(no subject)

[oyceter]

So my day has mostly consisted of spending lots of money. I reserved a copy of Harry Potter from a bookstore around here... it's amazing how international the HP thing is! Which is, of course, to my advantage. I can't believe all the Taiwan bookstores have basically already sold out of OotP, even though they're only stocking the English copy right now! I guess it's kind of like me wanting to learn Japanese so I could read manga as soon as they came out. So hopefully I will have a copy by the 26th, in the nice Bloombury edition, which I like much better anyhow. I don't quite get why the American publishers felt as though they had to change certain Britishisms -- I read stuff like Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, Five Children and It, and etc, etc, as a kid, and while the British words sometimes confused me, they never really put me off reading a book. Well, with the exception of the rendition of Martha's accent in The Secret Garden. But then, I read Little Princess and decided to pick up the Secret Garden again anyway.

Speaking of which, I wonder why so much of the good kid lit out there seems to be British? L.M Montgomery, C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frances Hodgson Burnett, tons and tons more... or maybe I was only given mostly British stuff?

Anyhow, I want to post a picture of me and my new straightened hair in my funny, girly, very Taiwan-like clothes, except I can't use my university webspace anymore. Sigh.

I also did much avoiding of the fact that I have to get a job. Mostly, it just reminds me of all the things I can't do.

Comments

Culling your list further

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I would make some attempt at explicating your wonderment by pointing out that science-fiction and fantasy have a long history in Britain of being less separated from the mainstream (witness Brave New World and 1984) and have drawn more literary-minded writers (Ballard, Brunner, Burgess) in Britain than in America, and that this would certainly carry over to children's fantasy, and probably be compounded by the fact that there has long been a trend in Britain of writing children's books that adults can enjoy going back at least to Lewis Carroll, while in America, other than Dr. Suess, most children's writers become ghettoized as children's writers, but instead I'll recognize that I cannot defend any of that and just point out that Ursula K. LeGuin is, in truth, an American.

Re: Culling your list further

[oyceter]

Yay! Another non-British one! And of course the wonderful Madeleine L'Engle, whom Scroll kindly pointed out to me. Then there's Meredith Ann Pierce and Donna Jo Napoli and Jane Yolen... And then, on the British side are heavyweights JK Rowling right now and Diana Wynne Jones (who I just found half a year ago and therefore am extremely enthusiastic about).

Here and first got me thinking about it... I can try posting text versions if the day pass thing isn't doing it again.

But I do hope that Harry Potter will make fantasy and YA/kid lit more respected, so people will read the people I love!