The Harrry Potter Theme Park opened this summer. My fans greeted the news with enthusiasm. As I see it, now there's yet another way for writers to feel inadequate:
"Wow, I got a movie deal for my novel!"
"Yeah, but did you get a theme park deal?"
I find, as a reader, that I'm reluctant to read novels that are too popular. For a long time, I could explain my diffidence only in unflattering terms like elitism. I've been thinking about reader investment and I believe I've found a more structural (and more flattering) explanation.
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| Rubeus Hagrid in Wikipedia |
It's not that you owe your readers anything in an absolute sense. Rather, as more readers invest in your story, they create a kind of inertia, a social center of gravity.
With that in mind, if I'm late to the game with something very popular I'm generally reluctant to invest in it because I can no longer experience the work on its own terms and apart from its social context.
To use an economic analogy, the return on investment is generally biggest for the early investors. Later investors see less of a return because there are more of them.
So what do you think? Is this a sensible structural observation, or have I simply found an elaborate way to justify my elitism?
Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
It's too bad that some books (films, TV shows, tourist spots, you name it) become so enormously popular that their popularity itself becomes a separate animal. Once a book reaches a critical "buzz" point, it's hard for me as a reader to appreciate it on its own terms.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I learn a lot as a writer from a popular book. Sometimes I jump right on the bandwagon and agree it's fantastic (the Harry Potter series); sometimes I scratch my head and say, "huh?" (the Twilight series). But whether I agree with the hoopla or not, I want to know why so many people are so gaga over Gaga (or Rowling, Meyer, etc.). That said, I try to read very few reviews before making my own judgment.
Separate side note [SPOILER ALERT]: I don't think Rowling was influenced by readers. Her sister did threaten her with physical violence if she killed off Hagrid, but Rowling has said it was always her idea to have Hagrid emerge from the forest with Harry in his arms--not to die in battle. She couldn't tell Sis that, of course.