/lit/ - Literature

She's a sellout

Well below average sellout who donated a load of money to a left wing party.

Because of this, /lit/ loves her.

Labour celeb - Rowling
Conservative celeb - David Bowie
Lib Dem celeb - Richard Dawkins

>>1274196
>left wing
>Labour Party
mfw

>>1274204
wait, does conservative mean the same thing over there?

If anybody in this board knew anything about the publishing business, you'd know that J.K Rowling is actually a character for a marketing plot to sell novels to kids approved by their parents.

No, no publisher will invest millions in promoting the novels of an unpublished writer with no previous writing experience. No studio is going to preemptively buy a series after just the first novel.

This story of "the troubled divorcee with a great imagination that made a multimillion industry" is just a ploy to get those single moms to buy books by the truckload.

>>1274222
>mfw people actually believe this

She's overrated in the sense that her income is way out of whack with her literary merit. But as we all know, literary merit is not in high demand. Her income is in line with the demand for the product she produce(d|s). Same with Stephanie Meyer: she's made millions on her unique skill to write crap and actually put it out there with her name on it. If I could do that, I'd make that money, but I can't. I can't even put my name on this comment.

>>1274206
+1

>>1274214
I guess so but our Conservatives are about as right wing as your democrats in some ways.

>>1274225
>mfw I confirm once more no one in /lit/ knows shit about publishing

I was too young when I was reading these books to notice the backlash like Twilight gets so I just loved the books. The last few though, her writing changes...hard to explain but you can tell she's writing it in mind for the movies. Like, Draco was an ass but he never came outright and smashed Harry's face in. Then come the last book and out of nowhere he beats him up, laughing. Like sure, they're older, but the last whole book or two felt just weird to me.

British conservatives are socially and economically conservative. Sometims they're religiously conservative too, but not as much as they used to be.

American conservatives are all three.

Most British people are conservative.

>>1274231

>Stephanie Meyer

>J.K: Rowling

>Implying these two authors belong in the same tier.

Not if you take the Harry Potter series for what it was supposed to be - books for older children. I don't like the books because I'm too old for that, but for her target demographic they're pretty good.

Not as good as that body, though. I'd bang the shit out of her if given the chance.

>>1274243
>implying they don't

>>1274243

Just because you grew up reading Rowling doesn't make her any better than Meyer.

It's the same thing with the same target audience. MAGICAL WONDERFUL WORLD OF HAPPINESS OCASSIONALLY THREATENED BY MENACING YET SOMETIMES LIGHT HEARTED ENEMIES WHO ARE OUTWITTED BY THE UNLIKELY HERO.

It's all shite.

>>1274244

>bang the shit out of her

She looks like my girlfriends mother.

So, yes, I would too.

>>1274242
>British conservatives are socially and economically conservative
>economically
idk bro, they have banged on about how they would not have laxed regulations on the banks unlike Labour did, whereas in the US it was the Bush admin that did so.

>>1274242
>>1274234

For some reason it surprises me that Bowie is in any way conservative. Also, how do people just not vote the way Bowie votes? Why isn't Bowie Prime Minister? Why isn't Bowie the queen? You guys are fuckin' up.

>>1274247
Harry Potter is nothing like that. 2deep4u

>>1274253

That's because they were opposition government. (When Labour were in)

Labour is going on about tuition fees now, despite opposing them in '97. When they got elected, they introduced them. In 2001, they raised them again.

In politics it isn't about how good your idea is, it's about how good you can make it appear and how terrible the opposition come across.

>>1274247
>>1274245

>Comparing badly written tween semi-erotica to Rowling's work.

Mind you, it's not amazing, but it's leagues better than Meyer.

>>1274254
Bowie is a glorified pop star, a la The Beatles. I don't trust popular musicians opinions on other's music so why would I trust them at all on politics?

>>1274255
>hasnt read Twilight
>bases his opinions on the books around the time he was dragged along to see the movies by his ugly escapist girlfriend.
You could argue Rowling created a better 'world' for her books, or something but the writing is pretty much the same standard.

>>1274259
>In politics it isn't about how good your idea is, it's about how good you can make it appear and how terrible the opposition come across
Well thats hardly the politicians' faults.

>>1274263

Badly written camping journals with shitty christfag moralistic overtones vs badly written softcore porn. ONE OF THESE IS CLEARLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER!!!!111ONEone

>>1274263
No, Rowling and Meyer are the same shitty things.
While Meyer follows tween-girls best wish of perfect love with perfect superawesome boyfriend who loves you for being deeeep...
Rowling follows tween-boys best wish of becoming super-awesome messiah magician with cool friends and super-powas who excapes boring daily life into new reality of fantasy crap.

