Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

So, with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 last week, I decided it was time for me to finish up the Harry Potter series. I was a fairly early reader, picking up the first book right after the second came out, and, up until Order of the Phoenix released, I read them more or less as soon as they came out. Unfortunately, OotP really didn’t do it for me, and I didn’t read The Half-Blood Prince for a year or so after I finished that tome. I started Deathly Hallows soon after it came out, got bored after about 100pp, and told myself I’d get back to it eventually. I finally did.

I share the above to share this: I feel like how much one enjoys Deathly Hallows, especially the first half, is directly proportional to how seriously one takes the story; that is, I always enjoyed Harry Potter as a fun little lark with some dark edges. As the books got more serious, diminishing returns set it—although I enjoyed Half-Blood Prince, it wasn’t nearly as fun as the earlier books for me, especially Goblet of Fire, which is probably my favorite. So, now that I’ve rambled, let me address the actual book.

First, the negatives: The first half of this book was really, deathly (haha) slow. There were huge sections that felt like they could have been seriously condensed, especially the interminable setup for Harry’s escape from Death Eaters early on. Also, this book is SERIOUS. There’s little of the lighthearted humor that characterized the first few books—which makes sense thematically—but I found that it created a distance for me because, as I mentioned earlier, I never thought of Harry Potter as inherently serious. Lastly, there’s a lot of exposition. Most of this takes the form of newspaper articles, excerpts from Dumbledore’s biography, and word of mouth from other characters. There are also conversations that are basically info-dumps—in other words, a lot of telling instead of showing.

Now for the positives: by the end, I’d been won over. I underestimated connection to the characters, and when it all went down in the end, I found the various fallout, including deaths of some important characters, surprisingly effective. A couple long-standing characters get a shot at redemption, and Rowling does a good job at avoiding the various attendant clichés. The final confrontation(s) between Harry and Voldemort and well-drawn, and the entire last half of the book moves very quickly and seamlessly. I was surprised how little navel-gazing there was, pleasantly surprised since that’s basically what turned me off of the series to begin with. I was also impressed with the complexity of the plot—there were a couple times that hewed close to dues ex machine, one of the series’ most consistent problems, but for the most part the story played out organically, using characters and touchstones from throughout the seven books to draw everything to a mostly satisfactory conclusion. I even liked the Epilogue, which, although it was a little cheesy, read to me more like Rowling trying to limit the amount of post-series fanfic and mostly succeeding.

It may sound like I’m damning Deathly Hallows with faint praise, but it was probably the 3^rd best book, after Half-Blood Price and Goblet of Fire. It was satisfying in a way that long-running series rarely are, and it hit the right notes when it counted.

Harry Potter 6 & 7

Why Are You Worrying About You-Know-Who?
You SHOULD Be Worrying About
U-NO-POO --
the Constipation Sensation That's Gripping the Nation!

A few weeks ago, I reread Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, ahead of the movie being released in mid-July. I mostly read it because the movie trailers were seriously confusing me. They featured all sorts of special effects depicting screaming girls and apparent terrorist attacks in the Muggle world, along with a host of other things I did not remember being in the book. I figured either a) the director took a lot more liberties with this movie than other directors had with the previous five or b) I was seriously forgetting some major plot points.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince follows Harry through his sixth year at Hogwarts, a year in which the Wizarding world is fighting Voldemort, the evil wizard who has been "back" from the dead for over a year but who is finally out in the open, causing harm and trying to lure followers to his fold. Harry et. al. return to Hogwarts where Professor Snape is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and is suspected by Harry of helping Draco with a plan for Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Also, Ron gets an irritating girlfriend in the character of Lavender Brown (a pitiable girl that I imagine is one of those terribly vacuous high school twats with poor self-image that can't...quiiite...make it into the In-Crowd). Why he chooses to spend the better part of the year making out with her and not Hermione is beyond me, but it does provide an interesting dynamic since Ron and Hermione aren't speaking all year. In the end, Harry discovers that Voldemort has spliced his soul into 7 pieces, hiding each one in an artifact. After returning from a mission to find one, Harry and Dumbledore are confronted by Death Eaters in the school and, spoiler alert, Dumbledore dies at the hands of Severus Snape. Oh and Harry dates Ginny Weasley (yay!) but then breaks up with her for some "terribly noble reason" (her words) - that he has to save the world from Voldemort and can't have any attachments until that's through.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows picks up during the summer following, and focuses on the journey of Harry, Hermione and the now-single-and-ready-to-mingle (too many dashes?) Ron as they search first for Horcruxes and later for the Deathly Hallows, three symbols of Death's conquerability. I'm skipping a l0t, but a huge battle at the book's end finishes Voldemort, but not without many Wizarding lives lost - including Fred Weasley. Sad face :(

