Delighted to read...

....an article in the review section of fridays Independent which was happy to have a go at the Harry Potter empire. As it happens it was only today i happened to read it as it was in my bag on the bus. Was a bit pushed for time and decided not to bother stopping to get todays paper and made do with perusing the aforementioned unread review section.

I don't really have anything against the books or their author, other than the fact like many people before them they have to an extent became hideously successful on the back of questionable talent. Bands like U2 and Coldplay immediately spring to mind, not entirely devoid of talent but if not always worryingly bland then they certainly have settled into mediocrity for longer than i'd care to remember.

I read the first 3 Potter books and didn't really see what the fuss was about, although there are childrens books and probably seemed more exciting to children. However because they are now so successful they are almost beyond criticism and you get even more rediculous stuff written about it and their success than is remotely realistic.

For example a Sunday Times article suggested "that before Harry Potter, fantasy fiction was a limp affair of 'knights and ladies morris-dancing to Greensleeves'." Personally that irks me as i have enjoyed the odd bit of fantasy fiction in my time and if anything the Harry Potter books are a somewhat limp affair in my opinion and to denigrate a genre that has produced writers like Terry Pratchett and Ursula Le Guin is a bit rich.

As it happends Mr Pratchett himself read the piece and took exception and responded and offered a list of names that have written some fine fantasy fiction,"Ursula Le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, Jane Yolen, Peter Dickinson and Alan Garner." I can't say i'm familiar with all of them but if Terry Pratchett reckons they are good then i'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Certainly the fantasy books i've enjoyed such as his own, Tolkien's, C S Lewis, Roald Dahl and a few others not so celebrated do not fit the Sunday Times description as a "limp affair".

Of course in a response to Pratchetts criticism of the piece it was suggested that he was motivated by jealously of JK Rowlings success. Ok he hasn't sold quite the amount that the Potter books have, there arn't hollywood movies of his Discworld novels but he has sold in the region of 40 million books himself. A struggling writer he is not, by any standard he is phenomenally successful in his own right and to suggest he is jealous of Harry Potter as a criticism of his own comments that wern't fulsome in praise of Potter or Rowling is an intellectualy weak argument.

Indeed Rowling was reported as saying she hadn't realised at first that she was writing fantasy fiction, Pratchett says he "would have have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue". So as Public Enemy would say don't believe the hype, there is more to fantasy fiction than Harry Potter, indeed if anything Harry Potter is the fantasy fiction equivelent of a Dan Brown novel. Not everyones cup of tea but good luck to them for writing books that lots of people enjoy reading, lets just not kid ourselves they are literary giants.