Yesterday, as you may have heard, The Casual Vacancy was released. It’s the new book by J.K. Rowling aka “The Harry Potter Lady”. I wrote about my own experiences with it both here and at GoodReads.
The reviews for the book–mostly negative, but a few positive–were uniform in one aspect. Each and every review I’ve seen mentions the graphic nature of the book. (Tangent Alert: They all say this is an “Adult” book. Can we agree right now that we should stop using “Adult” and start using “explicit”? Because “Adult” should not mean “comfortable with abusive sex including pedophila, drug abuse, lying and cruelty.” Those things are not “Adult”. If anything they are a malignant immaturity.) Several reviews printed lines outright, including long, graphic depictions of pornography as seen through the eyes of teenage boys. Apparently they’re teenage boys with a medical degree because Rowling uses the word Vulva. Now we all know I’m a fan of the word vulva but if you’re writing about the world seen through the eyes of teenage boys they aren’t going to be all Medline Diagram about the thing. File this under “complaints about the writing”.
Those select parents with whom I’m angry–aren’t I supposed to be talking about The Parents? And why I hate them? Okay, here we go. If you typed Casual Vacancy into Google yesterday–Two Words–in thirty seconds or less you would have seen at least ten reviews all of which talk about the “Adult” nature of the book. When I went to GoodReads late last night to weigh the opinions of non-pro reviewers I was hit in the face with LiveJournal-style fandom juvenalia. This is the world of children hyperstimulated by visuals, who can’t express themselves in words and must use a surfeit of obnoxiously annoying moving GIFs to display their feelings. I saw thousands–literally thousands–of uses of the word “SQUEEE!” and pictures of people, cats and Disney Characters emoting wildly.
There are a lot of children excited about this book. A lot of children who still think it’s a cozy mystery a la Miss Marple. There were also a lot of children who openly admitted that their parents bought them the book without vetting it.
I will be open here. My parents let me read anything I wanted. Anything. There was not a single thing that was forbidden to read in my house, although my mother was not happy with Helter Skelter or The Shining. I read Hitler: A Study In Tyranny when I was eight years old. (It was the only book on our camping trip I hadn’t read three times.) I’m in favour of kids reading anything they want.
But I’m also very much in favour of knowing what they want. If I had asked for this book my mother would have asked me what it was about, but she would have also asked other adults. She wouldn’t ask to forbid me, but to know what I was reading. But apparently many of the parents that are raising our next generation are so disengaged from their children that they have no idea they’re handing over a five-hundred page political satire full of pedophilia, drug addiction and adulterous sex.
Every one of the problems Rowling addresses are real things that we all need to be aware of. As a Christ follower I firmly believe we need to have awareness of the enemy’s world so that we know exactly how to fight. But I don’t think the twelve-year-olds who are obviously subliterate to begin with, so unable to handle words that they use pictographs to express themselves, are in the place where this book will do anything but leave them with darkness in their mind and a true disappointment with reading altogether.
Parents, stop checking out of your kids’ lives. Quit trying to buy them off with gadgets and amusements. Talk to them. Teach them the value of words, the value of listening. Last night I saw a bunch of kids who seemed to have been raised in a world where they are never listened to fully and must express themselves in a stream of inane babble and moving pictures.
You have wasted your precious gifts, and I can’t pretend I’m not angry about it.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
C. is utterly uninterested in the book, so I guess I’ve lucked out. I do, on rare occasion, say “hey, why don’t you wait up on that book?” but most of the time, I read the book first and then we just talk about the book after she’s done, just like I would with anyone else who shares common readings.
As she’s entered adolescence, I’ve also learned how to steer her into reading opportunities and I don’t see anything wrong with providing the unlimited buffet at a pre-screened site. Every Friday night after school, I take C. and her best friend to the local library for their “nerd date.” They do homework and look at books together. It’s less than two hours a week, but I’ve found that they both really look forward to it and they do a great job picking out books that are interesting, age-appropriate, and generally well-written. When doing it this way, they mostly don’t wind up getting the books that are being pushed by the hype-machine (whereas if I take them to Barnes and Noble or have them wander around at the Scholastic Book Fair, they gravitate towards the titles with blood-dripped roses and very pale girls because they have pencils and book bags and tie-ins and a LOT of marketing designed to pump up the interest).
Megs wanted to read Twilight. So I read it, let her read it (because, I’m like your parents and let my kids read anything) and we talked about it. We talked about how creepy it was that Edward was in her room while she was sleeping and she didn’t know about it. We talked about how Edward is described in incredible detail and how Bella is not described well and that has a lot to do with how popular it is with the teen girl and their mom set. Like Bridgett, I try to steer her toward good stuff to read, but when she wants to read utter trash, I let her read it. As long as I have read it first. That’s how it works in our family.
Wait, you mean parents should have discussions about the book instead of rushing off to the schoolboard to have things banned? *faints*
I agree, but I have to say, as an engaged parent, it is near impossible for me to know what my kids are reading all the time. I have three avid readers, and one who is learning to read. They can’t very easily buy books w/o me knowing it, except the eldest, who downloads free books on her computer. How am I supposed to monitor that? It’s a brave new world! Anyway, I’m like your mom. I allow them freedom with books, and a whole lot of privacy. I just hope that I’ve managed to teach them values and critical thinking.
The three people responding here are not nor ever have been among that group of Parents Who Anger Me.
But, really, those people are likely not reading blogs. I’m not sure what they’re doing. In my prejudice against them I’m likely to be dismissive and say something glib.
