NEWS: Lynn Shepherd and the HuffPost Explosion

So Lynn Shepherd's opinion of JK Rowling's further adventures in fiction exploded over the weekend and it's probably time I weighed in with my two penneth worth.

Shepherd's basic point is that JKR has become a phenomenon, and that everything published post-Potter will predictably go number one, have a million reprints and be subject to scenes not seen since Dickens' day. The article asserts that Shepherd is sick of it and that Rowling should step aside as she has become too big for the bookshops.

There is some truth in this, and I believe Rowling herself would agree, to an extent. If she didn't feel the pressure of the weight of expectation, then why else would she publish The Cuckoo's Calling as Robert Galbraith, and attempt to hide her true identity? I feel the circus around both the Galbraith reveal and the release of the The Casual Vacancy was unwarranted, and that Rowling would want the books to be judged on their literary merit alone. 

Where the HuffPost article loses its way, and its audience, is to suggest that Rowling should step down and retire from writing. I like Rowling. I like Harry Potter. I haven't read Cuckoo or Vacancy, but I believe she is a master storyteller. I do not think she is the best writer out there today, and can find a lot of fault with her books, but purely on a pedantic level, as I believe the overall effect is achieved (IE: It entertained). BUT I will defend her right to write whatever she wants, and publish it however she wants. 

Not that she needs my support of course...

The real thing that springs out of Shepherd's article is her apparent loathing and antipathy for children's books:

"I did think it a shame that adults were reading them[Potter books] (rather than just reading them to their children, which is another thing altogether), mainly because there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds"

That's where she lost me. Any good point lurking in the article was washed away by the sweeping statement made above. Lynn, you wrote a silly thing. Children's books are the bedrock of literature, and capable of 'stimulating' and enlightening any mind which reads them. Stop blogging for attention, and get out to experience something before you comment on it.


image: (c) Jenny Rolio http://www.sxc.hu/profile/buzzybee