Dark Arts Rising, Jo Rowling vs. Susan Cooper |
 Jul 22 2006, 10:53 AM
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Official Singer of the Sorting Hat Song  Posts: 6,606 Joined: 3:12pm July 22, 2005 Location: Lost in Hermione's beaded bag    |
Novelist A.S. Byatt, in her hissy-fit review of Harry Potter (Read it here), compared Rowling unfavourably with Susan Cooper. Now, I like Byatt's novels, but I think she stinks as a reviewer. But what can we learn from a comparison of Cooper's The Dark is Rising series and the Harry Potter series.
Cooper did not conceive of her five book cycle as a series at first. It began with a "one of" novel, Over Sea, Under Stone. It told of the young Drew children on holiday in Cornwall getting involved with a treasure hunt with a mysterious villain. They are aided by their Merlin-like uncle Merriman. There are mystical elements and the treasure may be the Holy Grail. It's a good, solid YA adventure. Several years later Cooper said she envisioned a series of book. The next, The Dark is Rising, introduced Will Stanton, an eleven year old boy who finds he can see beyond time and has curious magical powers. Will is an "Old One" who is charged with finding a number of Things of Power to help defeat The Dark. Well, the obvious similarity between Rowling & Cooper is this battle between Good and Evil. There's also this chosen one, Will or Harry, who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he has magical powers. And there's the separation of worlds: Magical from Mortal. I disagree with Byatt though. I find the cosmic aspects of Cooper's series uninteresting and difficult to accept. There is nothing so likely to kill suspense than a character who lives outside of Time. I confess to prefering the two books in the series that focus on the mortal Drew children, the first book and the striking, if somewhat short, Greenwitch. I find the others to be flawed by philosophical digressions. (I don't mind philosophical digressions, but they must be poetic, as in T.H. White, or they become a drag on the narrative momentum.) Do you see the similarities or the differences between Cooper and Rowling? -------------------- Come the words that bubble
Up through broken laughter, Sweeter than spring-water, "Gods, I am so happy!" |
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Jul 22 2006, 05:20 PM
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Daily Prophet Photographer  Posts: 866 Joined: 7:26pm June 10, 2005 Location: Curled up on the sofa with coffee, my dog, and Harry Potter |
I read the Dark is Rising series back in junior high (a looong time ago, now!) and I remember liking it at first, then not so much. It's hard to remember much of it anymore, but this is what I can dredge from memory:
I found the oh-so-British stuff a little annoying. They always seemed to be roasting chestnuts or singing carols, serving tea-- do people really go caroling door-to-door anymore? But that was just a background element, I guess. There was just such a black-and-white, good-versus-evil element (the one I can remember most is The Dark is Rising) with very little grey area or ambiguity, which is too simplistic for older readers. Harry Potter manages to combine Good versus Evil with lots of ambiguity-- the MOM politics, Umbridge ("people can be nasty without being Death Eaters"), Crouch Senior, house elves, Percy Weasely, Voldemort having a childhood/ family history, Harry trying to use Unforgivable Curses... there are a lot of issues, a lot of 'middle ground' in Harry Potter. Nobody gets a simple good-versus-evil definition, except maybe Lily Potter and that's probably because we haven't really gotten to know her yet. That ambiguity is probably what makes the series so readable by adults like us... black-versus-white is trite. In the 'Dark is Rising', it's like this: people come and tell Will, "You're one of us. We're good. Those guys over there are bad. We fight them."; end of story. Plus, the "rules" in DIR seemed completely arbitrary. I remember some scene in which these characters (who can jump in an around time) watching something taking place and being unable to prevent it. Just "Because that's the way it is." JKR would have explained the rules better, or made them logical/obvious. I read Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) shortly after these and I remember [spoiler]being blown away by the idea that there aren't really any "bad guys": at first you think it's his brother, then the "buggers", then the teachers... at the end there really aren't any bad guys at all...each has their motivations but none are "evil". [/spoiler] It made the Cooper books seem infantile by comparison. I also remember thinking that the author tried too hard to tie everything in with the old Arthur/ Camelot myths because it didn't start out that way from the beginning but popped up in a later book... you could read the first books and have no idea there was ever a King Arthur connection so there was that continuity thing that bugged me. Oh, one more thing that I remember not being "believable" about the DIR series: the kids! What's wonderful about Harry Potter is that the characters are so believable. None of them are that exceptional, really. Sure, Harry has moment of bravery and Hermione can memorize books, but they all seem like people you might have known at some point-- skilled, but flawed as well. In the Over Sea, Under Stone one of the kids is already reading (I think) Latin, at maybe 14 years old. How unbelievable, and yet so convenient to the plot! In Will's family I think there are similar things-- a brother who's a genius on the flute, another who's a great artist, etc etc. They're all too "great". I'd have to re-read the books to give a comprehensive comparison, though, as it's been more than 12 years. I think my brother has some of them so I might do that and revisit this thread later. 
