Popularist or Literati?

[vanwalossien]

Sadly, the real dividing line isn't between different kinds of readers, but between readers and non-readers.

Exactly. I'm in high school, and fortunately, most of my class mates read, but I'm on a course that generally attracts "literatis", and in Junior High, most of my classmates had never in their lives read a whole book, and when forced to do so in school they were hopelessly bored. I must admit that I read more or less anything, but usually not the things considered to be pulp fiction - that kind which mostly resembles book versions of soap operas, but it's not because they're considered to be pulp, it's just that I don't like them. And I know that I read a lot of things that English professors and the like would probably consider to be way too "illiterate". But the brilliance of these "pulp" books is that they can make loads of people read, who would normally not open a book in their lives.

Example: Anyone who critisize Harry Potter for being populist (and why is it so bad to be popular?) should think about how many children J.K. Rowling has encouraged to read. My younger brother was convinced that reading was boring, not matter what, until I more or less forced him to listen to me reading Harry Potter to him. He was so excited that when I tired of reading aloud after the first book, he continued, and he realised that reading was not so boring after all. I remember very clearly my mother's shock when my borther ploughed through all the Harry Potter novels, then Lord of the Rings (is this poor little boy a tiny bit influenced by his sister..?), and then Harry Potter again - in English...

It's my opinion that any book is definetly better than no book.