Both books were excellent the first time around, though I was probably a bit hurried reading them (book 6 came out right after I returned from abroad and I remember reading it aloud to my friend Caitlin on a road trip - she only agreed to drive the day after its midnight release if I read aloud in the car while she drove; book 7 I read between calls at my brand-new post-college job, which was kind of the suck.)

It was nice to get to take some time now and really savor the books. I'm really glad I did so ahead of the movie's release too - I had forgotten a ton, like Katie Bell's being cursed and flying into the air screaming, and the Muggle attacks that begin during Voldemort's rise to power. J.K. Rowling is one of the greats, and I really hope she gives fiction-writing another go, maybe with a new series to savor. Though, if I were her, I'd be paralyzed by the possibility of inadequacy and just stop.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

"Wizards still have not found a way of reuniting body and soul once death has occurred. As the eminent Wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Pensees-Profondes writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter: 'Give it up. It's never going to happen.'"

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the quintessential enjoyable children's book. It's very different from J.K. Rowling's other books, which were firmly within the realm of Young Adult literature at least. The first and most noticeable difference with Beedle is the font size, which is this big, the better for little eyes to decipher I suppose. This font has the added bonus of turning Beedle into a chapterbook that (barely) exceeds 100 pages. All in all, it took me about an hour to read.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard was first introduced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in Rowling's series. Hermione is gifted an original copy of the book from the estate of Albus Dumbledore after his death. In it, the story of "The Three Brothers" introduced Harry, Hermione and Ron to the Elder Wand, with which [SPOILER ALERT] Harry eventually kills Voldemort.

Like "The Three Brothers," all of the stories in Beedle are morally edifying, and teach the kind of lessons that young witches and wizards should take to heart. Thus, they don't resemble Muggle fairytales so much as Aesop's fables. In this edition, readers get the added bonus of Dumbledore's own footnotes following each story. The footnotes give additional information about wizarding lore, facts about the magical world and humorous asides.

It is this humor, this intentional naughtiness that you find in the very best children's books that I most enjoyed in Beedle. Like my other favorite children's book, J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy, Beedle was clearly written to be enjoyed by both the adult and child reader, for different reasons. Funny asides reveal themselves in the footnotes, and I can imagine that many of them would go right over a young child (or young wizard's!) head.

So there you have it. A short review for a short book. You can get this one at the bookstore for about ten dollars and if you are any kind of Harry Potter fan at all, I'd say buy it. All the proceeds go to a European children's charity, so you can pat yourself on the back for that too.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (pt. 1)

Note: In the interest of readability, and avoiding spoilers before Brent has read it, I have broken my review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into several parts--just like the film adaptation. The first is a general post-mortem review of the entire Harry Potter Series.

When the seventh and final Harry Potter book appeared in July of last year, it became officially time for the cultural establishments of our world to look at the series as a whole and begin to discuss its place in the scope of world literature. That Harry Potter has made zealots of both his supporters and detractors is no secret; the images of Potterites young and old decked in glasses and orange-and-maroon Gryffindor scarves are fresh in our minds, balanced on the other side by the now less-frequent news reports of suburban parents challenging the books’ inclusion in their children’s school libraries. (Let’s not forget, Harry opens “a doorway that will put untold millions of kids into Hell.”)

