Stewart Lee - Harry Potter

From Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle - Episode 1 "Books"

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[Oforgoodnessache]

Where can I get Harry Potter and the Crock of Shit - I can't find it on Amazon

[Thunderwolf666]

Upvoted for "supercillious".

[Paul Harrison]

Right - so your entire "evidence" of his having read Harry Potter is based essentially on your opinion of him - despite him clearly stating that he has never read Harry Potter and also asserting he never will read it.

I'd imagine that what constitutes good literary criticism would be actually stating which part of the literary content you found sub standard - at what point exactly does Lee refer to the actual literary content of the books?

[GCLwins]

>"A better question would be what makes you think that Lee has ever read a word of them?"

Because he writes for the Guardian, is literate, has studied English at Edmund Hall, and has been writing for the BBC and the Times since the 1990s.

I'd say Stewart Lee has a pretty good idea of what constitutes good literature and what constitutes good criticism, and more importantly what constitutes responsible literary criticism which is to READ something (at least partially) before commenting on it.

[Paul Harrison]

"Have you read the new Harry Potter book Stewart" - "No I haven't because I'm a 40 year old man"

Where in Lee's monologue does he in any way whatsoever imply that he has read a single word of the Potter series. The whole point of the entire sketch is that he hasn't read them, and never would,he even demonstrates that he isn't even aware of the titles - let alone their content.

A better question would be what makes you think that Lee has ever read a word of them?

[GCLwins]

"He clearly states that he has never read the Potter series" - where?

1:04 He only claims never to have read Harry Potter and the "Tree of Nothing" (hahaha...even better than the "Forest of Embarrassment"), and expresses an appropriate adult aversion about a "Wizard in School"

What makes you think someone like a Stewart Lee would criticize something without at least trying to find out what it's about, even if approaching it with a preconceived bias perhaps aware that it's going to be rubbish

[Paul Harrison]

Of course Lee makes such an assertion. He clearly states that he has never read the Potter series - yet berates those that do for reading of book of low quality - yet he cannot know the quality as he has never read the books.

An intelligent mind would perhaps understand that in order to state that a text is derivative one would first have to read the said text. I'm sorry but your comments reek of the worse kind of intellectual pomposity.

[GCLwins]

No, neither I, nor Stewart Lee I presume, make any such tenuous, Catch 22 assertion in the first place.

One has only to peruse through a few pages of a Harry Potter novel (as indeed, with other rubbish like Fifty Shades of Grey, for example) to instantly recognize the abject paucity of any literary merit within it; there is no need to immerse oneself in an entire novel, much less all its tiresome, derivative sequels, for an intelligent, literate mind to arrive at that fact.

[Paul Harrison]

You see your position creates an odd dichotomy - namely in order to make an assertion over their quality one must have read them - but to have read them, by your definition, makes you vacuous.

So one cannot assert any opinion over their quality without becoming the very thing that is ridiculed.

[GCLwins]

You're right about children's literature and Blake. But I must ask you, since when is Harry Potter "literature" - ANY sort of literature, even children's "literature"?

in any case, I think the real point Stewart Lee's making has less to do with the effeteness of the Harry Potter novels themselves - which they are, effete - than with the mindless vacuity of those who read them (or at least claim to avidly) after an equally mindless fashion.

[Paul Harrison]

Well if that was my point you would be absolutely right - it would be shit.

Because Shelley never wrote Songs of Innocence and Experience. William Blake did.

But disregarding that point - Lee states that an adult reading any form of children's literature is essentially moronic - yet chooses an author who wrote poems based upon children's literature - this in itself would not be ironic - but the fact that Blake likely researched said children's literature as an adult - meaning he read it - is.