But isn't all opera twaddle? I was asked.

[MrGongGong]

The genre is highly formulaic. To find similarities to other works is by no means shocking or plagiarism. But think about this: the first Harry Potter book did not have a massive ad campaign behind it, in fact, nobody expected it to do particularly well. And yet it lead to the enormous success it has been. So, while all these other, similar stories rut in relative obscurity, this book took off, driven at first mostly by audience reaction. Maybe there is indeed a quality about this work that the overs lack, which may lie exactly in the successful blending of tropes and formulas.

I think it had a very clever marketing strategy with a narrative about the author that seemed to work.
The books are dross but the films are entertaining,

( Jill Murphy's book is far from "obscure")

[LMcD]

I’ve heard anyone in the north use it - Must be a M25 environs myth!

More of an end-of-the-A14 jest.

[Serial_Apologist]

http://web.archive.org/web/200712231...wamp/worst.htm

"Access blocked" says my computer, meaning I shall have to read that link late at night!!!

[Demetrius]

"Access blocked" says my computer, meaning I shall have to read that link late at night!!!

Isn't all that naughty though, as long as you don't consider brooms to be suggestive.

@MrGongGong Your comment about the marketing campaign ignores the fact that that wasn't the case in the beginning. The first edition had 500 copies, 300 of which were shipped off to libraries. They brought it in as a sleeper in the hope that it may take off and were quite ready to abandon it. Then came the critical and audience reaction, which was at that point widely positive. After it became a runaway success and the marketing machine set in to milk the thing, the critics turned against it, mostly on the basis that a) everything that sells can't be good and b) that if it sells, it should be a work of literary exception that represents a new way of telling a story or tell a new story. It doesn't. It does tell stuff that has been told over and over. It just blends it better than most.

And it was relative obscurity. The Worst Witch book series seem to have sold about 4-5 Million copies (possibly a bit more before it was picked up by young puffin, the sources are not that great). Over 500 million copies of HP books have been sold. And with its various TV and Movie adaptions, it is not as if the Worst Witch hasn't seen any promotion.

I despair at judgements of a work in ten or less words, whether it is "the books are dross" or "all opera is twaddle". It lacks any reference to what exactly you take exception to; and leaves any one who reads these comments with no clue whether your reasonswould coincide with their own or not.

Compare to:

Actually some years ago I came across a copy of the first book and tried to read it, but gave up not long afterwards precisely because I found it very badly written indeed. I wasn't expecting anything with exalted literary qualities and Im happy to read say a SF novel that isn't well written if the author's imagination is sufficient, but I didn't find that to be the case either: as you've said, you have tropes from various familiar genres, including the well-worn boarding school yarn and playing up to young readers' fascination with bodily secretions etc. etc. wrapped up in pretty nondescript language.

This is something to work with :) The first book of HP (and frankly, also the second) is, though Rowling oddly denies it, most definitely a modern book for children, not adults or even young adults. Thus the snot and runny nose gags, the relatively simplistic character relationships etc. I would still contest that it is a good children's book, though. The nondescript writing stile (in the sense of not describing anything) is a fault of newer fiction in general, on the concept that the more you tell and describe, the more you prohibit the readers options to embellish your story through his or her imagination, often ignoring the possibility that you might have to whet that imagination first. Rowlings corrects that (somewhat) in the later books. The later books are not books for children in any way. One of the major strengths for HP is that the books grew with their audience, getting more complex and heavier and more to a young adults or an adults taste. That meant that those who discovered the first book in the late 90s as 9 or 10 year old children could still be into this story as 17-20 year olds when the last book came out. It accounts for a lot of the success the books had, but might prohibit a continued success in the future (you can hardly feed the later books to children, and once the marketing wave recedes, most adults will find it difficult to get into the first books, so that it becomes difficult to get into the series at all).

The Worst Witch seems to have stayed a children's work throughout its 8 books. There you have a huge difference. The 7th Worst Witch book seems to be about getting a dog who likes to fly on a broom. The 7th HP book is a major cataclysm, a good third of the whole extended cast dies, some in a very descriptive fashion.

[MrGongGong]

Blimey, you are on a mission
Why on earth would I waste my time expanding on my opinion of HP anyway ?
I had a similar reaction to Richard

and would like to be able to get to the bar at Kings Cross without having to struggle past hordes of people taking photographs of themselves pretending to be getting on an invisible train or something like that ? humbug humbug baaaah

[doversoul1]

Sorry to go off from the topic (opera) but I agree with Demetrius about the first Harry Potter. It was a very good children’s book in the same way as Enid Blyton’s books were/are. There is no point in assessing it as anything like a literary work; it’s an excellent light entertainment. And as Demetrius says, there was no publicity but it spread through the children who read it. One of the reasons why this happened was that children’s books had ‘gone realistic’ for over a decade and there had been no fantastic adventure books for younger children. It was very comfortably formulaic and the author managed to pack it with everything that children enjoyed. It’s quite fun to read if you can set yourself at the level. The success of the rest of the series is more a question of adult mentality/psychology and sociology. The ‘secret’ is, I suppose, it is so much more fun and comfortable to read something dark in children’s books than in serious books for adults. As for child readers, there seems to be something addictive about the books. The author knows it and seems to be doing very well.