This post has been edited by matilda: Jul 22 2006, 05:21 PM --------------------  |
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Jul 22 2006, 09:27 PM
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Official Singer of the Sorting Hat Song Posts: 6,606 Joined: 3:12pm July 22, 2005 Location: Lost in Hermione's beaded bag |
I agree, matilda, that there was something that didn't grab me about The Old Ones. I'm not sure if anyone can identify with the unworldly. But I must come to the defense of the British. There would be nothing unusual with a 14 year old boy knowing Latin 40 years ago. It was part of the curriculum. And I do believe caroling at Christmas remains popular.
The business of having siblings who are "great" at this or that may seem unrealistic, but families of geniuses (genii?) is actually one of those British curiosities. Think Gerald & Lawrence Durrell; Richard & David Attenborough; Michael, Vanessa & Lynn Redgrave; Nancy, Jessica, & Unity Mitford; the Bronte Sisters; and so on. I did find there something creepy about the moral vision in Cooper's series. The way Hawkin's life was sacrificed and how he became the Wanderer disturbed me. It made me question The Light. And the abstract nature of this struggle always had me wondering what it was all about. I agree with you, I prefer the easily recognisable vices of the villains in Harry Potter. As I said, I do like the two books in Cooper's series which feature the Drew family, Over Sea, Under Stone and The Greenwitch. I think that they actually are more powerful because they're grounded in the real world. I know critics think The Greenwitch is the weakest of the five books --I certainly had the feeling that a whole subplot had been cut from it or something cut, making it unusually short-- but I found the portrait of the village women and their wicker goddess (based on actual traditions) very compelling. I have not read Ender's Game, but I'm not sure I'd agree with the viewpoint that there are no bad guys. I think Rowling has staked out a middle ground. We all make choices. Because we make choices we can change our direction. But some choices push us across a line from which there is no return. I think we can see this in Riddle's change of name to Voldemort after he murdered his father's family. And we see Draco falter at that point of no return. The abstract conflict between The Light and The Dark in Cooper's series, although it had some powerful images, just didn't connect to me. I just couldn't see how it translated to the real world. At least in the first and third book I could see the villains as possible thieves, kidnappers, and murderers. -------------------- Come the words that bubble
Up through broken laughter, Sweeter than spring-water, "Gods, I am so happy!" |
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Jul 23 2006, 01:03 PM
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Gringotts Goblin Translator Posts: 1,229 Joined: 3:49pm April 21, 2006 Location: South Africa |
Your right davidenglish
Fictional fantasy characters need to be real and human. It is the others that are requires to be so extraordinary and unbelievable that they amaze us. --------------------  |
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Jul 23 2006, 02:56 PM
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Inquiring about Double-ended Newts Posts: 987 Joined: 4:21am March 6, 2006 Location: Wandering the landscape listening out for phoenix song... |
QUOTE(matilda @ Jul 22 2006, 11:20 PM) [snapback]891288[/snapback] In the Over Sea, Under Stone one of the kids is already reading (I think) Latin, at maybe 14 years old. How unbelievable, and yet so convenient to the plot! In Will's family I think there are similar things-- a brother who's a genius on the flute, another who's a great artist, etc etc. They're all too "great". You're quite wrong about this, matilda, as davidenglish said. When I first read Over Sea, Under Stone I was the same age as Jane Drew in the book; we lived in an English seaside town, took holidays in Cornwall, just like the Drew children, and that whole world was very real to me, the children were children I knew. The older brother who feels a bit superior because he's just started Latin at school, the little one who needs protecting and sunburns to easily - wearing leather sandals without socks and getting stones in them, hitching up your pony-tail - I think that was what made the magic it the book so exciting - the children slipped so naturally into it from the world I knew. There was nothing contrived about it and Susan Cooper's a fine writer. And as for the "oh-so-British stuff" - is it really so wrong for a British writer writing for British kids to write about the things they recognise? You may find this unbelievable, but in the village where I live now we still have carol singers at Christmas and yes, we serve tea as well - and drink it!! The Arthurian elements as well were present from the very beginning in Barney