Morning:
8°c
J K Rowling is donating £1.61 from the sale of every copy of her new book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, to her special charity - the Children's High Level Group, set up to help institutionalised children in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The first printing seems likely to sell eight million copies worldwide straightaway, thus raising no less than £12 million. So let us say at once that The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a very good thing.
The book is not any sort of continuation of Harry Potter but a spoof text within the text - supposedly, a collection of five fairy stories for young wizards and witches, written in the 15th century by a bearded Yorkshireman, with commentaries by the late Professor Dumbledore.
They're feeble on several levels. Firstly, the five stories themselves simply don't have the oracular authority of true folktales. It is possible for a great writer who has submerged himself deeply in the culture of his people to create new parables that stand comparison in their mythic power to anything ancient. We know that because Tolstoy did it. But JK is no Lev Nikolaevich and these tales are shallow and artificial.
Then there are the commentaries, chuntering on about the morals of the stories for "both wizarding and Muggle readers", and letting drop precious little tidbits of Hogwarts info in the footnotes.
These play up to the real grip that the Harry Potter books have over their readers, which comes from neither the style nor even the plots, strange to say, but from the way they retail the invented lore of an imaginary world.
In their afterlife, many popular works of fiction fall victim to this kind of trainspotting interest. The worlds of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Jeeves & Wooster, even Jane Austen, have been enthusiastically studied in this way, after the fact. But J K Rowling set out to make her books appeal to this dreadful mentality from the beginning. Now she has a bit of a problem in that many other people can bore on about Hogwarts lore almost as well as she can. In fact, she can only stop them by recourse to copyright law.
Of course, while she's holding that legal line, it's great that she's raising so much money for charity by releasing such tiny offcuts from her books as this. And it's great, too, that she has got many children reading books of a length they would never otherwise have contemplated.
But I still find it choking to know that this little volume, released only yesterday, is bound to be the bestselling book of the year altogether - and already to see it being studied so earnestly on the Tube not by kids but by grown-ups. Apparent grown-ups, anyway. Pages and pages on the special properties of wands made from elderwood? That's not literature, it's fiddling.
Books overfurnish a room
To the exhibition Writers' Rooms, at the Madison Gallery in Marylebone. Eamonn McCabe had the brilliant idea of taking photographs of where writers work, a simple format that proves endlessly interesting.
How can Martin Amis be content to sit under a glass roof so darkened with ancient leaf sludge? Of course, Seamus Heaney keeps the OED close to hand.
Some of these writers seem overwhelmed by their books, an experience that, being more a reader than a writer, I sympathise with. I have far too many books, in five different locations. It's uncomfortable to realise books can be a liability, even an obstruction.
By far the most striking picture in this great little show is the wholly arid desk where VS Naipaul works. Not a book in sight. A computer, some box files, a metal office cabinet, an in-tray. In a way, this dismal office could be anyone's — an accountant's, say. In another, it makes perfect sense that it's the work station of the most dedicated and creative writer of them all.
* Boris says: “It's time for a holy war on holey streets.” Random excavations by utility companies are causing traffic chaos all over town. “We need new powers from the Government to end this madness once and for all,” says the Mayor.
Quite so. All these pits everywhere do make getting around London a trial. But then so do the humps that have been permanently raised. Boris should look to his own backyard. The whole of Islington is now barricaded with speed bumps. Make the mistake of crossing Islington in a cab now and you are so banged and rattled around that you are left feeling grossly physically assaulted. Since speed can better be controlled by cameras now, it will all have to be undone one day. In fact, why not right away, Mr Holey Warrior?
* There don't seem to be a whole lot of feel-good stories around at the moment, as we shuffle ever closer to the edge of the abyss. But I must say I was heartened by seeing the picture of Mischief, reputedly the oldest cat in the country. He's a fine-looking fellow of 27 — in human terms, equivalent to a most encouraging 189.
Mischief's owner puts his longevity down to his wise lifestyle choices. “When he was younger, he was fairly active but now he doesn't move much unless food is involved. I suppose his laziness has preserved him.” As we prepare to enter the Christmas party season, so tiring and dangerous, not to mention likely to lead to painful mishaps in my experience, we should let Mischief be our role model. An indoor cat who doesn't move much unless food is involved. That's what we should all in the fullness of time aspire to become. Some of us are in serious training already.
Reader views (2)
Dave, I have to second your comments. Marvelous as the JKR story is, there has been something deeply unsettling about witnessing the car-loads of City workers glued to the latest HR tome on their morning commute into the City for the past decade or so. One can't help make the connection between these junvenile fantasists in grown-up bodies going to work in this somnambulant state and the bankers filling their books with toxic waste.
- Bloke, London, 08/12/2008 15:16
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whatever. at least Jo is doing something to improve the lives of people which is more than i can say for you. so quit your whining or better yet, go whip out your amazing skills and write a story about a whole new world with a backstory dating thousands of years.
- Whatever!, sligo, ireland, 08/12/2008 09:53
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