, feeling, reacting, & we celebrate them for that.

But in #7, Rowling seemingly is satisfied to ‘coast’ on all that good will, & instead basically hashes-together a plot hinging on “why not do that”. Arbitrary plot-points after more arbitrary rationales… supplemented by jumbled, final-act exposition(!!). And always a huge sense of Rowling saying “I always meant to do that”, ie ‘plot spackle’. In short, I never got that sense of “oohhhh”, which you get when you experience a truly great story– even if you know how it’s going to end, you’re always surprised, & gratified. Delighted, even. And, you tend to walk-away quietly, letting that “A-ha!” moment reverberate thru your head, for days.

…it’s funny– after reading a literal ton of ppl’s gushing reviews of #7, I just think of what happened after all the build-up hype for “Episode One”. Nearly everyone I know, Star Wars fanatics all, were running around like teenagers in a new crush. And then afterwards, their smiles were a teensy bit forced, but they still gamely ‘explained’ why what they saw was “good anyway”. But you know what, now, years after Eps’ 1-3, the consensus online is solid: these 3 were a disaster, misguided, & most wish they hadn’t happened at all. I’m not saying (quite) that here, but I sure do wish Rowling had re-thought her “head-in-pensieve” plot for these last 2 books.

To sum up– there’s a difference between ‘negative capability’, & just being lazy. And Rowling is leaning towards the latter here.

And of the many disgruntlements #7 left me with, let me finish with just one: why oh why kill-off so many characters, oh so casually? Yes we know that ‘War is Hell’, sure we know that life is ”fired at us point-blank”… but even a somewhat-decent writer will allow the audience to pause, & get something from that [death]. If not Harry himself being affected, then perhaps someone else… let-alone giving us a little visibility on the scene(!!)… B/c after spending literally dozens of pages apiece in previous books developing truly interesting characters like Moody, Lupin, Tonks, & even Scrimjoeur, killing them off-screen is just a chintzy cop-out. Even Sirius’s oh-so-quick bow-out in #5 got more play…

These characters we’ve learned to love deserve a noble death, & we accordingly deserve a moment to appreciate their lives, & reflect on what they meant to us. By basically casting them aside (while evil dorks like Draco walk-away unpunished), Rowling is doing us a disservice. This isn’t irony; this isn’t ‘missed opportunities’; this is Bad Writing.

Potter, Finis. [even though the thought she "made a clear ending" is laughable; all the main characters are still there, & she has nineteen years to fill...]