>you'll never again be a kid in the late 90s reading

>>7870705
What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

>>7870714
Is this a copy pasta?

Fuck this is sad if it´s true.

>>7871382
No

>>7871382
newest of the newfags

>want to have an interesting thread for once on this shitty board
>publish a long post to get the conversation going
>spaghetti falls out of pocket
>have to look for my reading glasses in order to pick it up
>meanwhile get trolled by new generations over distance through modern technical thingamajingies

no grace in getting old

>>7871382
It's taken from an article in which literary critic Harold Bloom discusses Harry Potter.

>>7871382
>>>/r/eddit.

>>7871435
>>7871435
Fag mothafucka bitch

>>7871435

You didn't miss much. I don't even like Harold Bloom but he is right on the money. Why HP became as popular as it did is beyond me, perhaps its all about being in the right place at the right time and being just bland yet intriguing enough to catch fire and spread, like most Pop music or fast food.

>>7871435
>lierally says he's underage
Only underage can be this dumb

>>7870705
hp movies are better than books desu

>>7871599
not underage where I live
>>7871435
contact info plz ;)

>>7871599

Underage for what? 16 is a ripe age for reading and getting serious about literature

>>7871678
underage for 4chan

which is stupid for blue boards anyway

File: 1458486703474.jpg (67KB, 421x421px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 421x421px

>>7871435

>there are people on 4chan born after the millenium

File: 1453593553155.jpg (167KB, 690x460px) Image search: [Google]

167KB, 690x460px

>>7870705
>Harry Potter
>children's genre fiction

>tfw I was born in 1997

>>7870714
Didn't some anon with an ebook do a Ctrl + F of 'stretched his legs' and find that it was only mentioned a couple of times? If so, doesn't it make this review worthless? I'm not saying the Harry Potter series shouldn't be criticised, only that the analysis should at least be accurate.

Our (children's section) librarian was recommending HP to everyone at the time.

>>7871435
b&

>>7871798
Yeah the only thing to take from this is that Bloom is a dishonest man

>>7871798

They forgot all the variations: "stretched her legs", "stretch their legs" etc

>>7871837

I don't think Bloom is dishonest, I think he is a disgruntled curmudgeon, and I don't blame him desu. Like I said before I don't actually like Bloom as a person, too much salt for my taste, but he is right about un-intellectual mass marketing culture parading blandness as gold

>>7870714
You didnt understand what the Book Is about. Its a childrensbook so the writting has To be easy understandable and does not have to be good. What has to be good Is the idea behind it. HP Is quit Amazing in that Respect.
Further it theaches Kids values like Friendship, bravery, Equality, Love and much more. HP Is one of the Most Important pieces of litrature.

File: 1447347515607.gif (3MB, 378x225px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 378x225px

>>7871864

I cover my head in ashes..

>>7871864
>this post Is one of the Most Important pieces of b8 literature.