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Post by sgev1977 on Sept 29, 2020 13:25:28 GMT
My niece went to the Harry Potter ride two years ago and she had a brief Harry Potter phase after the trip. She read a few books and watched a few of the movies. Later she become a fan of Stranger Things and right now, she is reading a lot of Jules Verne.
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Post by mllemass on Sept 29, 2020 13:29:00 GMT
I also remember our professor telling us that famous children’s writers often had serious issues dealing with adults and preferred the company of young children, possibly even being pedophiles. So that really spoiled some of those books for me!
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Post by roverpup on Sept 29, 2020 14:52:49 GMT
I couldn't disagree with that prof more! That's actually highly offensive of him to even suggest that.
You can't just cherry-pick a couple of examples and then paint with broad strokes an entire group of writers as being riddled with maladjusted people!
I can think of dozens and dozens of children authors who don't fit that description in the least!
Just a small sampling off the top of my head... Frances Hodgson Burnett Roald Dahl Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) Maurice Sendak Louisa May Alcott Margaret Atwood (yes she has written a number of children's books) Judy Blume E.B. White Walter de la Mare James Thurber Beatrix Potter Mark Twain
I at least hope some people argued against that POV!
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Post by mllemass on Sept 29, 2020 16:07:41 GMT
He was a world-renowned expert on the subject of children’s literature, so I tend to believe him. I suppose, looking back, he probably chose to focus on certain details about certain writers to keep his lectures interesting. The best part of his class - besides discovering new authors and books - was that he had personally interviewed many of the (living) writers whose books we were reading, and he played us the recordings of those interviews. It was so exciting!
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Post by roverpup on Sept 29, 2020 17:32:19 GMT
Sorry to sound so hyper about this but it really grinds me because it sounds like cheap dime-store gossip! I don't care if he was a world renowned whatever, it's revolting to suggest such a thing. It's basic stereotyping!
In any large group of people there are bound to be SOME who were, but to make that a defining group characteristic (by the use of the term "OFTEN") - utter garbage!
I'd bet I could EASILY find just as many who led perfectly normal lives and who had wonderful relationships with other people and were the furthest thing from being influenced by pedophilia.
I studied Children's Literature at uni too, so I am familiar with a LOT of authors of that genre.
As for the thread topic: I never read any HP books or saw any of the movies but anything that gets kids enthusiastic about reading is OK in my book!
My favourite books when I was young were CS Lewis' The Narnia series and Sherlock Holmes (I was thrilled when I got The Boys Book of Sherlock Holmes stories for Xmas but a bit peeved that it said it was for boys!). And I loved The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. When I was very young I read The Bobbsey Twins series which was written by a number of authors.
As a teenager I was fascinated with WWII escape books (The Wooden Horse, The Great Escape, The Colditz Story, etc.) and that fascination has carried over to the present. Tonight Dan and I are going to watch The Way Back, a 2010 Peter Weir movie about an escape from a Soviet Gulag. Can't wait!
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Post by sgev1977 on Sept 29, 2020 20:59:49 GMT
I think the rumors are strong with two extremely popular male authors: Lewis Carroll and JM Barrie. There's a very disturbing novel about a pedophile serial killer that it's kind of inspired on Barrie. It's called Kensington Gardens and it was written by an Argentinean author, Rodrigo Fresan.
But the one that surprised me was Mark Twain. I guess it's debatable if his books are for children because they are very sarcastic and mature but he wrote a lot about children. Mostly boys. Well, thanks to a short story by Joyce Carol Oates (who is mentioned above), I discovered that he had a very odd fixation with girls! At the time, it was not just widely know but apparently people thought it was cute! Who knows? Maybe it was just a weird publicity stunt trying to show him like a sweet "grandfather" who just loved the company of prepubescents girl but nowadays it would definitely raise a big red flag!
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Post by queenzod on Sept 29, 2020 21:43:41 GMT
All this supposition about some people being pedophiles is ticking me off. We don’t know. We can’t know. In the past, people of all ages spent time together, and it wasn’t unusual for grown men to look after and care for younger people due to various factors like the higher rate of mortality among women in childbirth, or well to do men helping out a family financially or whatever. Most of it was probably harmless.
Nowadays, everyone’s screaming about possible pedophelia when no one can possibly know what was going on! It’s only more recently that people have become wary of minors mixing with adults, even on a purely virtual basis. I can’t tell you the number of virtue signaling posts on twitter and tumblr that I’ve seen warning against adults interacting with minors AT ALL. That seems ridiculous to me. How are young people supposed to have role models to look up to if they’re only interacting with their peers? What’s wrong with adults and minors conversing?
Now, obviously some adults don’t have good intentions towards minors and one must be careful and screen for that when one can, but to project that fear backwards in time and declare that so-and-so was a pedophile is wrong, unless there’s some kind of proof. That goes for revisionists attributions of all kinds. A few years ago, there was a push to proclaim Abraham Lincoln was a gay man. He might have been, I don’t know, but I don’t see how you can possibly produce any facts that would prove that in one way or another.
It seems to me that we’ve all gotten so suspicious of the motives of others that we’re fracturing relationships in advance because of what might possibly happen. Of course what I just said is a huge generalization, but what is the point trying to figure out if Mark Twain had impure thoughts about children? Where’s the proof? If you don’t have proof, then it’s all just slander, imo. Many people have childlike attributes, enjoy the company of children, create playful material, and aren't pedophiles. Why all the suspicion?
I don’t know, maybe I’m naive, but it seems to me there is something weird going on with these kinds of hoped for attributions.
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Post by mllemass on Sept 29, 2020 22:18:21 GMT
I think that was the point: no one at the time would have suspected anything and they were able to go unnoticed.
JM Barrie was definitely one who was mentioned by my professor. I used it to justify disliking Peter Pan or even finishing it. I don’t remember the other(s) he mentioned. To be fair a friend of mine was in that course with me, and she doesn’t remember our professor saying anything at all about any of that.
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Post by queenzod on Sept 29, 2020 22:44:03 GMT
Where’s the proof? Anyone can start a rumor, and if it’s repeated often enough, it starts leaning towards fact, when in actuality it’s still just a rumor. Barrie was close to that family where the mom died and there were 4 boys. Who knows what went on? What can you prove? It seems wrong to me to slander someone (especially someone who is now dead), with no proof of any kind.
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Post by sgev1977 on Sept 29, 2020 23:37:53 GMT
Agreed that it's unfair but the speculation exists. That's a fact.
When I read about Twain, I imagined that maybe he was somehow publicizing an image of a lovely old man who would had loved to have some (female) great-grandchildren but that was my interpretation and maybe my way of justifying him. It was very public so probably it wasn't something sexual but it was odd and kind of cruel, too. He just stopped the relationship with the girls when they turned 16. He wasn't interested in them anymore when they become women. He openly admitted this. He lost his favorite daughter when she was very young and maybe that tragic event influenced it but he had other two adult daughters!
I don't want to defame him but his relationship with all those girls existed. That's a fact. He openly and proudly talked about it ("As for me, I collect pets: young girls — girls from ten to sixteen years old; girls who are pretty and sweet and naive and innocent — dear young creatures to whom life is a perfect joy and to whom it has brought no wounds, no bitterness, and few tears"). He was celebrated in certain quarters for it and it is fascinating but also creepy.
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