I don't think an artist has to be a terrific person to crank out works worth reading. One of my all-time favorite writers, Richard Yates, was, I'm certain, really repugnant on a regular basis. But something seems to be missing from the current J.K. Rowling discussions. Why aren't people pointing out that her writing is generally pretty bad? (OK, Laura Lippman pointed this out on Twitter, but that's the one example I can think of. Oh, also, Alison Lurie once said it's a bit strange and not really suspenseful to unmask your villain so quickly. Voldemort isn't exactly Sondheim's Mrs. Lovett, in terms of surprising-us-and-generating-suspense. But Lurie likes other aspects of Rowling's work.) Among the most painfully-slow novels I've read in recent history was Rowling's "Career of Evil." This is about a group of people who want to be disfigured; the thought of losing a limb is a source of excitement. It's also about a murder...