Come to think of it, most Baroque operas are comfortably formulaic and packed with bits that audience expects to enjoy. It’s just that some rise well above it with great music.

[Bryn]

Blimey, you are on a mission
Why on earth would I waste my time expanding on my opinion of HP anyway ?
I had a similar reaction to Richard

and would like to be able to get to the bar at Kings Cross without having to struggle past hordes of people taking photographs of themselves pretending to be getting on an invisible train or something like that ? humbug humbug baaaah

Oh, the filmed versions are fair enough to blob out to, but the Barry Trotter series makes a better read on train journeys, I think.

[Richard Tarleton]

and would like to be able to get to the bar at Kings Cross without having to struggle past hordes of people taking photographs of themselves pretending to be getting on an invisible train or something like that ? humbug humbug baaaah

And - remaining off topic for a moment - the village of Glenfinnan is regularly choked with cars, to the chagrin of the unfortunate locals, as people from all corners of the globe try to get selfies with The Jacobite steaming across the viaduct - tho I suppose we can only blame the films for that.

[french frank]

IThe first edition had 500 copies, 300 of which were shipped off to libraries. They brought it in as a sleeper in the hope that it may take off and were quite ready to abandon it. Then came the critical and audience reaction, which was at that point widely positive.

(And, as I remember, it was turned down initially by a very large number of publishers). Partly, I think this is timing. We are going through a phase where 'fantasy literature' is a dominant genre (by 'fantasy' I refer to events/people which, judged by our own perceived reality could not exist, as distinct from creations which are inherently perfectly possible, if imagined). Doctor Who is another example. Where is the appeal over tales of 'real life' (tbd if insisted upon). Did it start with The Lord of the Rings? The initial work - The Hobbit - was written for children; Doctor Who began as a children's programme, Harry Potter was a series for children.

Getting back to opera think of Wagner: the essence of these stories goes back to a remote past when the 'perception of reality' was quite different from ours; the stories were not intended for children, though children's versions were produced much later on, along with Grimms' (apostrophe? relax, Wiki says Grimms') fairy tales, Hans Andersen.

Is it that 'children' (of any age) recognise a layer of 'reality' which more prosaic adults miss? In which case, why would opera be perceived as 'twaddle'. [Doh! here endeth. Must curb my thoughts and go down to start lunch]

[Richard Barrett]

In fiction there seems to be a fairly strict dividing line between "fantasy" writing (whether intended for children or not) and what for want of a better word we could call "realistic" writing where "impossible" things don't happen. This distinction isn't really relevant to music in general, and opera in particular. The way creative musicians use their imagination to activate the imagination of listeners is in a way much more clear, if also more difficult to describe. Maybe this is a factor influencing some people's dismissive view of opera. (I'm not an opera fan by any means, even if many of my favourite musical works are indeed operas, and in its traditional form I think it's run its historical course as a creative medium, as I said on another thread the other day.)

[Dave2002]

"well written" ?
As free from plagiarism as the works (ALLEGEDLY) of ALW more like

You're not suggesting that ALW ever listened to La Fanciulla del West by any chance are you?

[MrGongGong]

You're not suggesting that ALW ever listened to La Fanciulla del West by any chance are you?

"Echoes" of it ? (ALLEGEDLY )

[Serial_Apologist]

"Probably the greatest musical ever composed" - Andrew Marr's description of "Orgy with Bess" while introducing this morning's closing act to his show. A musical??

[Lat-Literal]

Re Potter, the average commuter, often female, was looking for escapism from corporate slavery. So desperate was her plight that she opted one, for a book which she didn't read to her "kids" but enjoyed as if she was her kids the very week before, two, she opted for one on sado-masochism. The latter was a reflection of the workplace. The former only worked as it was written by a woman who was permanently on the dole and drawing massive benefits. As for opera, no, none of it is twaddle but I'm aggravated that circumstances have prevented me from getting to Porgy and Bess. That's over a hundred quid down the drain but it pales into insignificance with the bitter disappointment. I'm hoping for better luck with La Boeme.

[teamsaint]

(And, as I remember, it was turned down initially by a very large number of publishers). [Doh! here endeth. Must curb my thoughts and go down to start lunch]

I'd suspect that the first book was actually turned down by a great number of agents, since they tend to control what gets in front of publishers.

Re the print run, I was intrigued by the 500 print run, which appears to have been because of a mistake on the printing.

Demetrius may know more about fiction publishing than me, but I'm not aware of any mainstream publishers who do anything other than produce their initial print run with a view to making a profit or at least breaking even , which is impossible on a 500 print run unless the RRP is sky high, and to getting the book widely distributed, which in the first instance means into Waterstones and WHS. One of the questions that publishers routinely get asked is about the print run , which indicates their confidence in the book, as well as their market expectation. If you tell buyers that the print run is 500,which is likely also the market expectation, they aren't going to support you very far, specially in the hyper competitive world of fiction. But I'd be interested to be enlightened further.