If her target audience had been anything like me when I was a child, J.K. Rowling would still be waiting tables.
I still don't know how too many children's stories end, I never could quite get that far. The moment the conflict in the story began, something happened to me - my brain went all foggy, my cheeks got all soggy, my eyes misted over with vicarious tears, and my heart filled with someone else's fears. In short, I crumpled and collapsed in a useless and emotional lump.
When my grandpa regaled us with the story of the Ramayana, I refused to let him continue past Sita's abduction. In my version, Rama and Sita lived happily ever after frolicking with non-marichaesque deer and of course with no troubling feminist issues to contend with. I recall an evening when my grandmother came hurrying into the bedroom hearing heart-wrenching and blood-curdling cries of distress to find a distraught granddaughter and a sheepish grandpa who had picked the supremely violent tale of Kovalan and Kannaki as a bedtime story. Needless to say, he got more than an earful for the thoughtless choice.
My sister recounts a day when she came to my second-grade classroom to pick me up and drag me to the school bus. She found me a blubbering mess.I was gulping and sobbing so hard I couldn't even explain the source of my grief. Panic-stricken and fearing the worst, she interrogated my little classmates. "Chechi, Anandam is crying because Pavizham got hurt," was the matter-of-fact and cryptic response she got. Over a cup of milk and much pampering at home, it transpired that the fresh tears were for the hero of a story in my Malayalam reader, a parrot called Pavizham that ended up with a broken wing and unhealed scars because of the ill-treatment meted out to it by the neighbourhood children. I don't quite know how that story ended and I somehow got through the second grade despite such traumatic setbacks.
So many of these stories were probably written to teach young children some valuable life lessons - for kids that got that far. My motto was, just skip the whole sordid tale and tell me what it is I'm supposed to know. I'm not supposed to throw stones at hapless birds, fine. My family learnt one lesson though - to make sure that my bedtime stories were laundered of all violence and sadness. Oh well, as long as someone learnt something...
Fortunately for Ms Rowling, her audience is much more sophisticated and take injury and death with consummate ease - as long at's happening to someone else of course. Dark wizards, hippogriffs, dementors - bring them on, and the more pieces their souls are in the better. Me, I would never have made it past that cupboard under the stairs.
I still don't know how too many children's stories end, I never could quite get that far. The moment the conflict in the story began, something happened to me - my brain went all foggy, my cheeks got all soggy, my eyes misted over with vicarious tears, and my heart filled with someone else's fears. In short, I crumpled and collapsed in a useless and emotional lump.
When my grandpa regaled us with the story of the Ramayana, I refused to let him continue past Sita's abduction. In my version, Rama and Sita lived happily ever after frolicking with non-marichaesque deer and of course with no troubling feminist issues to contend with. I recall an evening when my grandmother came hurrying into the bedroom hearing heart-wrenching and blood-curdling cries of distress to find a distraught granddaughter and a sheepish grandpa who had picked the supremely violent tale of Kovalan and Kannaki as a bedtime story. Needless to say, he got more than an earful for the thoughtless choice.
My sister recounts a day when she came to my second-grade classroom to pick me up and drag me to the school bus. She found me a blubbering mess.I was gulping and sobbing so hard I couldn't even explain the source of my grief. Panic-stricken and fearing the worst, she interrogated my little classmates. "Chechi, Anandam is crying because Pavizham got hurt," was the matter-of-fact and cryptic response she got. Over a cup of milk and much pampering at home, it transpired that the fresh tears were for the hero of a story in my Malayalam reader, a parrot called Pavizham that ended up with a broken wing and unhealed scars because of the ill-treatment meted out to it by the neighbourhood children. I don't quite know how that story ended and I somehow got through the second grade despite such traumatic setbacks.
So many of these stories were probably written to teach young children some valuable life lessons - for kids that got that far. My motto was, just skip the whole sordid tale and tell me what it is I'm supposed to know. I'm not supposed to throw stones at hapless birds, fine. My family learnt one lesson though - to make sure that my bedtime stories were laundered of all violence and sadness. Oh well, as long as someone learnt something...
Fortunately for Ms Rowling, her audience is much more sophisticated and take injury and death with consummate ease - as long at's happening to someone else of course. Dark wizards, hippogriffs, dementors - bring them on, and the more pieces their souls are in the better. Me, I would never have made it past that cupboard under the stairs.
same here.. I still don't like violence and horror in my stories and movies.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for children's stories, i used take the last page, see it things were fine, and then continue with the story. :)
My favourites were the enchanted wood with the magic faraway tree. peaceful magic :)
Hey - thanks for checking in and reading! Yes, my daughter used to be like that - very fragile but now she reads only fantasy fiction - maybe that's also a type of escapism!
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say, Bubby. You married well. Your dear husband used to close his eyes when they showed anything involving blood on TV..and used to hide behind the couch for 'Karamchand' - a popular detective serial in our times..
ReplyDelete