Whatever, Joanne

The other "TERF" part of TERF month is that I needed to finish the Harry Potter series.

Well, "needed" is a strong word. 

I don't really remember the dates, but I think I read the first five between 2002 and 2008, based on which movies I saw and that I had already read them by the time I got onto Goodreads. I periodically picked up a $1 used copy at Powell's, at least for the first three. The last two were more expensive, but still definitely used.

I planned on getting to the last two, but they weren't a priority. Then Rowling started approaching her current form, and I had less interest.

Still, I like completion. I figured I would probably do it. She kept shooting off her mouth, and there are so many other things to read!

I read Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century at the end of 2017. It mentioned potentially reading the last book of the series for inspiration. Okay, maybe I would get to it, but I would just check them out from the library. Still not enough motivation.

Then my sister gave me the last two books. She was trying to be nice, but they have been annoying me in my room for at least a couple of years now.

Okay, I was just going to put all of the TERF work together and get it over with. It was still hard to bring myself to do it, because they are so long, and I was just not looking forward to it.

Having it done is a relief.

I get why Snyder recommended it. With the underground radio and papers and the things that people need to do to resist, including choices about when safety is more important, or less... it is relevant and I believe that was especially a recommendation for younger people.

Some of my irritation with the moodiness, impatience, and lack of rationality about these teenagers is certainly related to me being an older person. Grow up and quit sulking!

I remember once in a movie review for the 1996 Emma, a bit about how it can be hard to have a character be annoying where you get that they are annoying, but that it does not take you out of the movie with your own annoyance.

I think Rowling is not a great writer with that, being overly repetitive to convey how hard it is for everyone. There are ways to change it each time to show growth and development, and there is also sometimes trusting the readers that they will get that it is hard. Theoretically there is also still listening to editors even though you are super successful and famous, because you can also get too full of yourself.

I think both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows could be 200 pages shorter and be better for it.

It's not that they are terrible, either. Some of the passages are thrilling and there is some great imagination. 

However, knowing how Rowling has not only being ardently transphobic but pretty ableist and not being able to unsee the fatphobia once becoming aware of it...  I don't like her.

For this particular literary opinion, there will be people who agree and people who are aghast, and that's fine. Similarly, I had really expected to like A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I kind of hated it. The reason that I kind of hated it was that I felt this contempt for humanity in it. 

Sure, there are legitimate reasons for that contempt, but I can't give into it. I tend not to admire works filled with it.

It was not a surprise to find that here. The scene early on where Dudley is saying goodbye to Harry and starting to feel things and Harry is such a jerk about it is a good example. You are supposed to agree with Harry, because this is Dudley, but it's like there is this latent cruelty. Of course the author is someone who is going to target the marginalized and feel righteous.

Next week I will get into the transphile books. One of the authors mentioned waiting at the bookstore at midnight when a new book was going to be launched. What a letdown! I'm sorry for those who have been let down. I'm just kind of "Meh."

(I can't be passionate about everything. Probably.)

However, I must make clear that the reason this is a separate post from the other TERF works is because there is a vast difference between the quality of the work and the quality of the feminism. Rowling is not a radical feminist and I don't think much of a feminist in general and certainly not one to have much to teach about equality. (Which is perhaps not surprising for someone who wrote a whole "chosen one" narrative.)

I have my disappointments with Alice Walker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Caroline Criado Pérez, but they are in a whole different league.

Of course Joanne has more money. That is no guarantee of quality, as has been demonstrated again and again.