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peregrinator_it
Guest
I’m afraid I’ve failed to make either myself or Chesterton clear.
I view Harry Potter as a fairy tale, as a story which upholds virtue and good against evil. I don’t think it’s as good as those in Brother’s Grimm (as neither J.K. Rowling’s moral perception or literary skill is up to the same standard) but I think it works in the same way as a fairly tale.
In other words, I don’t buy any of Ms. Kuby’s arguments, for reasons that other posters have already set out.
Chesterton never (that I’m aware of) practiced magic in any way. If he had, that would show that he missed the point of the fairy tales he finds so valuable.
Rather, Chesterton finds that the element of magic that Ms. Kuby objects to (and thinks should always be painted as an evil) adds to the good of fairy tales.
This does not mean that he thinks the specific practices (waving wands, saying spells) are good in themselves or add to the story in themselves. They are beside the point (as they are in Harry Potter.)
Chesterton’s point is that the element of magic in fairy tales teaches us to look on the world with wonder, because it forces us to acknowledge that we don’t (and in fact, can’t) understand everything thing in the world, just as we can’t understand how Cinderella’s godmother conjures the dress out of rags and the carriage out of a pumpkin.
“The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in fairy books, “charm”, “spell”, “enchantment.” They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs down hill because it is bewitched.”… " (from The Ethics of Elfland in Orthodoxy)
In other words, Chesterton believes that fairy tales encourage a habit of mind that can lead one closer to believing in an infinite God whom we also cannot fully understand.
(And an attitude of wonder toward the created world is a needed antidote to the modern world which believes it understands so well as to dare to experiment with human cloning.)
I don’t think Ms. Kuby would understand or agree with Chesterton’s viewpoint, but I find his arguments for the value of magic in literature quite convincing.
