It is a common misconception that because a piece of fiction was bad for the particular individual writing, or is low status, or is missing some desired marker of ‘goodness’, that it therefore is not ‘good’.
There doesn’t seem to be any commonly agreed upon definition of what ‘good’ means in the context of fiction—so I think it is better to focus on whether it is good for particular individuals, where you can just ask the people if they find the text good.
So while HPMOR is not good for Arjun, it is extremely good for a lot of other text-individual pairings.
Also, if by ‘not that good’ you mean ‘easy to duplicate’, as someone who would very much like to write something that is as powerful, compelling, interesting, emotionally satisfying, multilayered and inspiring as HPMOR, it is not in the slightest easy to write something like it.
It is a common misconception that because a piece of fiction was bad for the particular individual writing, or is low status, or is missing some desired marker of ‘goodness’, that it therefore is not ‘good’.
I should clarify that my potshot was mocking the prose. There are other ways that HPMOR was good (or so I suspect—I only got through the first 5 or 10 chapters). I also failed to get through the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged even though I would probably find its aesthetic more agreeable than most people and even though it was much more influential than HPMOR.
EDIT: Actually, I think my comment had more value than just a potshot. I know a bunch of wannabe writers, my past self included, who were overly concerned with prose quality.
Sure, I agree with you that the prose is passable, readable and fairly solid, but definitely not flashy, literary, or anything special (though I think it reaches a somewhat higher level by the middle, but it never is what is important or fun about the HPMOR).
I personally never had the delusion that pretty prose was particularly important (if anything I go too far in the other direction), but yeah, it is a mistake that people make.
You definitely do not need to write a poem in prose to have a great deal of impact with your writing.
I agree with you that the prose is passable, readable and fairly solid
I didn’t say the prose was “fairly solid.” I would have to go back (and maybe it improves after the first several chapters) but I remember it being bad.
It is a common misconception that because a piece of fiction was bad for the particular individual writing, or is low status, or is missing some desired marker of ‘goodness’, that it therefore is not ‘good’.
There doesn’t seem to be any commonly agreed upon definition of what ‘good’ means in the context of fiction—so I think it is better to focus on whether it is good for particular individuals, where you can just ask the people if they find the text good.
So while HPMOR is not good for Arjun, it is extremely good for a lot of other text-individual pairings.
Also, if by ‘not that good’ you mean ‘easy to duplicate’, as someone who would very much like to write something that is as powerful, compelling, interesting, emotionally satisfying, multilayered and inspiring as HPMOR, it is not in the slightest easy to write something like it.
I should clarify that my potshot was mocking the prose. There are other ways that HPMOR was good (or so I suspect—I only got through the first 5 or 10 chapters). I also failed to get through the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged even though I would probably find its aesthetic more agreeable than most people and even though it was much more influential than HPMOR.
EDIT: Actually, I think my comment had more value than just a potshot. I know a bunch of wannabe writers, my past self included, who were overly concerned with prose quality.
Sure, I agree with you that the prose is passable, readable and fairly solid, but definitely not flashy, literary, or anything special (though I think it reaches a somewhat higher level by the middle, but it never is what is important or fun about the HPMOR).
I personally never had the delusion that pretty prose was particularly important (if anything I go too far in the other direction), but yeah, it is a mistake that people make.
You definitely do not need to write a poem in prose to have a great deal of impact with your writing.
I didn’t say the prose was “fairly solid.” I would have to go back (and maybe it improves after the first several chapters) but I remember it being bad.
Lol, it’s consistently readable. If you expect more, you need to widen your reading horizons.