In most cases they would probably respond back with something about having to work 8765 thousand hours to support their kids. At which point I would only ask “if their well being is that important to you why would you drop the ball five yards shy of the goal line by not engaging them?”
You know… I just realised that I only qualified “parents” in the title and not in the body copy. I need to fix that. I’m not angry at all parents.
I’m struck by the contradiction of the parent who has a child who actually wants to read a real book, instead of playing games online, but who squanders that opportunity to connect and direct their childs intellectual development. A parent who doesnt involve in this area will likely be very sorry later…
I’m with you Katherine. I don’t think adult needs to be overdone sex (especially not badly done sex) or drinking all the time or whatever other crap somehow vomits over novels these days. This is why I tend to read young adult. Even though it happens, it doesn’t often happen in such a creepy manner.
My sister, an ardent feminist, was unhappy when her two sons, in their teens became enchanted with rap and heavy metal respectively. She finessed the problem not only by talking to them about the misogynist stuff in the lyrics that she found objectionable, but also by telling them that if they wanted a CD with a parental warning sticker on it, they would have to buy it themselves, with money they earned. That way she didn’t have to censor what they listened to, but also didn’t have to feel that she was aiding and abetting their worst tastes, either.
You know, I can understand that some parents are really busy, and that internet access and smart phones and all sorts of things set barriers to being able to monitor your teens. But the fact is, relationships are *built.*
I am a homeschool mom, who is with her kids almost 24/7. I have more contact with them than I sometimes actually want :P. My bff, on the other hand, has kids in public school, both kids are in about 847 activities, and she works full-time and does side work to boot. Guess what? She’s no less involved in her kids’ lives than I am.
Part of it is not at all screening your kids’ books. It’s teaching your kids to be discerning. A TEEN should be able to SEE for themselves that the new Rowling book is NOT another MG fantasy. Hello. The issue is not so much parents not screening, but kids being out there that can’t communicate, as you said, with actual words. Which I find really odd, if they are readers…
To be honest, I wonder who these teens are. All the teens I know are completely aware of the nature of the book, and have actually had conversations like those you and I have had on whether or not the book itself will be any good, being such a deviation from her previous work, etc. In other words, the teens I know do not post animated Disney images and “squee.” 😛
It is…sad.
It is sad on multiple levels. I know many hyperlexic, very engaged teens. One of my favourite people ever is a guy in his early teens.
But judging from all the hate mail I’ve gotten on GoodReads there are a lot of teens and early-adults who grew up in Fandom and have transferred a large part of their familial adoration to Rowling and gotten a great deal of their feelings of kinship from other fans.
The reactions are out of line with reality.
They are, however, sadly consistent with near-feral behaviour. They see the fandom as a pack, Rowling as the Alpha. Their communications are the human equivalent of barks (Squee! OMG!) and tail wags (endless GIFs). It seems like they’ve had deficits in the socialization process which they have attempted to remedy by escaping into a fantasy world about, naturally, an orphan.
I’ve had a really hard day. Being called a c–t by strange children and having the f-bombs thrown at me repeatedly has left me raw. I’m trying to be understanding of where the source of this anger is and respectful of the need these people have, but it is incredibly difficult.
I agree with you. Even children’s and young adult fiction needs not to be allowed uncritically, especially as more adult authors flock to it. I think it’s because we’ve venerated reading so much that people believe as long as it’s a book, it has to be good because it isn’t TV or video games. This isn’t the case for many of them.
The Goodreads GIF thing. I forgive them sometimes because some of them that I follow that use them also tend to review the books fairly well, but yeah, even then it can be a little much. I’ve notice that there are some alpha-dog reviewers mostly in the young adult genre that have this kind of style, and seem to have quite the following by likes. I can see why it’s a pain, and it gets worse when the links get broken and you have big X’s mixing up the text as well.
The irony is that many of them have enough style and wit to let the reviews stand without the visual punctuation.They also are willing to challenge books with bad messages, so hopefully over time they’ll just let their words speak for them.
I agree with most of this above — I was also given freedom about what to read, and figured out what I was comfortable with and what I wasn’t, from a pretty young age. Kids need to be taught over years and years and years how to help set their own limits.
Anyway, I do disagree with one thing — I do not see a problem with people expressing themselves in noises or GIFs. Different people express themselves in different ways — it might be in paint, drawings, dance, music, or any number of things. For informal communication, I see nothing wrong with emotion-laden animated GIFs. Not everything thinks in words. Some people honestly express themselves with an image or a movement or a song.
[…] think this explains the situation quite well, especially the tangent. It seems that many people think that […]
Your lack of surprise will be audible from here, but I was free to read anything in the house (memorable ones: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, Heinlein’s complete works, lots o’ Niven/Pournelle, Lovecraft, regency romances, the Books Of Lists). But reading was private.
Even if there’d been author fan groups back then, It would’ve been weird to talk about my private experiences with others. Then the step to take from bonding over your favorite books to becoming an online neighborhood watch out to punish anyone who disagrees about your idol’s stainless perfection….. I am unable to understand at all.
I think that’s a real undercurrent to all this that amps up my discomfort considerably.
To me what happens between an author and me (myself?) during a book is a pretty intimate experience that I may share with people once I’m comfortable enough with them to do so. It reminds me of that mind sex they had in FarScape. Nothing physical, but two minds colliding is pretty freaky.
So all the fandom squee just feels a bit too Lord Of The Flies for me. People calling her “Jo” like she eats at their house every Thursday, calling her “God”, “Lord of My Life”…it’s eerie and it really is not at all unlike the experiences I’ve had recently with neo-Calvinists. That whole “I love God better than you and by the way you are damned to hell.” thing.