Another Book to Recommend

OK, so I hope people will try reading Lloyd Alexander's work. I have another recommendation to make to you Harry Potter fans--a recommendation for a book which (like Alexander's books), I read when I was young. It's called Mistress Masham's Repose, by T. H. White, who also wrote a series of books about King Arthur (these were later collected in a volume called The Once and Future King). Mistress Masham's Repose, published in 1946, resembles the Harry Potter books in being about a lovable, mistreated orphan. Her name is Maria, and she has inherited a huge estate from her dead parents that has fallen into disrepair because there is no money to run it. Maria is funny, brave, loyal, imaginative, and wears spectacles (sound familiar?); she also suffers from being in the clutches of Dursley-ish tormenters: a horrible guardian--a sadistic clergyman--and the equally sadistic governess he hires for Maria. Of this duo White says "both . . . were so repulsive that it is difficult to write about them fairly." (That sounds very familiar, no?) The action starts when Maria discovers in the far reaches of the estate a colony of Lilliputians descended from ancestors brought back by the same Gulliver who stars in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (obviously, Gulliver is cast as a historical rather than fictional character here). What follows is a wonderful, witty allegory of colonialism: Maria thinks that because she's bigger she can just barge in and do what she wants with the Lilliputians, who are understandably resistant to her clumsy attempts to play with them. It is left to her best (and only) friend, a destitute scholar who lives nearby, to educate her gently about the politics of power and the need to stop thinking that Might is Right. Meanwhile, Maria's loathesome guardians find out about the Lilliputians and plot all kinds of nefarious schemes to exploit them for cash--plots that spell danger for Maria and her professor-friend, now allied to protect the Lilliputians' sovereignty. An incredibly funny book, as well as being a very profound one. I wonder if Rowling ever read it? I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't, as it's been shamefully neglected for years (if I am not mistaken, it is now out of print). Still, what White says about power--its uses and misuses--is quite relevant to the Potter series. If you can find a copy (and it probably is around in libraries), read it and enjoy!

A Beginning, and More about Lloyd Alexander

So I'm finally learning how to keep a blog--thanks to Kate Polak! I might as well have been a witch and not a Muggle for the past decade; at least that would give me a better excuse for not knowing this stuff. Anyway, I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you a bit more about Lloyd Alexander, the fantasy writer whom I mentioned on the first day of class. In general, by the way, this blog will serve as a place for me to pass along relevant information or raise issues we don't get to (or at least haven't gotten to yet) in class. I had thought to provide a link for an obituary of Alexander (1924-2007), published in New York Magazine, that refers to him as one of Harry Potter's "spiritual fathers," and which describes his Chronicles of Prydain as the "gold standard" in children's fantasy. The obit, however, starts with a spoiler for the end of Harry Potter Book 4, which might be less of a problem for a lot of you than the major spoiler for the end of the Prydain series that follows soon thereafter. So I'll just quote a bit more from the obit, which claims that, in taking her series by the end of Goblet of Fire to "someplace very dark and complicated indeed," J. K. Rowling proves her kinship with Alexander, whose Prydain series "helped teach so many young readers that darkness and peril were as much a part of storytelling as innocence and light." As Alexander died several months before the release of the last Harry Potter book, the obituary writer goes on to say that The High King, the last of the five-book Prydain series and winner of the 1969 Newbery Award, "is everything we desperately hope Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be: a sweeping epic, an emotional finale, a series-ender that carefully lets each and every character fulfill his destiny. Beloved characters die; flawed enemies are redeemed; and good triumphs over evil." I know one thing: after I finished The High King (I was eleven at the time), I walked around in a daze for some time, overwhelmed by a heady mix of sorrow, joy, and something I can only call exaltation. I'd never felt anything quite like it before, and it was a sign that what I'd just read was great literature--not just good, but great. I got very much the same feeling from the finale of Deathly Hallows, and I do think that the obit writer described very well how a good fantasy series should end, and how both Alexander's and Rowling's do in fact end. So some of you might want to explore the affinities between the Prydain series and the Harry Potter books; it would make a good exploration topic for extra credit. Alexander also wrote other books that are thematically relevant to Rowling's work. One is The Iron Ring (1997), which is based on the culture and legends of India. The main character, Tamar (yes, that is his name!), is a king of a small country who goes on a quest that challenges every assumption he has ever made about goodness and greatness. In particular, Tamar is forced to reexamine his prejudice against those of lower caste than himself. The scene in which he confronts and overcomes these prejudices is truly one of the most amazing things I've ever read, and given that I have done TONS of reading in my life that's saying a lot. What seems particularly relevant to Rowling's series in this book is the meditation on what one might call the pathology of racism and classism. Think of Draco Malfoy's "Mudblood" slur for someone who is Muggle-born, and the way he calls Hermione not just a "Mudblood" but a "filthy little Mudblood." That images of "filth" and "mud" animate these slurs point to an obsession with contamination: the very touch of the "Mudblood" pollutes the "pureblood." It's like a germ phobia. Alexander's Tamar in The Iron Ring feels this way about those of the lowest, most despised caste--until he realizes he should consider himself honored to be among them. Don't you wish the same thing could happen to Draco, not to mention his father?