The bible
I wouldn’t say I disliked it but Harry Potter just seemed like an ordinary story with nothing special about it in terms of writing or plot to me. Made me wonder if I was missing something since it seems to have had a huge an impact on popular culture.
I think a lot of it is being at a certain age. When you’re young you’re configured to see magic everywhere. The video games you played when you were a kid, the places you went, the stuff you read… it’s all important. It’s wide and magical. It has this quality that’s not replicable. I talked with people about the games I played when I was about 10 years old, and they felt exactly the same way about the games they played when they were 10.
Sometimes it’s true. The Lord of the Rings books are still magic as an adult (actually more so). But I had the exact same experience reading HP; it’s fine. It’s perfectly serviceable, but I think I missed reading it at the age where it would have triggered the pure magic response, so I don’t get it the same way.
I love this take- I think you’re onto something
A big aspect of it is likely nostalgia and the influence it had on many people who were learning to solidify their literacy. I think that’s also why it is so hard for people to break from it as well today.
Very true and I should at least appreciate the fact it made a bunch of people excited about reading :)
I’m mostly in the same boat.
Hogarts was interesting to me. Clearly a lot of thought went into the primary setting and all the fantasy and non-Euclidean elements.
But the titular protagonist himself was almost surgically devoid of character. Harry Potter was not special. His parents were special. And as dysfunctional as his foster family was, they still had drives and personality.
Harry Potter, in the books I read, was not important to the plot in the slightest. The plot just happened around him.
I’ve never really thought about it like that, but have to agree with you. Harry is completely devoid of character. As someone who fell in love with reading/fantasy as a result of these books, I loved the wizarding world. I didn’t really have any care for Harry, or even much for the story that he’s a part of - just the setting, and the other characters.
I wonder if Harry’s transparency makes it easy for a young reader to project their own personality onto him, and kind of ‘roleplay’ their way through the series? I think the fact that the wizarding world is ‘bolted onto’ reality facilitates this - it feels almost tangible. May explain why nostalgia is so high among this particular group - it was an experience, not just a story.
Does this make Rowling a genius? Or do her books just benefit from the side-effect of her writing a bad MC?
I would argue that offering fans a template goes miles towards to how… sandboxy the series becomes. (For want of a better term)
For Harry Potter, it was the whole academic experience. How you got admitted, the personality tests; things that enable a safe starting point and allow the fans to go in their own direction.
With Kingdom Hearts back in the day, it was Organization OCs with powers and weapons that followed a template. Similar with Steven Universe and minerals and weapons.
I came here to say HP too. The voice/writing style it’s in is not for me, at least the first book. I couldn’t get past the second chapter back when I tried to read it.
Dracula, I suppose?
I’m fond of some of the vampire lore the story created that pop culture has completely forgotten… but after Dracula goes on a cruise, the book becomes criminally repetitive and goes absolutely nowhere.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (no, I’m not reading anymore Donna Tartt), Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl wasn’t good for me either
The Fault in Our Stars
Romeo and Juliet
Had to read Little Women at school and found it unbearably boring. So boring I almost forgot everything in it, which is unusual. Only thing I remember is that Jo was an interesting character. My classmates seemed okay reading it and some even liked it, but for me every page turned was “oof there’s still more pages still, oof”.
Probably Dune. Tried to read it severl times, and each time it’s a boring slog with characters that are hard to relate to. Maybe I just like personal journey stories over big political ones
Another book that I’ve had trouble reading through is Neuromancer. I get that it’s cyberpunk and all that, but it just doesn’t really have a grip on me
Three Body Problem
I agree- I found it disjointed and shallow.
Ready Player One. It has a lot of really problematic stuff in it, the entire plot was “This kid remembers the 80s so he’s the chosen one,” and countless people you used to respect love it
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
It wasn’t terrible by any means. But I kept being told how-fast paced and gripping it was.
The fastest the pace went was the main character ducking behind a barrier in a very brief firefight.
I’m not one of those action junkies, but I was kind of expecting more.
I heard a lot of people liked Watership Down, so I got it digitally. I tried to like it, I really did, but I just couldn’t… I don’t know, care? It just started feeling like a labor to read it so I stopped about 20% of the way in.
Idk maybe one day I’ll give it another try.
Anything Cormac McCarthy.
The Old Man and the Sea. A junior high teacher assigned it as an individual project, and I was bored out of my mind. After one of my own university students recommended it a few months ago, I tried it again. Forty years has not improved my opinion of it.
Come to think of it, even teaching an intro lit & philosophy course, I still think any book that’s only in print because it’s on a reading list is probably garbage.
I do beg to differ. I went through a period when reading “reading list” books was about all I wanted to do.
Pearl Buck “The Good Earth” Zora Neale Hurston “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
Just two faves if you want to try them out.
I should’ve noted that YMMV. :)
Thanks for the recommendations. When there’s time to read for fun, I’ll try to check them out.
Oh, well you did say that’s only in print because it’s on a reading list. I think these books would be in the print regardless so… your point stands.
