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Terry Pratchett vs. JK Rowling, FIGHT!
Aug. 3rd, 2005 09:42 amThe title used to read, according to Neil Gaiman, "PRATCHETT ANGER AT ROWLING'S RISE", which has now been edited to read "Pratchett takes swipe at Rowling" - which isn't true, either, but at least it's not the petty and vindictive title they had earlier...
Here's the story:
Terry Pratchett (supposedly) responds to the furor by pointing out that he wasn't attacking Rowling, but rather asking why this article was trying to elevate her at the expense of other fantasy writers (in specific, tarring the genre with this image: "The genre tends to be deeply conservative -- politically, culturally, psychologically. It looks backward to an idealized, romanticized, pseudofeudal world, where knights and ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves.")
"And then there's my question. Why didn't the interviewer ask it? Here's the world's best-selling fantasy writer who has just said she hadn't thought she was writing fantasy and also that she doesn't really like the stuff. She goes on to say that she didn't finish TLOTR or the Narnia series and has issues with Lewis. No problem there, but all this revelatory stuff just floated past, apparently unexamined. I'd like to know how an author can write in a genre she doesn't like -- really. I'd like to know what she thinks she is writing."
(Original letter's text here.)
So, there you go. If people start exploding about this, you can now officially roll your eyes at them.
Here's the story:
Terry Pratchett (supposedly) responds to the furor by pointing out that he wasn't attacking Rowling, but rather asking why this article was trying to elevate her at the expense of other fantasy writers (in specific, tarring the genre with this image: "The genre tends to be deeply conservative -- politically, culturally, psychologically. It looks backward to an idealized, romanticized, pseudofeudal world, where knights and ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves.")
"And then there's my question. Why didn't the interviewer ask it? Here's the world's best-selling fantasy writer who has just said she hadn't thought she was writing fantasy and also that she doesn't really like the stuff. She goes on to say that she didn't finish TLOTR or the Narnia series and has issues with Lewis. No problem there, but all this revelatory stuff just floated past, apparently unexamined. I'd like to know how an author can write in a genre she doesn't like -- really. I'd like to know what she thinks she is writing."
(Original letter's text here.)
So, there you go. If people start exploding about this, you can now officially roll your eyes at them.
