h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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i know there's been a lot of controversy with these books. to an extent, i live with it. but that's a pretty harsh thing to say about anyone.

care to explain why you have this opinion?

Well, I read the first book in the series and found it to be one of the worst books that I've ever read (and I've read "To Kill a Mocking Bird"). I seriously don't like her books, and feel that if she wont stop writing by herself, then she's going to have to die.

I have read the 5 Harry Potter books and I liked them. More importantly, they have inspired many children to read. And in an age with so much TV and video games, anything that encourages children to read is valuable.

Yes, but there are so many other BETTER books for children to read.

There are also WORSE books to read! But if it starts them reading, hopefully, they will find better books. Are there other books you have in mind that are better? I'm just curious.

The WORST book you've ever read? I doubt it. This really sounds like someone who read it with a negative prejudice because it is popular. You can say you disliked it, that you failed to be interested by it, that's fine with me. But to say that something is not good only because you didn't like is just wrong.

BTW, I'm pretty neutral about Harry Potter. But I'm impressed by the huge popularity and good marketing surrounding it...

So your claim is that To "Kill a Mockingbird" is better than the first Harry Potter book? I'd have to agree, To "Kill a Mockingbird" is one of the great American classics. Many consider it to be among the best books from the 20th century. I'm glad someone made you read it even though you're in the slow English class, so you could at least be made aware of something worthwhile outside of your tiny little mind, even if you couldn't understand it. Anyway, not enjoying Harry Potter doesn't make you special either, it makes you less.

Just because her books are derivative and not necessarily great literature, it doesn't mean the deserves to die. I fail to see the link between mediocre novels and immediate death.

Especially as the books are enjoyed by so many people and make them happy.

blaue Augen: I'm quite partial to Pratchett. (One of the rare guys who always manages to make me laugh. )

Slamex Sunsneezer: You're right, it wasn't the worst book that I ever read. That would have been that god-awful book that I got from the library once about a boy who opens a a coffin and gets small-poxs.

Kyle: I'll have you know that I was in the Higher Lever English class for the Leaving Cert and got a B in it! (As far as I can tell, that's like getting an A in British A-levels.) And I found that "To Kill a Mocking Bird" (Which I did for Junior Cert [GCSEs]) was extreemly dull. But that's partly because I find the American deep-south to be extreemly dull. "The Remains of the Day" (Which I did for Leaving Cert) was a far more entertaining book. It had Anthony Hopkins.

Niwt: I'm overexagerating about her being killed, but I really don't see why people read her books.

How can a book have an actor in it? Unless it's a biography. I was kidding about you being in the slow English class, I just wish you were, because that way it would explain your irrational likes and dislikes. Now I didn't want to have to quote at you but here it goes: 'Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.' If your English teacher made you read 'To Kill a Mockingbird it was because it's the quintessential American novel for that time period. If you can't appreciate that then there's a huge chunk of my country you'll never understand.

No one ever made us read a British book in high school and now I'm having to play catch-up, because when some British guy insults one of the best books we've got, I don't want to feel so out of touch with him that I do something unhelpful like make fun of his inability to spell the word extreme despite all that training he must have gotten in the advanced English class.

Terry Pratchett's good, but he's a fluff writer. I hope you're not one of those people that's so cynical that you can only follow parody authors. And what children's books are so much better than Harry Potter? I always preferred the Chronicles of Narnia, even though it sometimes tried too hard to jam those Christian themes into the story, but I have to admit that as sheer entertainment goes, I've never read a children's book that made me feel more like I was there with the characters as they did all their silly little inspiring adventures than the Harry Potter books; and the cleverness, my god, I've never read twist-endings as good as this, except in those Dan Brown books, but he's definitely not a children's author.

Er...going off topic slightly, does anybody know what happened to a thread called "world's favourite athor my butt" on this page? It disappeared. I'm just wondering as threads don't usually go missing over the weekend

Kyle

OK, first of all the bit about Antony Hopkins was a joke. He stared in the film of the book. Plus, I'm not British, I'm Irish. But I'll let that go.


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That quote seems to suggest that you see the world in a very ordered way. You seems to think that a person bing stupid would explain things that you don't understand properly yourself. Like most Americans you seem to be a romanticist. This is further pushed forth by your quoting of "Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well". You seem to forget that different people have different tastes. It's not that Mockingbird is a bad novel, It's just that I don't like it personaly, in the same way that I don't like Harry Potter.


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I am a cynic. I don't only like parody novels, but they are my favourite sort. That doesn't meant that I don't enjoy other books; I've already said that I like The Remains of the Day. The Chronicals of Narnia are too dry for me. The children are too unbelievably nice, and the Christrian dogma was offensive to atheists like myself.

I haven't read any Terry Pratchett, but maybe I'll give him a try.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Material's books ("The Golden Compass," "The Subtle Knife," and "The Amber Spyglass") are very good children's literature. At least I think so. But I must admit I haven't read much children's literature lately. I did like "To Kill Mockingbird," and I'm not too keen on the US south myself.

