“There’s a premise to the show that we are actually trying to get back to more and more–the idea that ordinary people have been chosen for something extraordinary,” he told EW. “It’s what made the Harry Potter series so great, the idea that the most disenfranchised kid–the kid who lived under the crawl space of the stairs–could be chosen for greatness. That’s an archetypal idea that has tremendous resonance.”

There are no ordinary cats…

Excerpt:

True classics hold up to endless viewing, says Crist, who is in her 51st year of teaching opinion writing at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her favorite film? She can’t narrow it down to one, but Orson Welle’s monumental Citizen Kane still mesmerizes, she says, as a recent late-night viewing confirmed.

“I picked it up and after ten minutes I thought, ’Well, I’ll stay with it for a bit and then I really have to go to bed.’ And then I found myself sitting up until 3:00 A.M., watching something I could recite line by line.

“But I noticed for the first time—and this may be the 50th or 60th time I’ve seen Citizen Kane—that at the very end, as the camera pulls back on the gates and the NO TRESPASSING sign, in the back at the very top of the picture, there is smoke coming out of the chimney of the Kane mansion. I guess all the other times I’ve been looking at the gate.

“The smoke made me feel something that I never felt before; that we did trespass. But I always notice something new with Citizen Kane. It astounds me.

“Great performances, no matter what you thought of them the first time, will always reveal something more. The way Orson Welles destroys his wife’s bedroom when he throws her out. You would think that the first pass at the room would be the most ferocious, but his rage grew in ferocity. I found myself seeing more nuances. And that’s the point. The beauty of film is that it’s forever. It’s like rereading Shakespeare. There is always something more.”

Kitties never trespass—they own everything and know it…

Still, it is hard to forgive her excess adverbials (he said critically). And the repetitive Quidditch and battle scenes in the books might have been a lot more tolerable if she could have found new ways to describe them. A little “heightened style” here could have gone a long way.

Maybe the best way to decide whether great style is necessary for a great book is to look at the polar opposite of Rowling’s style: Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan. Peake has an extremely romantic style which, all by itself, elevates his novel to great fantasy.

The critical consensus after fifty years, however, is that Titus Groan is not a great novel. Perhaps this is because it is “only fantasy”. Or perhaps it is because it is not considered a children’s novel and therefore doesn’t get the “free pass” accorded to children’s stories with weak style. Perhaps the book itself is simply too baroque.

As for comparisons between Rowling, Tolkein, and Lewis (as Revgeorge indicated), I look to another book I’ve read recently, “Hogwarts, Narnia, and Middle Earth: Places Upon a Time”. While not a Zossima book, it discusses themes and issues that bring thoughtful comparisons of these books to life.

I recommend viewing Citizen Kane, without reading about it or viewing documentaries first. Go into it cold. Talk about twists–the final is a doozy. The film is a very entertaining and gripping examination of power. Then watch the brilliant two-hour documentary that comes with the DVD. This was shown on PBS several years ago. You’ll understand why this groundbreaking (on many fronts) film was the basis for much of 20th Century filmmaking. Actually, I think serious Rowling fans would like it very much.

Kitties are all about power…

For example, take the 1941 film Citizen Kane, #1 on most best films list. Kane is a remarkable film and was a first on many fronts. Is it the best film *ever* made, after almost 70 years? I think that’s debatable. Is it most people’s favorite film? I’d venture most people haven’t seen it, and wouldn’t appreciate it without study/documentaries). So while I hat-tip Citizen Kane, and believe it belongs at or in the top of such lists, it’s not the only film on our CD shelf, nor my favorite film.

And when it comes to “Great Books,” how do you possibly compare the voice of Tolkein with that of Twain? Yet we can fully enjoy and marvel at both.

Now about giving that cat the elixer…

I think it’s only those outside of the appreciation of great books who think books must be lined up according to some sort of ‘greatest’ criteria & just because some book may come in first means it is somehow better than all the others on the list.

Fortunately, this is not an either/or experience and preferences are not ‘desert island one book’ choices we have to make. We can and should enjoy both for what they are. Is King Lear better than Oedipus Tyrannus and Equus? than Taming of the Shrew? Yes — and No! Similarly, LOTR and HP.