Drew's passion for the Arthur stories, and, of course, in the character of Merriman/Merlin - it was one of the things that drew me to the first book because it was a passion I shared. I can see what you both mean about the abstract nature of Susan Cooper's struggle between the Dark and the Light, as opposed to JK Rowling's much more personalised good and bad wizards. But don't you think that beyond the individual characters she still has the two poles of good and evil firmly established: Voldemort may be destroyed but Dumbledore has made it plain that evil will continue in some form, so both series have this black-and-white, good-and-evil element. Both series have bad and good characters. JK Rowling has stressed the importance of choices and she has created some wonderfully rich and ambiguous characters. But the same element is present in Susan Cooper's books too. davidenglish - you mentioned the sacrifice of Hawkin in The Dark is rising. Hawkin chooses to betray the light - another crucial choice, just like the ones faced by the HP characters. --------------------  'We read to make sure we're not alone.' (Shadowlands) |
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Jul 23 2006, 03:51 PM
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Daily Prophet Photographer Posts: 866 Joined: 7:26pm June 10, 2005 Location: Curled up on the sofa with coffee, my dog, and Harry Potter |
Okay, well sorry guys, I guess I got a few things wrong... but keep in mind that (as I said in my earlier post) I read these books about 13 years ago, as a 1990's USA-based 14 year old: to me the British stuff really was foreign, and at the time it seemed "put on" to me, but if it rings true to actual Brits, then I guess it's accurate! It seemed more like a fantasy world to me... seasides, tea-time, Latin... I was just trying to jot down my remembered reaction to the books and at the time I was thinking... "Right, he knows Latin, how convenient..." I didn't realize that kids actually took Latin in school; we certainly didn't! (Minus 1 point, US-based school system.)
I will stand by one of my thoughts, though: the feeling that Will's family life prior to the drama is almost "too" normal, too perfect. But, that's just a personal feeling, I guess. I really need to re-read these before writing any more... -------------------- |
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Jul 25 2006, 05:43 PM
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Knight Bus Driver in Training Posts: 567 Joined: 5:13pm January 26, 2006 Location: Sitting here in Limbo, waiting for the tide to flow |
I must say the DIR was one of my favorite series to read as a child. I read it in the late 1970s or early 1980s and really liked the way that real myth was wrapped in the books. I really liked the dark nature of the story, but rereading it as an adult I found the story not as involving as it was for the young me.
My biggest problem with A.S. Byatt's review (correctly called a hissy-fit) is her use of Freudian analysis of the books. I really was turned off by the whole tone of the article, but her amateur psychoanalyst act wears thin after about two sentences. I really take offense at the idea that the plot is childish. Apparently, she never read "The DaVinci Code", or "The Celestine Prophecy", or any other modern popular trash novels. I really had no problem with the children in the DIR series, yes they were all very good, but I knew plenty of big families that were like that - especially families that lived out in more rural towns near me. The real difference is the same difference with the CS Lewis books, they are much shorter than any of the Harry Potter books. The Tolkien books are much longer, but they were originally published in the UK as seven volumes (six books and the appendix) not the three books we in the US got. So there is much less character development, because the plot has to keep moving. I did find the last few books weaker than the first few.  Skip -------------------- That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Room 101 - Corner Café - The Study - Chamber 37 - Chamber 007 Proud member of OPAST |
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Jul 28 2006, 09:59 PM
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Official Singer of the Sorting Hat Song Posts: 6,606 Joined: 3:12pm July 22, 2005 Location: Lost in Hermione's beaded bag |
It's been over two years since I read the books, but I recall a rather tortured argument about Hawkin's fate. Indeed, the Old Ones, the Light, and the Dark all have that predestined problem that always bedevils theologians and Sunday school teachers. Do we have Free Will if it's already determined what we will choose? This is why I find the Old Ones become more a hindrance to plot and interest than a boon.
-------------------- Come the words that bubble
Up through broken laughter, Sweeter than spring-water, "Gods, I am so happy!" |
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