IT ALL SUCKS SHIT

>>1274266
You guys are so dumb. You think you've got everyone figured out. I read Twilight when I was 14, I'm a chick, and I still thought it was fucking dumb.

First five books were good. Last two were awful and would have killed any other author's career. So yes I'd say she's overrated.

>>1274267

I'm not sure I see any Christian overtones in Harry Potter.

HERP DERP ALL SELF-SACRIFICE IS A METAPHOR FOR JESUS

>>1274281
THe fact that your dad dressed you like a girl and raped in the ass doesnt make you chick, BRO

>>1274291

I can't be the only one who dropped the series at The Goblet of Fire. Because shit got really fucking boring in that book.

OP here, holy crap, this turned into a shitstorm fast.

>>1274281
>You guys are so dumb. You think you've got everyone figured out
lol, why do i always laugh at the 'tone' of 'girls' that point out they are girls on here. It's always the same, so at first i thought they were just guys pretending (usually gender doesnt affect how someone posts but these 'ima girl' fags always sound the same) but now i think its just fucking, female FREAKS that are just geeky losers.

>>1274289
Rowling says Christian fans could predict how the story goes on her wikipedia (and on w/e is cited there).

>>1274289
>completely retarded post
>tripfag

No surprise there...

>>1274303
variation of #4

actually i just looked at the plot summary for Twilight. I still don't think Meyer is like a totally inferior writer or anything, just that outcast teen girls have more pathetic fantasies than outcast teen boys.

isn't dumbledore gay

>>1274316
Which of my responses?

never read twilight but I'm pretty sure that's the shittiest comparison you could make. I am dissapoint /lit/

harry potter is a pretty well thought out and written YA story. when I was reading the horrible "Hermione takes a shit in the Luna's handbag" fanfic on here last night I realized how shitty a simplistic narrative can sound. Rowling is a pretty good writer and I think it's funny people bash her style when they couldn't come close to writing 7 books that were even semi-interesting to read

>>1274243

She is a run of the mill children's story writer, but it's just embarrassing that adults these days consider Harry Potter literature.

>>1274242
>The Conservative Party is now socially liberal.

>>1274342
except only 3 of her books are semi-interesting to read

and the very idea that in order to levy criticism upon something you must do something of equal value is child-like. with those kind of standards no one can have an opinion of anything

also you are fat

>>1274303
I really do think /lit/ has more females than thought. That's why anti-women thread are so successful.

Any christian overtones in Harry Potter are probably there because Rowling is heavily inspired by C.S. Lewis.

Also I'd hit it.

no.

Her contribution to literature is overwhelming, not overrated.

Millions of people love the novels. I will admit that compared to the likes of say George Orwell and Philip Pullman, they aren't the outstanding in the way they've been written but it's enough and of course, she is a brilliant story teller with a great imagination.

The only people who say she is overrated are likely people who have never read the books or have only seen the films and basing their opinion on that. Fair enough if you have, but the series wouldn't be as successful as it is today if they didn't have a grounding to be successful on.

Also, has everyone suddenly become an expert on the publishing business?

Christian overtones in Harry Potter? That one is new to me. She has a lot in common with the writings of Diana Wynne Jones, and almost none with C.S. Lewis. ALso, it's has repeatedly been criticized ever since her books became mainstream, for lack of a deeper (christian) morale and such.

>>1274500Her contribution to literature is overwhelming

she made people read

oh boy nobel prize for this woman plz

>>1274500The only people who say she is overrated are likely people who have never read the books

I'd go far as to argue people who've read her books understand how overrated she is. Everything went down hill after Book 3.

Really makes you wonder how bad the first 3 books would have been without an editor

This.

So I'm just going to put this out there...

>>1274515
>>1274508
>>1274376
>>1274272

How are your series that have been translated into almost every language, sold millions, became international franchises, spun a series of films, inspired generations of children to read and write as a result. Not to mention donating fuckloads of cash to charity for causes that are underfunded?

Yeah. That's what I thought.
The woman did good. She has done things in her life that have inspired milions. If you can't accept that, then indulge yourself that she will be remembered after her death.

You on the other hand, won't be. At all. For nothing.

