It has been 13 years since the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published. I make no reckoning of the shoddy commercial project "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". Well, it's been 13 years since... Well, you understand. The period of frantic browsing of the literary news, waiting for the phrase "the next volume in the Boy Who Lived book series, is coming out soon" is over. It is over. I no longer remember how it happened that I drew attention to such a direction in modern literature as fan fiction. Well, not the point, everyone has their own story of acquaintance with this world. In general, I came across one text, the annotation to which attracted me. It was a fanfic called "Harry Potter and... Just Harry" Oh well, more on that later.
So, here we have such a thing as "fan fiction". What it is? Wikipedia says that... Although some speak rather sharply about this source of information, I believe that in the vast majority of articles this is a completely adequate encyclopedic phenomenon. And, unfortunately, many authoritative printed publications of all times and peoples can boast of incompetence. Anyway. Wikipedia states that fan fiction is "isfictional writingwritten in anamateurcapacity byfans, unauthorized by, butbased on an existing work of fiction.The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or otherintellectual propertiesfrom the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form offan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional (and occasionalnon-fictional) subject. Common bases for fan fiction includenovels,movies,musical groups,cartoons,anime,manga, andvideo games" So, fanfiction is texts, mostly artistic, created on the basis of motives, plots, in general, the reality of some original text. The main criticism of this kind of literature is that the core element of the text has the character of plagiarism, and also that these texts have a low level of artistic and linguistic value. It is quite easy to disagree with the first point, since world literature has quite a lot of experience in borrowing, we know a huge number of examples of" wandering plots "and"cross-cutting motifs". Everybоdy probably remembers the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. So, this text inspired the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin to create The Tale of the Dead Princess. And for some reason, none of those who read this fairy tale to children accuse the great Russian poet of plagiarism. And "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" and "The Legend of the Arab Stargazer" by Washington Irving! And there are a lot of stories like this.
In culturology, such a phenomenon is called tradition, and certainly not by the offensive word "plagiarism". Although the difference between this kind of borrowing and fanfiction is visible to the unaided eye. And the difference is fundamental. What do we see in the classic reworking of the traditional plot, let's say, in the same Pushkin? Pushkin is trying to clothe the same system of problems and motives in a Russian cultural and literary form. The same thing happens with Bulgakov, who takes the motives of Goethe's Faust as a basis, when he transfers the situation of the temptation of a person by Satan described in the German environment of the Renaissance into not just Russian, but even into the Soviet system of realities.
What do we see in fanfiction? Completely different way of interpreting. The authors of fanfiction, basically retaining the system of characters and some plot-event concept, begin to supplement and slightly change them, while filling the popular text created by the author with other problems or trying to refute the concept of the author's ideas. As for the second claim to fan fiction, it should be said here that the history of literature knows entire epochs of bookshelves being flooded with low-grade fiction, which still claims copyright, while fan fiction does not claim it. They have the status of "inscriptions on the fence." And rather, one should rejoice that "on the fences" we sometimes began to write in a good literary language and raise deep philosophical topics. There is one more thing to be said. Fanfiction is a phenomenon absolutely adequate to modern culture. It is today that they shoot serial films with a huge number of seasons. It is today that films like "Terminator", "Terminator 2. Judgment Day" and "Terminator 3. Rise of the Machines", among which the last two films are the so-called "sequels".
