Take, for example, Americans' attitude towards knowledge. Nerds are a laughingstock. Experts are people who have obviously lost touch with reality because they're high up in an ivory tower and can't possibly know what real life is like. If you have a PhD, you don't know anything about life or morality. So when times comes to decide whether stem-cell research is a viable avenue for scientific community to explore, in come the uneducated throngs, firing on all six cylinders and insisting that the experts know nothing, that the mob, through virtue of its ignorance, is best equipped to settle the morality of the situation - and presumably, channel the voice of its equally rednecked God in this matter.
There are other little injustices too. Take for instance the New York Times bestseller list. Because of J K Rowling's phenomenal success, NYT created not only a separate Children's Books section to house her place on the bestseller list, but also a "Children's Chapter Book" and a "Children's Series Book" section under it, so she could be relegated to the very bottom of the every page, and not be allowed to hog more than one place on the bestseller list.
Adult fiction lists come with no such constraints. There is only a "hardcover" list and a "paperback" list - no separate section for books that are part of a series (Sue Grafton comes to mind). Adult nonfiction, too, has no subdivisions - you would think that if anything, this section would lend itself to subdivisions! But there is no separate bestseller list for "self-help books" or "how-to books" or "relationship books" or "Dr. Phil books". It seems that the dungeoun sentence - the penalty of having to live out the rest of your natural life lurking in the bottom-of-the-page, one-spot-for-your-whole-series dungeon - is only meted out to writers who sell enough books to stay bestsellers for years and years.
Boy, do they suck!
And if you think this policy isn't hurting anybody, think about this: what about the second-bestselling series - and the third and the fourth - that still outsells every title in the "Children's Chapter Book"? If you think this policy is fair because it brings obscure books to people's notice, think about what the NYT bestseller list is for. Is it supposed to be reworked and presented to furthur an agenda, or is it supposed to report facts? And if they so badly want to subdivide the children's books into categories, why not also publish a master list of the top ten bestsellers and then do the whole subdivision thing? Report the facts and furthur your agenda... why not?
But this is America, and in America, JKR is too rich and too successful to merit considerations of fair play.
This post was typed on a DVORAK keyboard, and took bloody hours to finish. But I vow to persevere till I reach my normal word speed, so help me god.
JK Rowling and Harry Potter are overrated.
ReplyDelete*runs towards the corner of the globe ( duh?!) to escape from the collective wrath emanating from the Midwest*
:P :P :P
ReplyDeleteBut no need to run. Whether it's overrated or not, bestseller lists should report the facts as they are, not try to manipulate the presentation of data unfairly. That's what I was ranting about.