Here's a thought - agree or not with Potter, I don't see you all going out to fucking change that. Do you have agents? Are you published? Of course not. You've bitched and moaned about how you don't like it instead of going out there and doing somehting about it.

Pretty pathetic guys. Pretty fucking pathetic.

>>1274590
>How are your series that have been translated into almost every language, sold millions, became international franchises, spun a series of films, inspired generations of children to read and write as a result.

The series obviously didn't teach you to write. That sentence makes no fucking sense.

>>1274188

Why? She writes children/teen books that children/teens like. Why overrated? Maybe the problem lies in adults reading the book.

Nope.

Started reading as a child, finished reading as an adult. Have not been disappointed whatsoever by any of the 7 Harry Potter books.

>>1274701

If you were any dumber you'd forget to breathe and die on the spot.

>>1274703

j/k awesomesauce

I'm just really tired of people telling me I have to read more than a small snippet before I declare these books pulp garbage.

They might be entertaining but.... c'mon people.

ITT: The author hasn't killed herself so the books aren't fit for toilet paper.

Admit it. If she had commited suicide you same people would be calling it the best shit ever written.

>>1274728

Fantasy writers can kill themselves and no one cares.

Now if it had been straight literature that was terrible and she'd offed herself in a spectacular fashion and had written a journal filled with suicide poetry. Then we'd be talking.

>>1274729
lol k

ITT: Litfags who think denouncing popular fiction because it isn't heady or dense enough for their elitist and over-the-top criteria, all the while missing the point of literary fiction being the exultation of the Story.

Rowling's work is entirely Story and, while her aptitude at laying down the actual prose might have room for improvement, I fail to see how her prose failed her Story in anyway.

Get your heads out of your asses, stop trying to sound like you know anything, realize you can't do shit with a Lit degree (trust me, I know), and just enjoy the fucking Story.

IMPERIO!

I agree with the lowbrows that this bitch made up a whole 'nother living breathing world that I care so much about imma cry!

>>1274815
>exultation of the Story
no

>>1274815

You're pretty upset.
Who would be so foolish as to get a lit degree? And what does that have to do with calling what JK Rowling wrote not so great?

This person's real bitter about the choices they made. Don't take it out on us angry person.

>>1274815
i don't enjoy the story
the thread is about wether or not rowling is overrated which she is
you get your head out of your ass faggot

>>1274231
but that's WRONG. people on /lit/ are so focused on rowlings target audience and her popularity that they forget that rowlings is a fucking amazing writer, no really, she is an amazing writer, wether you like her stories is subjective.

>>1274911


Effective perhaps.

Amazing, no.

>>1274911
>wether

Oh well Harry Potter, I think that its overreated too.
If listend to this stuff cause I got the audiobooks and well it was a pleseant suprise, because I always thought it would be rubbish. Its a nice story and all, but I think it doesnt deserve all the prais it got.

What makes it so interessting for many people is the fact that nearly everyone thought about something as hoggwarts when he was a child. It doesnt need to be a magician school or anyhting, just some kind of special school or spcecial place, where you find out that you are that special person or whatever.
Its pretty much a child fantasy which millions of people had when they were little and cause of that so many people read and like it. And like I said bevor it was pretty nice, but nothing too special. There are better books out there, books I enjoyed much more than that..

You don't start an enormous worldwide hype without having some sort of skill. Same goes for Stephanie Meyer. I mean the bitch must be doing something right, right?

ITT: You are now aware the Harry Potter series is a massive allegory for the Arab - Israeli war.

>>1275038
>implying that the deatheaters aren't nazis

How can she be overrated?
Do you mean by the general public or by critics?

Harold Bloom critiqued the HP series thusly: "Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing."
A.S. Byatt in a New York Times op ed:
"secondary world, made up of patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature ... written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip."

The general tenor of literary critics is a bit less harsh the above-mentioned, but generally she does not receive much praise.

So, to answer your question; no, she is not overrated. Except perhaps by the general book-buying public, which proves its lack of taste daily (I believe it's called the New York Times bestseller list).

fuckin haters everywhere people need to shut the fuck up and realize their standard for what makes a children's series good is not the same as everyone else's. this doesn't make you deep & edgy it just makes you come off like a bitter prick

this applies to a lot of the discourse on this board, actually

>>1275158

I wasn't aware that there existed a standard wherein bad writing, nonsensical characters, plots with more holes than a colander, and non-stop cliches are considered signs of good literature.

No, but she's certainly peaked and done for the rest of her career.