Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
[...] The only way those books come even close to making sense to me is if Dumbledore's actions come out of a long term plan to indoctrinate Harry into becoming a willing child kamikaze soldier  [...] |
To understand Dumbledore's actions you have to understand that the boy who lived was, effectively, already dead. It was the potential religious interpretation for the sacrifice that I found most disturbing. But only later, and then I started to feel a bit like I'd just read a C.S. Lewis story. Saying more is probably not appropriate to this part of the forum.
I enjoyed the books regardless, and enjoy revisiting them from time to time.
That quote you gave from Chesterton, I think there is some sort of corollary to that, that some things work while you're in the story that are obviously absurd once you are out again ... a bit like your example from Elizabeth Moon. I find a lot of stories for younger readers are like that, and yet I generally enjoy reading them very much.
I re-read a lot too, and as long as the story is able to pull me back in, the absurdities generally work just as well as they did the first time. (Not always, there are some books I find don't stand re-reading.)