But there are Harry-haters more respectable than Jack Chick, and none has more literary gravitas than Harold Bloom, the famous Yale critic who might be the world’s most well-read man. In an article that leads with Bloom’s disgust over the National Book Foundation’s presentation of an award to Stephen King, he targets Harry Potter as a particularly nefarious cog in the war machine that’s been sent to obliterate the literary awareness of the Western world: “I suffered a great deal in the process [of reading it],” he writes. “The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible.” One shivers at the image of poor septuagenarian Bloom forcing himself choke down another page of such drivel, while his collection of Romantic busts look on with horror. Lining up with Bloom on the anti-Harry side are prominent literary figures like A.S. Byatt, and a gaggle of literary and social critics.

Of course, Bloom is describing only his reaction to the first book, which underwhelmed me as well, and when he states that the Harry Potter books are unlikely to introduce kids to better-written children’s novels, he’s probably correct. The idea that Harry Potter is a net social good because it gets kids reading is not only a well-meaning falsehood, it’s a red herring of Hagrid-like proportions. Even if it were true, it would do little to help us judge the books on an aesthetic level—not to mention the fact that our children’s literacy is a burden meant for us, not Rowling.

On the other side of the divide are folks like that bete noir of Bloom’s, Stephen King, whose defense of the Potter books borders on adulation. I have unfairly singled out this one of King’s commendations as patently ridiculous: “Talent is never static, it's always growing or dying, and the short form on Rowling is this: She was far better than R.L. Stine (an adequate but flavorless writer) when she started, but by the time she penned the final line of Deathly Hallows (''All was well.''), she had become one of the finer stylists in her native country — not as good as Ian McEwan or Ruth Rendell (at least not yet), but easily the peer of Beryl Bainbridge or Martin Amis.”

King might have chosen two names at random. While I happen to agree with King on sentiment—Rowling has become a much better writer, something which I believe began with the fourth book—this affirmation is nonsensical. Amis’ Money, a book which I love, is composed of an inspired satirical style that combines the beautiful with the crude. I found it quite affecting. But of course, that’s what Amis meant to do—he is a writer in control of his prose, and can use it to create emotion, pace, and meaning. Can we say any of these things of Rowling?

That Rowling has learned to get out of her own way by the seventh book is a testament to her growth as an author, but if we are serious we must admit that in the entirety of the series great stylistic moments are hard to come by. The image of Hogwarts is strong in our minds, but I can find no passages in which Rowling’s style is up to her extensive imagination; if our mental picture of Hogwarts is vivid it is because of what it is and not the way it is described (and is attributable, I think, in no small part to the films). The dialogue, while frequently clever when it comes to cracking jokes, stumbles mightily in moments of great intensity or meaning, except perhaps for some of the more intimate moments between Dumbledore and Harry. Even the line which King holds in such high regard as the exemplar of the series’ growth—Mrs. Weasley’s battle-cry of “NOT MY DAUGHTER, BITCH!”—seems guilty of the lazy trick of resorting to unexpected profanity. Cue the “ooooohs” from the soundtrack.

But even in the places of the final book where Rowling’s prose remains clumsy or wooden, I am seldom bothered by it anymore. Rowling isn’t Amis, but so what? Why do we need her to be? Is it necessary for the Harry Potter books to be a great work of literature for us to appreciate them?

If we look at them only as literature, I suppose. This may seem a strange thing to say—after all, literature is what they are, right?—but the truth is that by any serious metric, the reality about Rowling’s magnum opus is closer to the conceptions of Bloom and Byatt than that of King. The prose, while much improved, never quite reaches anything worthy of being called “good,” and the plot is frequently contrived to the point of absurdity. Too often the best ideas and characters are mired in a mish-mash of half-baked concepts, confusing plot points, and clichés.

