ap_Literary+criticism

**//Stephen King//** **// called the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable", and declared "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humour" to be "remarkable". However, he wrote that despite the story being "a good one", he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle", the formulaic beginning of all seven books.[28 ] King has also joked that "Rowling's never met an adverb she did not like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with //****//Alice//** **//, //****//Huck//** **//, //****//Frodo//** **//, and //****//Dorothy//** **// and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages."[ //**
 * //Early in its history, Harry Potter received positive reviews, which helped the series to grow a large readership. On publication, the first volume, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, attracted attention from the Scottish newspapers, such as ////The Scotsman// //, which said it had "all the makings of a classic",[97 ] and //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//The Glasgow Herald// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">, which called it "Magic stuff".<span class="wiki_link_ext">[97 ] Soon the English newspapers joined in, with more than one comparing it to //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//Roald Dahl//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">'s work: //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//The Mail on Sunday// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl",<span class="wiki_link_ext">[97 ] a view echoed by //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//The Sunday Times// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"),<span class="wiki_link_ext">[97 ] while //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//The Guardian// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit".<span class="wiki_link_ext">[97 ] //**
 * //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">By the time of the release of the fifth volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books began to receive strong criticism from a number of literary scholars. //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//Yale//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> professor, literary scholar and critic //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//Harold Bloom//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> raised criticisms of the books' literary merits, saying, "Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing."<span class="wiki_link_ext">[98 ] //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//A. S. Byatt//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> authored a //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//New York Times// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> op-ed article calling Rowling's universe a " //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//secondary world//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">, made up of patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//children's literature//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> ... written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//reality TV//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> and celebrity gossip".<span class="wiki_link_ext">[99 ] //**
 * //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">The critic //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//Anthony Holden//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> wrote in //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//The Observer// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> on his experience of judging //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> for the //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//1999 Whitbread Awards//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">. His overall view of the series was negative—"the Potter saga was essentially patronising, conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain", and he speaks of "pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style".<span class="wiki_link_ext">[100 ] //**
 * //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">By contrast, author //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//Fay Weldon//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets hoped for", nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose".<span class="wiki_link_ext">[101 ] The literary critic A. N. Wilson praised the Harry Potter series in //<span class="wiki_link_ext">//The Times// //<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">, stating: "There are not many writers who have JK’s Dickensian ability to make us turn the pages, to weep—openly, with tears splashing—and a few pages later to laugh, at invariably good jokes ... We have lived through a decade in which we have followed the publication of the liveliest, funniest, scariest and most moving children’s stories ever written".<span class="wiki_link_ext">[102 ] Charles Taylor of //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//Salon.com//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">, who is primarily a movie critic,<span class="wiki_link_ext">[103 ] took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point—a teeny one—about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art",<span class="wiki_link_ext">[104 ] he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//literary merit//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers. Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the psychological wounds and //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//social isolation//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);"> each causes. Taylor also argued that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most lighthearted of the seven published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spur the series' success: the book opens with news of a //**<span class="wiki_link_ext">**//double murder//** **//<span style="background-color: rgb(196, 196, 18);">, for example.<span class="wiki_link_ext">[104 ] //**