I must be a low-down, dirty misanthropist, apparently. I must hate humankind; I must stomp out rainbows and kick small dogs in the stomach. I must kill innocent children; I must cheat at Monopoly; I must steal medicine from the elderly and hate America. Why? Because I can't fucking stand Harry Potter. More than that, if I somehow come to find that you read Harry Potter and are over the age of, let's say, twelve, I respect you a great deal less.
I know you're asking, “But why Nick?” Given the popularity of this shit, I'm obviously in the minority. Luckily, as the old maxim goes, just because a million people say a stupid thing is great doesn't mean it's not a fucking ridiculously stupid thing.
When I go to parties and speak out against the sheer stupidity of reading children's literature in an attempt to be/remain “cool,” I get whole groups of people who don't read anything but pop (pulp) shit telling me how great the work is and how misguided I am.
This makes me laugh. I mean, not to sound like a prick, but I read more novels in a week than most people do in a year. I know what good work is; I know what bad work is. Harry Potter, for instance, is what most people who read classify as bad/popular literature. Other examples of such books include the work of Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks, Ann Rice and the lot.
Now, if you've a made a reading career out of that shit, to you, I say, read a fucking good book for once. Coming from the purely literary merit angle, most people seem to think that J.K. Rowling is a genius, when in actuality most of what one learns in Writing 101 is not employed in any of the Harry Potter books. They're simply awful.
The movies, while pretty, aren't much better.
And speaking of the movies, I'd like to rant about how people watch them and then say they've read the fucking book.
This isn't bullshit unique to Harry Potter though. I've called people out on A Clockwork Orange, American Psycho and the lot.
The thing about movies that come from books is that they truly aren't alike. It's the burden of medium, kids. A writer writes a book based on his own image; you read the book based on your own. Then, when one throws a fucking director's reading in and mixes it up, you have a completely different story. Passages are cut, dialogue is changed, actors don't look the same as you would have pictured their character, etc. etc. etc.
Watching the movie instead of reading may work for a Shakespearean Lit class (IT DOES, I TELL YOU) but don't act like you're savvy to me when you're a fucking poser. I know that most people are too lazy to read and that's why they settle for the movie (unlike you, reader, who deserves credit when credit is due…you're obviously reading something else right now), but c'mon bitch, don't try to pull that shit on me…I pull shit for a living.
Okay, now I'm done with that.
The point is, reading is cool. I find girls who read a least five times sexier than girls who don't (appeareance pending). It's just that Harry fucking Potter is not cool. You're grown-up now, fuckers; read something that grow-ups read.
It's not that I'm that stubborn…it's that I plan to age both gradually and gracefully. I don't like new music. I don't like new television. In fact, I think that both are the reason why kids these days (see Middle-schoolers) are such fucking punks.
Now, before I get a slew of people firing back with “You just don't get it.” or “It's a good story, man,” or “you're an asshole,” I'd like to say save it. I'm friends with a group of people who don't read anything but that horseshit. Well, nix that. They read this horseshit too…every once in a while.
Thanks,
Gaudio