But I maintain that the best way of viewing the Harry Potter series is not a simply literature, but as a cultural event. The books are a big part of it, of course—the biggest—but so are the films, the video games, the action figures, the fan fiction, all of that. We live in a world that perceives itself to be so embattled in the “culture wars” and lacking truly shared cultural icons that the emergence of Harry into the pantheon that includes Mickey Mouse, Superman, and Luke Skywalker is welcome as proof that pop culture remains well and alive in my generation. I mention those examples because they are ones I believe exist in our cultural consciousness not merely as envisioned by their creators but through the eyes of hundreds or thousands of creative minds. Of course, gentlemen named Disney, Siegel and Shuster, and Lucas own the lion’s share of the way those figures and their respective universes are perceived, but their pull on our imaginations is so strong that we have been reinventing them for decades.

There was long speculation that Rowling might kill Harry off at the end of the series; this idea was spurred on by the thought that by doing so Rowling could protect him from other writers—who are cast in this scenario in quite a predatory light—who might wish to continue his story by their own hand. But Rowling went in the opposite direction, ending Harry’s journey—and, as King writes, “if you think that's a spoiler at this late date, you were never much of a Potter fan to begin with”—with the simple sentence “All was well,” assuring not only Harry’s survival but his health and happiness. I do not know if Rowling has considered that this might leave Harry open to such literary poachers, but it is my hope that she considered the possibility and considered it good. Certainly such a move leaves the characters open to be perverted and diluted—I’m sure Harry Potter: The Animated Series isn’t too far off—but I think it also will help Harry to remain a living, vibrant character. Of course, I have no statistical evidence on the popularity of Superman to back myself up, but I feel as if having Harry alive is on its face the best thing for his legacy. This way, he belongs to us all now.

With all due respect to Dr. Bloom and Mr. King, I hold with the middle road walked by Christopher Hitchens, a man not known for his moderateness: “It is given to few authors to create a world apart, and to populate it as well as illustrate it in the mind. As one who actually did once go to boarding school by steam train, at 8, I enjoyed reading aloud to children and coming across Diagon Alley and Grimmauld Place, and also shuddering at the memory of the sarcastic schoolmasters (and Privet Drives) I have known.” I can think of no better description of the Potter series’ strengths: its endless and captivating inventiveness, and the way that it plays to our deeply held desire to find reflected in our literature the familiar and the mysterious both.

And if there’s really a culture war going on, put me squarely on King’s side against the Blooms and Byatts of this world. It’s a post-modern world now, the era of the lowbrow, no matter how tightly Bloom holds the keys to the canon.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling

Now, I suppose this will be a little bit longer than the review I posted a few days ago, but honestly, I don't have a whole lot I want to say about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Of course, I really do have a lot to say about it, but I think I'll save most of my thoughts for the post-mortem on the whole series.

I am pleased to report that The Half-Blood Prince is, as Brent would agree, easily the second best of the first six after The Goblet of Fire. Somewhere between the third and fourth book Rowling took a writing class or something, and since then the books have taken such an uptick in quality that I would call the last three particularly above my expectations (while the first two and maybe three decidedly below them). Furthermore, HP6 lacks many of the structural and pacing qualities that made Order of the Phoenix so unpopular. If there is anything to be said against HP6 that doesn't go for the series as a whole, it's that until the very end there it lacks a sense of direction and eventfulness that the other books have in spades. In both HP4 and HP5 there is the sense of inexorable forward progress, that the events of each book are leading toward a showdown at book's end--The Triwizard Tournament finals in the former, the mystery of the prophecy and Harry's worsening dreams in the latter. In HP6, there is ultimately an important scuffle between the Death Eaters and the Order, but it sort of comes out of nowhere. It's almost as if HP6 is a stop-gap book, between the fifth and seventh books which are more important plotwise (disregarding that one big thing at the end which I will not discuss).

