A Case of Fowl Play
A less magical book tries to
horn in on Harry Potter
By
PAUL GRAY
Publishing
abhors a vacuum, and 2001 has been unfolding around a doozy
of emptiness. Here is a vast new worldwide audience of readers
galvanized by J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, and no new
Harry Potter installment will appear this year to slake the
pent-up cravings of the boy wizard's devotees. Millions of
people bereft! What's worse, many more millions of dollars
unspent at bookstores!
That background
explains why the publishing world has whipped itself into
a fine froth of hype and hoopla over a rather creepy 12-year-old
fictional hero named, as is the novel he stars in, Artemis
Fowl. British rights to the book, written by Irish schoolteacher
and children's writer Eoin (pronounced Owen) Colfer, 35, were
purchased last year by Penguin/Puffin. Then Talk Miramax Books
snapped up U.S. rights, and Miramax Films optioned the book
for a film. At that point, publishers all over the planet
began bidding on Artemis Fowl, which has now been sold in
18 countries. In the end, advances reportedly totaled more
than $1.5 million.
So, is Artemis
Fowl the new, or at least the interregnum, Harry Potter? Talk
Miramax Books, which enlisted the aid of its fellow Disney
subsidiary Hyperion Books for Children to help publish and
market the new contender in the U.S., insists that its strenuous
efforts on behalf of Artemis Fowl have little to do, at least
intentionally, with the Harry Potter phenomenon. "It's not
the next Harry Potter," says Talk Miramax editor in chief
Jonathan Burnham. "But the book trade has said to us, ŒWell,
this is great, because this year there's no new Harry Potter.'
So the audience that there is for Harry Potter is hungry for
adventurous, daring stories that are kind of challenging and
exciting. And this is clearly what Artemis is doing."
What Artemis
Fowl (Viking; 280 pages) is doing seems, unfortunately for
all the big money and expectations clustered around its debut,
pretty much beyond the pale of fictional empathy or the sort
of reader involvement that has made Harry Potter so beloved.
For Artemis is repellent in almost every regard. This mastermind
is the know-it-all scion of a criminal and fabulously rich
Irish family, lately fallen on hard times after the mysterious
disappearance of Artemis' father. So the son and his burly
henchman Butler embark on a quest to buff up his inheritance
by stealing gold from the fairies, who live beneath the earth,
having been driven there by the proliferation of humans, or
"Mud People."
Artemis
succeeds in obtaining the Book, a compendium of fairy rules
and regulations, and then breaks its arcane coded hieroglyphs
with the aid of his trusty Apple PowerBook. Next, he captures
a real live fairy: Holly Short, a captain in the LEPrecon
(Lower Elements Police reconnaissance) detail. The fairy denizens
gird to rescue one of their own, and guess who wins.
Parents
who might be worried about their children's reading a book
glorifying extortion don't know the half of what's wrong with
Artemis Fowl. The writing is abysmal: "Keep calm, he derided
himself." Or, "If one of his own men had pulled a stunt like
this, he'd have their stripes for it." Clichés fester on nearly
every page: "hollow threat" on 87, "no mean feat" on 88. Dialogue
is rarely "said"; it is "whined," "quipped" or "grunted" ad,
literally, nauseam. Supposedly admirable characters "smirk."
Colfer,
understandably unsettled by the money and attention that have
recently landed on him, says he hadn't read a Harry Potter
book until he finished writing Artemis Fowl, and was relieved
to discover that "they're totally different books. I think
the Harry Potter books are timeless books. In a way, they're
even old-fashioned books. Retro books, if you like." He acknowledges
that "if it hadn't been for J.K. Rowling's success, I probably
wouldn't have this success. Now that there's not a Harry Potter
this year, I think the newspapers are looking for something
to keep the Harry Potter news going."
But the
press has been following this scent thanks to winks and nods
from Colfer's various publishers, who seem to believe that
the Harry Potter phenomenon, which grew slowly on the basis
of pass-along readership, can now be conjured up and handed
down. Colfer shouldn't be blamed for being a lesser writer
than Rowling; but he can be charged with producing an awkward,
calculated, humorless and mean-spirited book.
-Reported
by Andrea Sachs/New York
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May 21, 2001 | No. 20
COVER
STORIES
Justice
Delayed
Does the hitch in Timothy McVeigh's execution point to deeper fbi problems?
The confessed bomber may get what he is due in the end, but he may also
have met one of his goals: making Americans doubt the way their government
pursues justice
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
SOUTH
PACIFIC
NEW ZEALAND: Loved to Death...
A top tourist spot's popularity has become a threat to its beauty
Defense: The focus shifts from force
to service
THE
ARTS
ART: Kathleen Petyarre's Utopia Dreamings
BOOKS: A Harry Potter wannabe cries foul
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