Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First of all, I only rated this one star because I can't rate it none. Secondly, I'm glad I bought this second hand because its about 1/4 inch thick.
Thirdly, this is not a good book. Like the previous reviewer stated, Blake seems to be trying to answer why Harry Potter is so popular, but he never really does. He provides a whole bunch of statistics like The Labour Party came into power in the same year Harry was published. So what? This isn't enough. (Not to mention that Fudge has often been called a parody of Tony Blair). He cites a lot of coincidences and contemporaneous events, but doesn't do much with them. Many of his arguments are very thin. He uses the example of Harry relaxing by playing Qudditch in a scene from Book Four to argue that in the books "Retail therapy and sport substitute for emotional contact." Clearly this guy has no clue what he's talking about. One wonders if it is not Blake who has the problem with emotional contact--obviously, he could not emotionally connect with the books.
Which brings up the main reason why this book is so bad--Blake never took the time to read the books thoroughly and analyze them thoroughly. I got the impression he had casually read through them maybe one time. He never analyzes them beyond a casual recital of the plot. The books are used as mere examples of his thin social and political theories, with a cold, Professor Binns-like indifference.
His attitude is insensitive, condescending, cynical, and patronizing, to the point that one wonders why in the world he wrote this book at all? I can only think it was to try and cash in on the phenomenon. Why, for example, is the lettering on the spine exactly like the "magical" lettering of the American versions?
I would advise you NOT to waste your money. Its only 116 SMALL pages with LARGE print.
I would recommend The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter instead. That is full of interesting ideas and its well worth the price.
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Kid-Lit in a globalised world.
As the British state begins to unravel, and as journalists compete to pronounce on the death of Britain, a schoolboy from suburban Surrey who lives for most of the year in a semi-parallel universe becomes the most popular figure in contemporary world literature. Now read on - everyone else does...
Harry Potter is English, a home-counties suburban child. An orphan, oppressed and abused by the adults around him, he retreats into a fantasy world where his problems are more elemental; everyday rituals, magic spells and supercharged broomsticks with only the occasional homicidal wizard to worry about. Ironically, as Andrew Blake makes clear, J. K. Rowling rescues her character through the reinvention of that apex of class privilege, the English public school, a literary conceit that problematises Harry Potter's status as a role model and raises important social questions about the state of education in Tony Blair's Britain.
Andrew Blake's examination of the Harry Potter phenomenon also raises serious questions about the condition of the publishing industry, the state of bookselling and filmmaking, and the ways in which the Potter consumer campaign has changed our ideas about literature and reading. Blake reflects on how these connections, while drawn up in Britain, act as a template for Harry Potter's international success.
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