Celebrity is a big theme in the Harry Potter books, and the fifth and sixth books form an interesting dual commentary--in the fifth, Harry is an outcast, ridiculed by the Ministry of Magic and reviled by his classmates; in the sixth his popularity has reached a fever pitch. The new teacher this year is Horace Slughorn, a Slytherin who wants to "collect" Harry as a member of the "Slug Club," comprised of all the best and brightest at Hogwarts. This is clever for several reasons, I think--for one, Slughorn is the first Slytherin who likes Harry and isn't evil; it's a great opportunity for Rowling to show that Slytherin doesn't completely produce Death Eater types and retain Slytherin's reputation for elitism and entitlement. Meanwhile, the vicissitude of Harry's popularity--persona non grata one day, schoolwide stud the next--is a sharp commentary on the nature of fame in the Muggle world.

Anyhow, I think I'll save most of my other thoughts for book seven.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

Or, In Defense of JK Rowling's Fifth Harry Potter Book, with Spoilers

I am aware that Order of the Phoenix is the least appreciated of all the Harry Potter books--Carlton in particular thought it was quite the slog--and I am aware why. The book has numerous flaws, including its interminable first half that eschews Hogwarts for the setting of Twelve Grimmaud Place, the bloodlessness of the feuds between the three principal characters, Harry's incessant emoing, and, in my opinion the most damning, the rather minor presence of Voldemort and the relative inconsequentiality of the object for which the ultimate showedown occurs. However, I do not feel, as Carlton and Brent do, that this is easily the worst book of the seven; in fact, I feel as if it is quite a bit better than the first two and about as good as the third. Let's not forget that this isn't exactly an enduring literary classic--huge flaws come with the territory. The question is, does the book work in spite of them, and I believe that it does. Accordingly, this entry will be about what I like about Order of the Phoenix and will avoid any further discussion of its oft-detailed failures.

The Ministry of Magic: In my opinion, the best plot element outside of the Tri-Wizard Tournament is the fact that, in this book, Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic wage a huge public relations war on Harry and the notion of Voldemort having returned. These two plot elements share a common trait in that they serve to really expand the reader's understanding of the world in which Harry lives--the former in an international sense, and the latter a domestic one--and, it seems to me, the chief appeal of the Harry Potter series is the complexity and texture of Rowling's fictional universe. We were given a small insight into the dysfunction of the Wizarding world in the previous two books--and, if you recall, my solution to this problem was to look to the Muggle world for political solutions--but here we really get the full picture of what the consequences of political corruption and negligence are in the Wizarding world. The book begins with Harry defending himself by his Patronus charm from Dementors near his home in Little Whinging, followed by a hearing at the Ministry of Magic to determine whether or not his use of magic broke Wizard law. It threatens to be a show trial until Dumbledore shows up to defend Harry, and ultimately Harry wins the day, though narrowly. But the Ministry does all in its power for the next 700 pp. to convince the Wizarding world that everything is A-OK, from keeping a tight stranglehold on the principle Wizard newspaper, The Daily Prophet, to installing apparatchik Dolores Umbridge as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Her job is to be the Ministry's man inside Hogwarts, and as Fudge feels ever more threatened, she assumes more and more autonomy at the school until it is completely under her control.

What I love about this plot element is that, despite being in a children's fantasy book, the Ministry's malfeasance reflects real-world political and cultural conflict more accurately than most thrillers. Historically speaking, the fight against evil is checked not just by evil itself but also by political corruption, bureaucratic inertia, and petty egotism. Cornelius Fudge looks uncannily like the Neville Chamberlains and the Vidkun Quislings of the world, and I'm sure that's no coincidence.

Furthermore, this kick-starts a chain of events that leaves Harry completely without authority figures: When things at Hogwarts go to Hell, Dumbledore goes on the lam from prosecution, Hagrid is suspended and kicked out by Umbridge, Sirius is incommunicado, and McGonagall is in the hospital ward. What this creates is a dynamic heretofore unseen in the Harry Potter novels--as much as he's been complaining about being on his own throughout Order of the Phoenix, Harry is finally and utterly on his own. Through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, there is the suggestion that Harry has never really been that close to danger because he has the Hogwarts staff to back him up should anything go awry, but Cedric Diggory's death at the end of the book puts that notion completely to rest. Here, worst has come to worst; all of Harry's guardians are gone and Voldemort must be stopped from obtaining whatever is in the Department of Mysteries. But this is what Harry has been training for, gathering school mates in Dumbeldore's Army, and ultimately it is what Harry must do to grow as a character. When you think about it, it's very Hamlet-like--though, as we find out in the end, it very well may mean his own destruction, Harry finds the solution to his bitterness and ennui through action.

