In case you haven't noticed, Willow appears to be the booklist maker, the Whovian and Sherlockian and MCU fanatic, whileCitali appears to be the book reviewer and going-too-deeply-philosophical fangirl. Guess who is the one posting on author intent and BBTTR (books belong to their readers)? It's Citali today!
I am a huge huge huge huge fan of both J. K. Rowling's world of the Harry Potter books and John Green's world of TFioS (The Fault in our Stars), Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines, Looking for Alaska, and other awesomeness. Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if only one remembers to turn on the light! Okay? Okay!
John Green has a very definite policy on "what happens after the end of the book?" questions, and that is that BBTTR. Books belong to their readers. Author's ideas of who died, who married whom, what happened, did they succeed or lose, are of equal weight as the views of fans who champion ships or theorize on the future of worlds that seem so real. John also, however, writes very metaphorically resonant books. He's set up blogs such as onlyifyoufinishedtfios.tumblr.com (which you should only visit if you finished TFiOS, if that wasn't obvious) to explain his metaphors. In one post, he said:"So, like, to me the entire experience of human beings on this planet is all these people having a conversation about what we should and shouldn't do... it's important to have these productive disagreements, because that's how we push literature forward. I believe that my opinion on extra-textual questions should not be privileged."
On the other hand, the lovely Joanne Rowling (J. K. Rowling) appears not to hold the same worldview. She's created a whole universe of books, both in the storyline of Harry Potter and others outside, such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages. She's released lots of awesome bits of information telling us the end fate of our characters (the ones we can't glean from the epilogue); for example, A——— and G——— have a child named Roxanne; G——— plays Quidditch before settling down with H———, et cetera (I hope that wasn't too spoilery).
So, who's "right"? Should we disregard these tidbits? I don't think so, as a fan I love seeing how real the fictional universes are and what happens to my favorite characters. But also I believe that the power of fandom and readers is real, that we should imagine, draw fanart, write fanfics.
In other words, I love both these authors and the worlds they've created and their philosophy on the worlds after. Yay! (Am I living in denial? Sure. Is it okay? I think so.)
Happy reading,
~Citali
I agree with both two. I think there is a difference when you create an amazing stand alone like TIFOS and when you spend decades creating a world and with tons of characters. Of course J. K. Rowling has thought about how things would continue playing out! She spent so much time with these characters in their world. If I was her I would be having conversations in my head with Harry everyday. Even now he would probably be my best friend who knows all my secrets.
ReplyDeleteThat's not to say the John Green didn't spend enough time thinking about, creating, and talking to his characters. Of course he did that's why TIFOS is so amazing, but he had a specific focus and frame he was working with. So once the tale was told the rest was upto the reader.
I completely agree! I didn't think about it in terms of a series as compared to many stand-alone books, but that is an important part of it: J. K. Rowling writes in the context of a greater Wizarding world and a series, a legacy that is ongoing, while John Green's books are, in large part, about letting go and being able to move beyond stereotypes, tragedies, and changes.
DeleteIn a way it's like the nature of the prose matching the message. A story about letting go lets go of its right to control its characters as humans. A story about love and magic wraps its readers in magic and makes readers love love love it.
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