Moreover, a number of films have recently been released about how seven bosom friends gather for dinner, during which the hostess of the evening offers to play a game: read aloud all incoming sms and messages on social networks, and put calls on the speakerphone, the rights to use the plot were bought from an Italian director. And these films, at their core, are fanfiction. Fan fiction is a natural product of modern culture because almost every viewer, after watching the last season of a series, wants to see the continuation of the story. It's the same with books. Moreover, modern literary and film criticism is full of arguments like "What was the reason that the character of the hero was formed in this way? Maybe these reasons should be sought in his past or even in his childhood? or "how would events have developed if…" These considerations become one of the foundations in assessing the character and the film / book in general. That is, the modern author's and reader's consciousness requires that there be fanfiction. And if they are not created by the writers or directors themselves, then they begin to be written (and now filmed) by the readers themselves. And what gives us culturally such a phenomenon as fan fiction? At all times, the search for one or another literary method and genre, one or another artistic form was dictated by the desire to depict the surrounding reality and a person as authentically, as fully as possible. This is how such literary methods as sentimentalism and realism appeared, this is how such genres as the novel and lyric poem appeared. And it is for this reason that such a phenomenon as fan fiction appears. Fickwriter is trying to show us that real life doesn't end with defeating Voldemort and sending Albus Severus Potter to Hogwarts. That life goes on, that it can be no less interesting than the life of the "Golden Trio" during their studies at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. That all problems do not disappear with the victory over Voldemort, that evil can be diverse, and different methods and means are also needed to fight it. If we consider fan fiction from the point of view of Christian culture, we will see that this kind of thinking is quite the place to be. If we consider such a phenomenon of fan fiction as a "prequel", then we will see that the so-called "prequel" of the New Testament is the entire corpus of books of the Old Testament, which reflects the prehistory of the events that took place in Palestine in the first half of the 1st century BC. It was the events of the Old Testament that became the historical and cultural-religious prerequisites for the events of the New Testament. Therefore, denying the significance of fanfiction, we deny the significance of the Old Testament in the spiritual life of a Christian. The same scheme can be applied to the so-called "sequels", which, in relation to the New Testament, are the lives of the saints and other church-historical literature, which reflects the religious and historical continuity of Christians in relation to the apostles and, above all, to Jesus Christ. Moreover, it should be said that in the life of Christianity there is a kind of cultural enthusiasm for certain religious forms, in which the spiritual life of every Christian is clothed. This is reflected in the symbolism of architecture, fine arts, poetry of liturgical texts.
Yes, this enthusiasm has a certain spiritual character, but one way or another, during fasting, a Christian imitates John the Baptist or Mary of Egypt. Why are we denying this right to a fan of the Harry Potter books? Yes, these books do not have a direct religious meaning, but this does not mean that they are devoid of any positive moral meaning. Why do we deny the right to use external forms in order to touch the internal content of these books? But the meaning of these books has a Christian character. Why are we depriving today's young people of learning the Christian virtues through reading the story of the Boy Who Lived? Why do we believe that some books are capable of educating, while others are not? Who gave us such a right? The appearance of fanfiction is a reflection of the fact that this story and this morality is not indifferent to young readers. Fan fiction in this respect is similar to patristic theology, which is created on the basis of biblical texts. And in that and in this case there is a comprehension and interpretation of the described events. Also speaking about current trends in the reading environment, it should be noted that today there are different categories of readers: teenagers and adults, young and old, housewives and intellectuals. On the one hand, this is reflected in the fact that no opinion can become absolutely authoritative for the modern reader, that is, the modern reader is guided by only one criterion in choosing a book - like or dislike. On the other hand, any literary production will surely find its reader. Yes, not necessarily this or that book will be read by thousands, but someone will read it, and someone will like this or that book. Therefore, any literary form of expression of ideas is quite the place to be. Some of it has always been that way. For example, until recently, young people read Alexander Dumas and Walter Scott, while people of a more mature age looked at this kind of fiction very skeptically. But the fact is that the modern teenager is no longer interested in Dumas and Scott, they need the same literature with an exciting plot, but of a different generation. And fan fiction has become such literature today. And here the problem is not in the genre itself, but in the quality of the literary form. Who prevents modern factor writers from writing in a good literary language, putting lofty ideas into their texts? And what is most interesting, there are such fic-writers. The same can be said about the so-called romance novels within the fan fiction genre. Who prevents these young ladies from writing the way Austin and Bronte did in their time? And there are such girls. So let's learn to read fanfiction! Let's learn how to find good fan texts and learn from these writers to be worthy people, as our parents, grandparents did, who, after reading Ostrovsky's novel "How the Steel Was Tempered", wanted to become the same heroes. And yet, let's be grateful to these unusual writers who write their own novels, novels and short stories, without even hoping for small fees, let's admire their enthusiasm!