Characters: Another thing I liked about Order of the Phoenix was two of its central characters, one new and one old: Umbridge and Sirius.

I think we can all be honest with ourselves and say that originality in creating characters is not, at least through the series' first half, Rowling's strong suit. Harry, Ron and Hermione all play to certain archetypes that defy real characterization--Harry as the Byronic hero, Ron as his stumbling sidekick, and Hermione as, yes, the brainy schoolgirl. Yawn. Voldemort, as iconic as he is, is not really a man of complex character, and some of the minor characters--I'm looking at you, Lupin--are flat as boards. But I think in Dolores Umbridge, Rowling has really created a unique villain, someone who puts more chills in me than Voldemort ever could. Whereas Voldemort cashes in on all of those images we typically associate with fantastic evil--dark clothes, snakes, etc.--Umbridge inverts them, presenting a figure whose evil lurks behind kitty cat plates, pink dresses, and an almost robotlike unflappability. Her transformation from Ministry plant to High Inquisitor to the usurpation of the office of Headmaster is pitch-perfect; she is the epitome of the phrase, "the banality of evil." I do have some questions about her motivation--it's clear why Percy is such a Ministry toady, but what's in it, exactly, for Umbridge? But I don't think that those questions undermine her efficacy as a character, in fact, the mysteriousness of it all makes her all the more frightening.

As for Sirius, well, here's a character I initially thought didn't have a lot going for him--the bad-character-is-actually-a-good-character bait and switch of The Prisoner of Azkaban was a little too pat for my tastes, and I always sort of questioned how Sirius and Harry could form such a bond in so short of time. But I find that Order of the Phoenix does a lot to answer that question for me; after all, here is a boy clearly starved for guardian figures in the absence of his parents and a man who has been in the world's most horrendous prison for years for supposedly killing his Harry's parents, his best friends. Harry is his chance to be redeemed as well as the last living artifact of James and Lily's existence; it is no wonder that they gravitate to each other so strongly. What I like about Sirius in this book--that I don't think the other two books in which he is a presence really exhibit--is his conflictedness as a character, and the way his love for Harry often comes to conflict with his and Harry's safety. There is the real suggestion that the wisest decisions--like letting Harry leave for Hogwarts instead of staying at Twelve Grimmaud Place--are exceedingly difficult for Sirius; the way in which he follows Harry to the train platform as a dog (only to be recognized by Lucius Malfoy) is very un-Dumbledorelike in its foolishness. Rowling wisely avoids the trap set by other authority figures in this book--who, until this book, have been depicted as largely without flaws--and makes Sirius into a real figure, whose love for Harry may be his biggest shortcoming. When Sirius gives his life for Harry, it is all the more powerful because Rowling has worked so hard at making him a convincing character.

As a corollary, I also like the way that Rowling makes her regular characters a little more complex in this book. Dumbledore, who until now has been a little grating in his perfect wisdom, is shown to be an imperfect character by the way he has failed to tell Harry of the prophecy told about him until it was too late. Cho Chang, who might have been any old bimbo in The Goblet of Fire, is really fleshed out as Rowling shows her complicated feelings concerning Harry and the death of Cedric. Ron, who can usually be trusted to fuck up anything, is really given a reprieve by becoming a star Quidditch keeper, but moreso than that his early struggles as a poor player move his character beyond the realm of comedic relief, where bumbling sidekicks never feel bad about their bumbling. And then there's Neville Longbottom, whose development from goofy sidenote to important figure is really to Rowling's credit. All in all, I would go so far to say that this is Rowling's best book, character-wise, with one exception--Hagrid, who is always making Harry's life unnecessarily complicated with hare-brained schemes but no one calls him out for it.

