If the Author is Dead, Who's Updating Her Website? J.K. Rowling and the Battle for the Books
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| Title: | If the Author is Dead, Who's Updating Her Website? J.K. Rowling and the Battle for the Books |
| Creator: | Angua |
| Date(s): | October 2006 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Harry Potter |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | If the Author is Dead, Who's Updating Her Website? J.K. Rowling and the Battle for the Books, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
If the Author is Dead, Who's Updating Her Website? J.K. Rowling and the Battle for the Books is an essay by Angua.
It was posted to The Leaky Cauldron.
Essay Sections
- The Death of the Author
- Why the Author Speaks
- The Risks of Speaking Out
- The Rewards of Speaking Out
- Types of Authorial Influence
- Influencing How Readers Experience the Books
- Influencing the Critical Consensus
Topics Discussed
- authorial intent
- controlling reader thoughts and interpretations
- her involvement in fan sites
- Rowling's attempts to guide her readers through their reading process
- Lev Grossman's 2005 article J.K. Rowling Hogwarts And All
- much, much more
Excerpts
Harry Potter readers have been given a wealth of information in supplemental books, interviews with J.K. Rowling, and posts on Rowling's official website: information we use to help in our understanding of the books and the world Rowling has created and to try to solve mysteries in the books' plots, and much information that we enjoy simply for its own sake. According to currently dominant literary theory, however, "the author is dead' and we ought not to be listening to a writer talk about her own books, much less letting her influence how we read and understand those books. Will J.K. Rowling's communications to us outside of her books have a lasting effect on the interpretation and estimation of her works, or will her words have no long-term impact, as modern literary theory demands and predicts? That battle is being fought right now, and we ’ all of us ’ are in the thick of it.
First, I would argue that it is perfectly natural for Rowling to try to influence how readers experience her books. That is the normal behavior of an author while writing the text, after all. Writers manipulate their readers. They play with their emotions, mislead them, confuse them, dazzle them, dole out information in slow dribbles, and in general try to conduct them on a magic carpet ride of tension and release, anticipation and fulfillment, puzzlement and enlightenment, despair and joy beyond hope. This is Rowling's habitual relationship with her readers, and it is asking a lot of her to suddenly change her personality when she is communicating with them by some other means than through the text of a book and suddenly become hands-off and laissez-faire. If she thinks that some readers have gotten a bit off the rails and that it will adversely affect their experience of the books, I think it is perfectly reasonable from her perspective to want to nudge them back on track.
In this context, we can regard J.K. Rowling's communications with her readers in interviews and question-and-answer sessions, in the two supplemental books, and on her own website as part of an ongoing struggle for control over how the Harry Potter books will be read and understood. Not acknowledging that she is "dead' not accepting that her opinions about her own books are considered to be inapplicable and irrelevant in most modern literary theories, not being content to send her books out into the world and otherwise keep her mouth shut, J.K. Rowling uses the tools at her command ’ creativity, humor, and her absolutely unique knowledge about the world she has created ’ to guide and shape how readers (and critics) respond to her works. This essay will examine how that works.
The next significant thing I remember Rowling doing was opening her own website in May of 2004 ’ her own bully pulpit, a place where she could entertain us and speak to us on her own terms, with no reporters or television interviewers intervening. And one of the first things she did on her website was to begin issuing awards to fans ’ both the fan site awards and the special tidbits that we got as a reward for solving the puzzles she set for us on the site. I very much doubt that this was in any way a deliberate tactic on her part, but I'm sure you can see how powerful this was in setting the tone of the relationship between us. With one stroke, Rowling established herself as an authority over her fans ’ judging the quality of our websites, setting tasks for us to perform, and (in the "Rumours" section) giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to many of our fan theories such as the "Snape is a vampire" theory and the "Dumbledore is time-travel Ron" theory. Sometimes she mentioned individual fans by name (or online nickname), with words of praise or gentle teasing. It was electrifying. Most of us were thrilled by her attention and perfectly willing to jump through any hoops she cared to set us to get rewards like sneak peeks at Book Six and perhaps, we fervently hoped, a title and release date!
From J.K. Rowling's perspective, her books will be a success if they are entertaining and funny stories, moral but not preachy, with a meticulously well-crafted, surprising plot, and interesting characters who grow up in a realistic way. She believes the most important themes to be found in the books involve death, loss, and evil, and hopes that they will encourage tolerance and discourage racism and prejudice, including prejudice against women or the overweight. It is not at all certain, of course, that those who discuss and write about Rowling's books will accept these as important goals or ’ even if they do ’ that they will agree that Rowling has succeeded in meeting her own standards. But it is very likely that her statements will contribute to the discussion in some way. The more vividly-phrased, entertaining, and persuasive her words about her own books are, the more likely they are to be remembered and discussed.
It remains to be seen how the Harry Potter books will fare in the judgment of history; most serious critical consideration will probably not begin until the series is complete. It remains to be seen whether any of J.K. Rowling's words about her own works will be quoted and remembered, whether her work will be viewed from the perspectives she herself prefers, or whether her many expressions of authorial intent will be austerely disregarded, as literary theory demands. But no one will be able to say she hasn't tried. Rowling's great popularity has given her numerous opportunities to influence how her work is viewed and she has seized many of them. She has refused to be "dead" and has staked her claim on her own works. We will have to wait and see whether and to what degree posterity accepts that claim as valid.