Literary Debates
Plenty of people can relate to characters from fiction. Some take it a step further and start “conjuring fanciful biographies for the characters”, as Alan Jacobs puts it . Heard of fan-fiction? It’s the fiction written by fans of serials/books write based who then post it on the Internet. Lev Grossman describes it thus: “They don’t do it for money. That’s not what it’s about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They’re fans, but they’re not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.” A few years back, when the last of the Harry Potter books was released, the “Is Dumbledore gay?” question became red-hot on the Internet. Author JK Rowling’s take on the question was very interesting: “My truthful answer to you…I always thought of Dumbledore as gay…Yeah, that’s how I always saw Dumbledore.” I personally agree with Jacobs’ comment on Rowling’s response: “Rowling see...