I don't really believe that novels are ever set in the 'real world' because they are always, necessarily, selective and thus distorted versions of reality. Which can still be true, but fictional.
- read it as though it takes place in a world very much like ours, but with wholly different popular culture. - read it as though it takes place in a world like ours, but with wholly different political culture.
I think it can totally be in the real world... as there are more surprises in our real world than the HP one :D
I would have ticked the 'pop culture' as well, but I do remember that we're seeing our world filtered through Rowling's eyes, with added magic!AU, so that would account for most of the differences.
Otherwise, yeah, it's meant to be taken as a version of our world.
If it had existed I'd ticked: read it as though it takes place in a world like ours, but reimagined into the early 50ties and with an added magical universe.
This topic comes up a lot w/respect to the abuse inflicted by the Dursleys. How could the schools, teachers, neigbors, doctors, etc. not pick up on what was happening to Harry. In my mind, the Muggle world in canon is still fictional. Yes, much like our own, but still fairy tale-ish in that Cinderella evil step mother way. So your comment above about being altered for story effect, is sort of more how I see it (but close enough to "but with multiple differences" so I checked that.)
None of the options really fit my interpretation. But given small clues (signposts) found here and there in the text, I think not only is it a different culture, it's an entirely different epistemology operating in it's own moral universe where symbolic meaning and value are contested and are entirely made evident by small changes through time. I don't believe the addition of magic is a separate process or phenomenon that simply exists along side material and symbolic culture. It is intrinsically woven with it, changes over time (is mutable), and they affect each other to an extent that it's threads can no longer be teased out.
As Clifford Geertz said: "The concept of culture I espouse...is essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning."
I may possibly have read to many fairy stories, but I read it as taking place in a parallel world which lies alongside the real world and touches at some points (and that seems to be what JKR was aiming at).
It's the same sort of world that Shakespeare seems to have inhabited (and E. Nesbit, for that matter).
Tunnock's tea cakes are totally canon, as are Tunnock's caramel wafers, Tunnock's Snowballs, Hob Nobs and Jaffa Cakes. In fact, I think I'll write Tunnock's tea cakes into my next fic.
I view it as the magical realm running alongside, and mirroring, the real world, but inhabiting its own bubble. The magical world has its own popular culture quite distinct from the real world, which is what lead me to select that particular option. While the political issues at play are unique to the fantasy, I find them in essence to reflect and occasionally critique real-world politics.
I read it as 'people are people, magical or not', as the magical characters have a very mundane tendency toward foibles, artifice, corruption, political alliances, and of course positive attributes as well.
For the wizards depicted in the books, the Muggle world is like this whole other country, and the few who dare venture out of their own little pond seem to be in a constant culture shock. So, yes, I have no trouble imagining that JKR wrote about our world from the POV of a secluded subculture that has no idea or doesn't really care what happens in the world of the non-magical people because they cannot identify with them.
I have no opinion on queues and spotted dick, but the glimpses of real (as in Muggle) life I got in the books did not seem very brutally real - and rightly so, I don't expect bleeding edge realism in a fantasy book where I'm already suspending disbelief (massively). OTOH, it may have something to do with Harry's POV and his own cultural background, upbringing & references. So yes, I am aware that it's meant to be real, and it feels more real & familiar than the magical world, but since I am ALREADY immersed in a narrative where I have to accept parallel magic/RL realities, the 'RL' in the book is automatically different than the RL I expect outside the narrative, sitting in my armchair in the real, external world outside the book.
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blamebrampton) wrote2011-02-08 11:58 pm
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- read it as though it takes place in a world very much like ours, but with wholly different popular culture.
- read it as though it takes place in a world like ours, but with wholly different political culture.
I think it can totally be in the real world... as there are more surprises in our real world than the HP one :D
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Otherwise, yeah, it's meant to be taken as a version of our world.
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read it as though it takes place in a world like ours, but reimagined into the early 50ties and with an added magical universe.
:)
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;)
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As Clifford Geertz said:
"The concept of culture I espouse...is essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning."
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It's the same sort of world that Shakespeare seems to have inhabited (and E. Nesbit, for that matter).
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I read it as 'people are people, magical or not', as the magical characters have a very mundane tendency toward foibles, artifice, corruption, political alliances, and of course positive attributes as well.
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Are you saying that some of that stuff isn't real?
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I think.