- Hardcover: 200 pages
- Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; New edition edition (30 May 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1403912645
- ISBN-13: 978-1403912640
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 12.6 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,612,892 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
'Suman Gupta's book, Re-Reading Harry Potter, should be required reading for anyone who takes the Harry Potter novels seriously. His study will make a major contribution to the already-flourishing scholarship on the Harry Potter series/phenomenon because it is incisive, reflective, and original. Gupta's major purpose is to understand what constitutes the popular phenomenon of the books and their social and political implications and effects by using a text-to-world methodology. He is critical and most perceptive, pointing out the contradictions and ideological tendencies of the novels with great clarity. His explanation of the Harry Potter phenomenon is most convincing and fits well with his critique of unthinking reading and of elitism that are disturbing forces in modern society which often account for literary bestsellers.' - Professor Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota, USA
'...a closely argued piece about the sinister side of the Potter phenomenon...If Gupta is right, the secret of Harry Potter's success must be that the books offer what we 'unthinkingly' desire, or, worse, that there is a growing tendency towards irrational belief.' - Times Higher Education Supplement
'...a closely argued piece about the sinister side of the Potter phenomenon...If Gupta is right, the secret of Harry Potter's success must be that the books offer what we 'unthinkingly' desire, or, worse, that there is a growing tendency towards irrational belief.' - Times Higher Education Supplement
Product Description
This is the first extended text-based analysis of the social and political implications of the Harry Potter phenomenon. Arguments are primarily based on close readings of the first four Harry Potter books and the first two films - in other words, a "text-to-world" method is followed. This study does not assume that the phenomenon concerns children alone, or should be lightly dismissed as a matter of pure entertainment. The amount of money, media coverage, and ideological unease involved indicates otherwise. The first part provides a survey of responses (both of general readers and critics) to the Harry Potter books. Some of the methodological decisions underlying this study itself are also explained here. The second part examines the presentation of certain themes, including gender, race and desire, in the Harry Potter books, with a view to understanding how these may impinge on social and political concerns of our world.
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I begin, as most readers must, with book covers. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
I begin, as most readers must, with book covers. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I did enjoy parts of this book very much. I'm afraid, though, that it was often for the wrong reasons. At times I suspected that it was an elaborate and extended send-up of academic squabbling over literature. I'm still not quite sure, but I *think* it is serious.
The first chapter 'Book Covers' ("I begin as most readers must, with book covers") contains the delightful story of Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish. Mr Iser proposes an "implied reader" who has a dialectical relationship with the text and who, we are warned, "is not to be identified with any real reader." This concept gives rise to "a series of disagreements." Mr Fish thinks that Mr Iser is "missing the point" and introduces the concept of "interpretive strategies" which make it "questionable whether a particular text can be said to have any discrete and determinative existence at all." Gupta, in a tongue twisting turn of phrase, comments that, "A waspish exchange followed between Iser and Fish." Some unkind people may consider that both Iser and Fish, and possibly also Gupta, have missed the point.
The chapter entitled 'Religious Perspectives' comes to the remarkable conclusion that Christian belief (as he understands it from a study of Richard Abanes book) is just as fanciful as anything in Harry Potter's world, and that both are equally far removed from the real world of the social and political. This gives us an insight into Mr Gupta's world view but, sadly, none into his subject. Perhaps this is because he fails to refer directly to the text under discussion at all in this chapter, but devotes it to a complaint that he feels excluded from the religious debate because he is not religious.
The one chapter that stands head and shoulders above the rest is the one entitled 'Repetition and Progression'. This chapter is based around the insight that the books in the Harry Potter series achieve a rare balance of repeating themes and increasing complexity. It notes how the initial themes are introduced, then elaborated, developed and deepened at each repetition. This is an intriguing chapter and does not seem to fit comfortably with the rest of the book. It is also very brief -only four pages. I would have found it interesting to see this explored in more depth.