So, there it is. Only two subcategories but I think they're strong. I don't have much to say about the style in this book, except that, apart from the lack of any really eye-catching scenes like the opening to The Goblet of Fire, is as good as its predecessor and decidedly above the Dan Brown minimum acceptable level.

Post-Script: Okay, so I said I wouldn't dwell on the book's flaws, but I had to mention this: Whatever happened to the watch that Hermione used to turn back time in The Goblet of Fire? We couldn't have used that to, oh, I don't know, save Sirius from an untimely death? What the fuck, Hermione.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

Warning 1: This review contains spoilers.

Warning 2: I will not rest until this is my longest review yet.

I'm happy to report to you that this time, the conventional wisdom was correct: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is far and above the best book in the series so far. In fact, I would go so far as to say that after reading it I was satisfied, which is not the way I would have described myself after reading the first three. The reasons for this are myriad, and I shall address them each as well as some other facets of the novel.

Style: Lo and behold, this book doesn't open up with a comically repetitive depiction of life on Privet Drive with the Dursleys, but a long episode contained in a chapter called "The Riddle House," in which the groundskeeper of the Riddle family's old house stumbles upon Wormtail and the newly solidified Voldemort inside it. When Voldemort realizes he's there, he kills him, which, if I am not mistaken, is the first actual non-historical death in a Harry Potter book (but more on that later). What is really remarkable about this section is that it's well-written. No one ever required Rowling to be a fantastically gifted prose writer; all these books really need to work is a sort of utilitarian but well-balanced style that that doesn't get in it's own way, but parts of this book are even better than that. Somewhere between the third and fourth book, Rowling wisely threw away the formula that had been working for so long and went in another direction. Even the dialogue has improved from the sub-television pilot stuff of the first three books. Again, there's nothing really amazing, but it has good flow, and seems natural. Here is a paragraph that comes from the climax, when Voldemort kills Cedric Diggory:

For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before Harry's mind had accepted what he was seeing, before he could feel anything but numb disbelief, he felt himself being pulled to his feet.

It doesn't bowl you over, but, hey, I've been reading the short stories from my Creative Writing class for the past hour, and I'll tell you, this reads like Nabokov. And what's more, look at the carefully chosen phrase, "blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house." That is a clear reference to the Riddle House that appears in the opening chapter and here at the climax, where two of the three deaths in the novel take place. The Riddle House symbolizes death! Rowling has discovered symbolism, and Harry Potter is a better book for it.

Plot: Each of the three previous books has had serious ending problems, the second one being the worst contender. This novel, however, ties things up quite nicely, I thought. The story is basically this, as if you didn't know: The Quidditch tournament has been cancelled because two other famous wizarding schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, have been invited to come to Hogwarts to take place in the resurrected Triwizard Cup, a competition which pitches one wizard from each school against each other in three tasks. After three years of Quidditch--oh, the first game is against Slytherin, is it? Who knew?--Rowling is wise to give her wizarding sport a break for a while and focus on something new; for this reason Goblet of Fire feels particularly fresh. Harry is supposedly too young to enter, but someone enters his name for him--someone surely trying to kill him--and he is selected as the fourth champion to compete with Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory, Beauxbatons sexpot Fleur Delacour, and Durmstrang student/international Quidditch star Viktor Krum. In the end, it is revealed that the trophy he must grab is actually a "portkey" which whisks him off to the Riddle House to face Voldemort one-on-one, and the whole thing was staged by Voldemort supporter Barty Crouch, Jr., pretending to be Dark Arts teacher Alastor "Mad-Eye Moody." Unlike some of the earlier books which tried to be intense and suspenseful, Goblet of Fire really is both, and it's full of questions and mysteries that keep the reader in. Who put Harry's name in the goblet? Where is Barty Crouch, Sr.? What is Voldemort playing at, exactly? Will Cho Chang go to the ball with Harry? The scene where Hermione yells at Ron for not taking her to the dance is particularly good.