I do think most likes and dislikes are irrational. Sure we might have reasons for liking something, but I don't think those reasons' make it rational. We just like some stuff and dislike others. But it sure makes for interesting discussions!

Believe it or not, here in a America, Irish and English mean pretty much the same thing. So if we almost read a British book in High School then we nearly almost would have read an Irish book afterwards.

Yes, I do prefer a little romanticism in my literature, but the Romantic period ended a century or so ago, and so I don't see how Americans can all be advocates of some literary period that's so antiquated that only children's cartoons can imitate it and get away with it.

If I didn't appreciate the old Romantic styles and stories then I wouldn't be able to enjoy Terry Pratchett novels, which are obviously written by a man with a deep understanding and respect for the works he parodies. This is how he does it so well. If he only wrote to make fun of fantasy and science fiction and didn't have appreciation for it, he'd only be half the writer he is. Do you actually think when Terry Pratchett sits down to read books like Harry Potter that he thinks them terrible, and that their author's barely deserve to live, and then he goes and makes fun of them in his novels? Impossible.

I'm agnostic, I don't care about God or gods one way or the other, but that couldn't possiblly stop me from being entertained by the Chronicles of Narnia. You think opinions are always right because they can't be proven wrong, because a person's taste isn't subject to anything? That's ridiculous, there will always be good opinions that come from free and fair non-biased perspectives, and poor opinions born out of incomprehension, stubbornness, closed-mindedness, and possibly general depression, which one might want to see a doctor about.

Oh yes, I have read the His Dark Materials trilogy, and it is better than Harry Potter, at least in certain ways. Terry Pratchett has written a lot of books in the Discworld series where he makes fun of pretty much every fantasy and sometimes science fiction cliches. The problem is his first books aren't his best, and the series sort of relies on its past books because of all the continuing characters. If you want to read his best stuff you have to be ready to jump in and get a handle of characters that have already done a lot of stuff beforehand.

Thank you for the warning about some of the Pratchett characters.

Usually, when I am reading a novel it is for my enjoyment. Whether it is considered "good literature" is not a concern. If I like it great, and if I don't I'll wish I had been sleeping instead. I think I need to join a book club though. I think it's fascinating listening to others discussing a book. This usually leads me to other insights I missed on my own.

Also, I am an American, and I am aware that Ireland is not England. Though I don't know enough to give detailed descriptions of cultural differences (other than a few stereotypes in my head.)

Kyle, what did you like/dislike about the His Dark Materials trilogy in relations to the Harry Potter Books?

His Dark Materials deals with much higher themes. I might even go so far as to say, the highest themes you can have, and they're in children's books no less. Harry Potter's themes are just your basic level motifs. So in that sense, Pullman's novels are greater.

Also, Pullman's novels are more subtle, especially the last two in the trilogy work on more than one level. In Harry Potter there is only one level, the only subtle parts are the hints as to the future surprises that, once they are revealed, are explained at the reader to make sure they didn't miss anything.

The characters are more complex too, when Rowling's characters are acting one way while thinking another way she makes it painfully obvious, but Pullman lets readers decide for themselves what the relationship between a character's pretensions and actual intents is.

The characters in His Dark Materials are more realistic as well. Lyra thinks and acts like her age, but Harry is smarter than most of the adults in the story at the same age.

The imagination of the stories has a grander scope too. Harry Potter books take place within a magic world that exists within the regular world as if it were hidden. the Dark Material novels take place mostly outside of the regular world because they are about the nature of reality, and you have to go outside of just this world in order to get a perspective on that.

The plots are less formulaic also, since the three books are really one big story, and the individual Harry Potter books are pretty much self-contained, which is better for marketing. There's a lot about Harry Potter that's better than His Dark Materials though. The Harry Potter series is easier to understand, it's funnier in parts, it connects with children more effectively, and the writing, while more simplistic, is also very clear and easy to visualize.

I don't see that much of a difference between Americans ans Canadians, but I'm sure that you still wouldn't like to be called Canadian.

And there is a bigger difference between Irish and English literature than you seem to think. British literature would be more based on adventure (because of their empire) where as Irish literature would be more based on suffering (because of the famine).

I don't feel that Pratchetts earlier work is his weakest. Pratchetts fans usually vote Mort as their favourite Discworld novel, and thats number 4 of 28. And I usually find that most of his novels are easy enough to get into even if you didn't read his earlier work. My favourite novel is Men at Arms (number 15) but when I first read that I hadn't read Guards! Guards! (number 8) which is the preceding novel to it.

I haven't read any of the Dark Materials novels, but I do intend to as soon as I finish reading Robert Rankin.

Look, I just didn't like the Herry Potter novels. I found them dull and was only joking when I said that I think she should die. (But she should give all her illgotten money to charity. Preferably to the Orangutan Foundation [Pratchetts chosen charity].)

Good point, Mort is probably the best book to read for a first Discworld novel. I know that's what I'd have myself read if I had a time machine. I ended up reading Thief of Time first, which I now see was probably one of the worst ones to pick.