From a Reuters article about the Harry Potter publisher's reaction to book reviews published before the book officially went on sale:
A Bloomsbury spokeswoman called the New York Times review "very sad", adding that there was only one day to wait until the official release in book stores around the world. Twelve million copies of the book have been printed for the U.S. market alone.
She likened the events in the United States to the Boston Tea Party, a 1773 protest by American colonists against Britain....
Tip: That doesn't sound as pejorative on our side of the pond as it might on yours.
In any case, here's the Times' substantive response:
"Our feeling is that once a book is offered up for sale at any public, retail outlet, and we purchase a copy legally and openly, we are free to review it," a [New York Times] spokeswoman said.
"We came across a copy of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' at a store in New York City and we bought it...."
She's "staggered" that her book was reviewed a day early? Rowling is either way too fragile or she takes herself and her book way too seriously. It's a kids' book. A good kids' book, but just a kids' book. Plus, no one is forced to read spoilers in the NYT review.
And if reading the review is bad, the Rowling's complaint probably made things worse. Many people probably learned about the review and read it because of the publicity of Rowling's complaint.
Relax, Ms. Rowling. Millions of kids will enjoy your book, and you will make millions more dollars.
In English, we say, "She says that as if it were a bad thing."
"As if" should alert the writer that a "contrary-to-fact" construction, requiring the subjunctive mood, will follow.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy were kids' books, too. But you can take them too seriously.
If you are "staggered" that someone reviewed a copy of Harry Potter the day before the book came out, you take it too seriously. If you don't want to see the review, don't read it.
Plus, EV was right about the whole Boston Tea Party reference. Did Rowlings really think that the analogy would be a negative thing over here? Are Britons really still smarting over it?
That said, the only real danger of this kind of review is that some jerk will decide to hit a bookstore at midnight and scream spoilers at the top of his lungs. I'm actually somewhat surprised that I've managed to get this close to the release without having details of the ending thrust at me, for that matter. But with the early sales of a few copies of the book, there's no sense in saying that there was still value in preserving the secret - it's out there, after all.
One question - normally when a street date is "broken", other area retailers are then allowed to sell the item with no penalty. So what the heck is everyone still waiting for?
That said, this does seem like a tempest in a teapot.
Of course, if it was discovered that President Bush was behind the leaked early copies, some of the VC readers VC would be calling for his impeachment over it.
Well yeah, if he leaked copies he received from the publisher that would be some kind of contract violation, if he printed his own copies and leaked those that would be copyright violation. Either case shows a lack of character and integrity.
Nick
Sort of like the Boston Tea Party, which basically involved a bunch of smugglers that were mad about LOWER taxes on British tea that would make their smuggling less profitable. In other words, not exactly the exciting display of patriotism its often made out to be.
In fact I suspect the NYT creates substantially more utility by publishing the review a day early than it does in publishing the review the morning after the release when most people won't have finished the book yet but after it's too late to decide if it's worth standing in line at the official release to get it.
I understand why Rowling and some fans get so upset about this. When you are really into something it can be hard to understand that it might not be so important for everyone else. However, this doesn't mean she is right.
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The Harry Potter Books are kids books that have a wide adult appeal as well. The fact that they have gotten somewhat dark and mean is totally irrelevant. This means they don't cater to adult's romanticized view of childhood. Heck, check out the fairy tails that people use to read to kids before the modern day. You have things in those stories that would cause many a modern adult to blink.
Obviously being a kids book is a vague category but Harry Potter is obviously deliberately written in a style that is accessible and appealing to children. I suspect the reason many people want to deny it is a kid's book is that this carries with it a certain stigma but it's the stigma that should go not the fact.
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To the silly linguistic corrector in this comment thread: Why? We all can easily parse the meaning so what more do you want? Language is for communication, it's not a way to feel superior to other people.
I was on the NYT's side about this until I saw that all day before the midnight release, there was a headline on the front page of the website about how the Times was "waiting with fans" for the release. No -- once you have reviewed it, you're no longer "waiting with the fans."
If you are the sort of person that needs to hear whether the NYTimes approves of a book, why the heck would you be standing in line at midnight to buy it the second it comes out?
The point is that the NYTimes had no real reason to publish a review early (using a book that someone else broke their contract to release early: and don't tell me that the NYTimes just happened upon this rare occurrence by "accident" as they imply) and publish spoilers, especially knowing that the hush hush release was meant to be a big event for fans. They were simply being dicks trying to scoop others and gain publicity for their failing paper, and now they stand with no real excuse and a bunch of stammering self-righteousness that ignores the plain fact that they're dicks.
Seriously, is there any good argument that what they did doesn't amount to nose-thumbing, holier-than-thou dickery? No one is claiming that it's illegal, just dick: it's no more or less dick than the guy that stole a copy and photoscanned the entire book and uploaded it onto the internet, or the people that have been posting spoilers wherever they can just to upset people.
No. Is there a good argument against nose-thumbing, holier-than-thou dickery? I'm afraid that I have too few opportunities to engage in such, tbh. Frankly, when my life is ending down in some quie tropiucal locale I will likely think.. boy I didn't engage in enough nose-thumbing, holier-than-thou dickery...
I'm sure hoards of thirteen year-old's were camping out in long lines outside the NYT offices for copies of Kakutani's review.
"We came across a copy of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' at a store in New York City and we bought it...."
Sounds like a Monty Python routine:
"Oy was in innocent search of a 2nd edition Keats and ... 'Ello,' says I, 'could that be Airy Potter an' the bleeding Deathly Aloes??"
And horrified, horrified, at the additional publicity that their protest is going to generate.
First, I read the book reviews all the time, and quite often they don't review book a until after it has been published for several months. So it is quite disingenuous for them to suddenly decide that this particular review just HAD to be printed before it was published.
So is Harry Potter a children's book or not? If it is not, then fine -- review the book as an adult. And then put it on the NY Times Bestseller list. But, no -- wait, they didn't put in there. Why? Because they decided it was a children's book! And a children's book that JUST HAD TO BE REVIEWED before publication!
The book enjoyed among the highest pre-sales ever. So what was the point of the review? We read book reviews to help us determine whether the book is worth reading or not. IN this case, the readers have already made up their minds that they will read it, and not only that, that more people will read this particular book than all the books reviewed by the NY Times the past year combined. They can say what they like, but it will not likely alter its sales in the slightest.
So tell me again -- what is the point of reviewing this latest Harry Potter and getting it out before it was published?
My theory is that the book review section just wanted to prove that they are still relevant when in fact, at least with regards to children and HP fans, they clearly are not. Either that, or there are some disgruntled authors who are jealous of JK Rowling's success.
It's not immmoral, because people have no moral obligation to obey requests by publishers and authors not to interfere with their marketing campaigns, as was pointed about by Tim Rutten in the LA Times.
And for those people who saw the review, all they needed to do was remember Cohen v. California and Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville-- avert your eyes.