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Reaction after first Harry Potter book
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Does anyone remember what the initial reaction was after Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released? I'm sure it wasn't utter mania and rave reviews! I'd be interested in knowing when the hype built momentum!
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It did get a bit overhyped in the media. I have a friend who refuses to read one of them just because of that. He says it is a point of principle.
I always remember the book hype being on the 4th book, I remember it being on the news quite a fair bit. But I suppose I could have missed it on the third book.
I read them from the start so never really paid attention to hype of the things.
I was quite young at the time but I remember me and most of my friends really got into them around the time the fourth book was being released as well. Everyone was buying the first three and reading them in anticipation.
I still re-read them now and enjoy them, but I can't see what sets them apart from other books. It's particularly popular with people my age because we pretty much grew up at the same rate as Harry. This makes it easier to identify with the characters and I suppose everyone secretly wishes they could use magic and HP is one of the few books which has ordinary people like you and me doing magic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter
Paper thin characters, poor storyline. Read the rest, thought they were no better. In all honesty I cannot see what the fuss is, and why people claim they are these fantastic works.
How old was you when you read this book?
I read the first one because it was such a sensation. I agree with you, and I've also read them all, but only because I know somebody who lent them to me. I wouldn't waste any of my hard earned on them.
Over the next year I had recommended it to several friends if they fancied a change to their normal reading material, and my dad. In that time, I started to notice more and more people reading it on the bus or the tube, and then they brought out different covers, supposedly for adults! Not that it was fooling anyone, as the books were becoming so well known.
I always made a point of buying the children's cover! . Up until the final book, I only ever bought the paper-back version. I prefer reading paper-backs, and as much as I enjoyed them, I could wait. I bought the final book on release to make sure no-one spoiled the ending for me.
Ironically, the friend who originally recommended the books to me has since jumped on the "they're not all that" bandwagon. When I remind her that she was full of praise of the first two and encouraged me to read them, her memory fails her!
I would never claim they are literary greats, but there is no getting away from the fact that they struck a chord with a lot of people, children and adults. I think it was the sense of escapism, and the fantasy world that was pitched just right in terms of being connected with our own modern world and somewhere magical. The characters were much better developed than anything Tolkien managed, especially the women.
It was very clever how she progressed the characters and the intensity of the stories to match the reading skills and emotional development of the readers, but that only really applies to those who started reading as children. Although it could also explain why it appealed to so many adults who never read books ordinarily. The first book was very accessible, and it made people want to read more. Once hooked on the stories, the writing became more meaty, otherwise I think it would have got tedious for the older reader.
He says he has a father-in-law, so that's a rough clue.
I agree that, when looked at objectively, the writing isn't very good. However, there's something about them that draws you in and makes you believe that it could all be real. If you've just finished reading a book and, for a split second after, can't get fiction and fact straight in your head, that's a good book!
I remember "coming out" of a HP book and the first thing I "saw" was my arm and it really surprised me :D
I was around 39 or so. Maybe a bit older. I looked at them from the point of fantasy, I read mainly fantasy, which is what they are - allegedly. In counterpoint to other stuff I have read - Erikson, Jordan, Eddings, Brooks. When laid against them you can see how very poor the characters, and plot lines are.
But, on the flip side they have introduced a lot of younger readers to books, and for that they need high praise indeed. When you consider that for a lot of children today reading isn't seen as something to enjoy, when they're into the fast world of Twitter, the internet, and other social aspects.
Sorry completely off topic - but how did you enjoy the Erikson books? I've been tempted to read them for a while but have been told by a few people that they're very complicated and the 1st book in the series is hard to understand until you've nearly finished it! What do you think?
That pretty much sums up my opinion of the book. I couldn't actually finish it. I remember constantly thinking how badly written it was and how it just seemed to be a rip off on Neil Gaiman's much better and more coherent work. I would have put this down to my age at the time (late 20's) but a lot of my work colleagues of the same age seemed to think it was the best thing they'd ever read. I've avoided all of the subsequent books and films like the plague since. As I've found with The Hunger Games, juvenile fiction just isn't for me.
Very rough, he could be anything between 16 and 80.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/27/harrypotter.jkjoannekathleenrowling?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
There will always be a backlash against anything popular and the initially mediocre films didn't help the reputation of the books (Chris Columbus was a really poor choice of director) but I do think the HP books will be considered classics in years to come, even if they are 'only' children's books.