For a very much more perceptive and thorough, although less self-consciously academic, analysis of both the literary and religious perspectives I would highly recommend John Granger's book The Hidden Key to Harry Potter.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
32 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Missing the point?
26 Sep 2003
Format:Paperback
I did enjoy parts of this book very much. I'm afraid, though, that it was often for the wrong reasons. At times I suspected that it was an elaborate and extended send-up of academic squabbling over literature. I'm still not quite sure, but I *think* it is serious.
The first chapter 'Book Covers' ("I begin as most readers must, with book covers") contains the delightful story of Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish. Mr Iser proposes an "implied reader" who has a dialectical relationship with the text and who, we are warned, "is not to be identified with any real reader." This concept gives rise to "a series of disagreements." Mr Fish thinks that Mr Iser is "missing the point" and introduces the concept of "interpretive strategies" which make it "questionable whether a particular text can be said to have any discrete and determinative existence at all." Gupta, in a tongue twisting turn of phrase, comments that, "A waspish exchange followed between Iser and Fish." Some unkind people may consider that both Iser and Fish, and possibly also Gupta, have missed the point.
The chapter entitled 'Religious Perspectives' comes to the remarkable conclusion that Christian belief (as he understands it from a study of Richard Abanes book) is just as fanciful as anything in Harry Potter's world, and that both are equally far removed from the real world of the social and political. This gives us an insight into Mr Gupta's world view but, sadly, none into his subject. Perhaps this is because he fails to refer directly to the text under discussion at all in this chapter, but devotes it to a complaint that he feels excluded from the religious debate because he is not religious.
The one chapter that stands head and shoulders above the rest is the one entitled 'Repetition and Progression'. This chapter is based around the insight that the books in the Harry Potter series achieve a rare balance of repeating themes and increasing complexity. It notes how the initial themes are introduced, then elaborated, developed and deepened at each repetition. This is an intriguing chapter and does not seem to fit comfortably with the rest of the book. It is also very brief -only four pages. I would have found it interesting to see this explored in more depth.
For a very much more perceptive and thorough, although less self-consciously academic, analysis of both the literary and religious perspectives I would highly recommend John Granger's book The Hidden Key to Harry Potter.
36 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Uninsightful vamping
25 Dec 2003
Format:Paperback
The other reviewer is spot on, this is a dreary trudge through every fashionable tourist-spot of contemporary criticism. It barely engages with the actual books, pausing at the actual experience of reading only long enough to spot the landmark heresies: sexism (check), racism (check), imperialism (check)... flip through the index and compare the references to characters in the books, vs. the references to vogue theorists, and you'll get the idea. As expected, there is considerably more space made for academic squabbles than for any recognizable experience, human or literary. The inquisitor wraps up this excericize in scholasticism with the shocking announcement that Rowling has been discovered to be (gasp!) a bourgouise liberal. Light the pyres!
A witch-hunt indeed. Yuck.
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Boring and Superficial
28 July 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Even if I agreed with Gupta's arguments, I would still have to admit this is a dry, dull, pompous tome that will bore the pants off anyone. As it is, his arguments are ridiculous. They are vague, airy, tenuous attempts to link Harry to some sort of notion of contemporary culture but its never definate. It is amazing how much time he spends pontificating instead of analyzing. If you can see through all the smoke and mirrors, he has stumbled upon a few good categories for looking at the series (like "Blood"), but his analyses are very superficial and condescending. Worst of all, as others have noted, his reading of the books is completely inadequate. He's barely read them, beyond being able to recite the basic plot, and sometimes wrongly. He has merely attached a few of his own ideas vaguely to the Harry Potter series, with absolutely no sensitivity or real engagement. Gupta is yet another (male) critic who has been able to get a lazy book on Harry Potter published. This is a complete waste of time and money: keep reading Harry on your own and wait for some good studies to come out. (The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter is pretty good).
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