Week 4

What parallels can you find between 'A Wizard of Earthsea' and the 'Harry Potter franchise?'
I have just put up one question for now but will add the rest later.

In last week’s reader, Tax (2002) did a comparison on the authors of both of these stories based on their success and franchise and I found it quite interesting.
The opening statement was “%90 of the articles I have read about J.KRowling deal with her not as a writer but as the commercial equivalent of a comet whizzing into atmosphere.” (pg.15)
This is to say that J.KRowling was so overwhelmed by the reaction she got form her first book that the pressure was on to be able to produce the same thing again and again – she was influenced by the commercial aspect.

Tax states a very good question that successful writers are faced with: “Do you stay faithful to the inner voice or turn yourself into a marketable commodity, producing a new product of the same kind every year or two?”(pg.15)
Tax believes that unlike Le Guin, J.K.Rowling was tempted by the great social and economic rewards for choosing to market herself instead of staying faithful to her inner voice. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, if I was a successful writer I would most probably get greedy and market myself by writing what the fans will want to hear, read and buy. Even if it means having to change my original story and idea.

Le Guin on the other hand chooses the other road and stays faithful to herself. She has written over forty books and none are merely commercially motivated or predictable. It’s almost as if she writes for herself in stead of her readers which works in her favour. Tax states “She probably drives the industry crazy; it doesn’t even know whether to classify the Earthsea books as Children’s literature or adult” (pg.15)
Le Guin’s writing is different, risky and what most businessmen would hate most because her work is always challenging and unpredictable. For example her last Earthsea book was in 1990 and then out of no where she wrote two in one year, no regular patterns and no interest in the marketing intervals. Nonetheless, Le Guin’s Earthsea books are profoundly radical and respected by many as she leads her readers to think and feel outside the details of everyday life and let the imagination be set free.

I leave you with the question that will have many different answers and opinions:
Have the Harry Potter books been treated seriously, as a literature, or as a marketing phenomenon?

References:

Tax, M. (Jan 28, 2002). In the Year of Harry Potter, Enter the Dragon. In the Nation