But for all that, the whole thing still takes a little suspension of disbelief, especially for one big plot hole: Why would Barty Crouch, Jr. go through so much trouble to make sure Harry Potter got in the tournament and won just so he could touch the trophy/portkey? Why not just make one of Harry's books a portkey or something? There are probably a thousand things Moody could have gotten Harry to touch far more easily--without running the risk that Diggory, Krum, or Delacour would touch them first (Let's not forget that Diggory actually beats Harry to the thing in the first place). Oh well.

The Wizarding World: One of the great things about the Potter series is how each book adds a little bit to our conception of what the Wizarding World is like. From what I could tell from the movie, the fifth novel gives us a lot more insight into the insides of the Ministry of Magic; in this book, it's the Wizarding World outside England. First, there's the Quidditch World Cup--in which the Irish are pitted against the Bulgarians--and then the Triwizard Cup. They say in the book that no one quite knows where the two other schools are located, but, come on. After all, "Beauxbatons" means "Good Wands" in French. As for Durmstrang, well, all their names (like "Igor Karkaroff") are expressly Russian, but the name of the school is expressly German (Sturm und Drang, anyone?), so, I'm gonna guess Poland.

Death: Brent remarked to me earlier he didn't think the books got perceptively darker until the fourth, and he's right, but the sea change is obvious from the beginning: It begins with the murder of Frank Bryce by Voldemort. Of course, one would expect things to get darker as soon as Voldemort turns up in the flesh again. And then the novel is book-ended by the climax, in which Voldemort kills Diggory. This really is quite exceptional; I can't imagine how many people who read this upon its first release were surprised to find a character killed off, especially one as likeable and genuinely well-developed as Diggory. But Diggory's death represents a great shift in Harry's world--until then, the danger to Harry has always seemed a bit ineffective. How many times have we heard Hermione quote from Hogwarts, a History about how well the castle is protected, especially with Dumbledore's watchful eye around? But Dumbledore's watchful eye does nothing for Diggory; and for the first time in the series Hogwarts isn't all sweetness and light and shifting staircases and headless ghosts and shit. At the end of the year ceremony, all the tapestries, which usually are decked out in the colors of the winning house, are all black in honor of Diggory's death, and they are a sign that Harry no longer has a haven in Hogwarts. From now own, his world, like our own, is surrounded on all sides by the threat of death, misery, and ruin. Awesome.

As a sidenote to the progressive darkness of the books, we also get our first view of Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eater. In the first few books, it seemed to me that Draco Malfoy was the kind of template bully who would end up allying with Potter in the end to overcome some greater evil, but by the fourth book, it's clear that isn't so, and I think the series is better for it. Draco knows his father is a Death Eater, and he's delighted about it; he is full with bigotry and hatred for non-purebloods. Watching Draco go from bullying pest to truly evil should be fun.

House-elves: I'm sick of this B-story. Having to read through Dobby's vaguely racist dialect was bad enough, but having to read about Hermione's crusade to free the house-elves is excruciating, and the one element of this book I really didn't like. I feel as if it wasn't Rowling's plan to include it, but somewhere along the way it came to her attention in the second book that she had basically come up with a legal form of slavery in the Wizarding World, and she felt indebted to soften the practice of keeping house-elves. And so, Hermione creates a society to free the house-elves, whom she learns are the ones keeping Hogwarts clean and well-fed, and to give them benefits, unionization, and competitive wages. But the house-elves resent this effort, because the only thing they like to do is work and being "dismissed" by their master is their idea of torture. All right, that's all well and good and fixes the problem from before, suggesting that Dobby is basically an anomaly, but is anyone else not buying this? Isn't the "but they like it" defense scarily close to what we know to be justifications used by pro-slavery elements in the United States leading up to the Civil War? I'm not saying that Rowling intended anything offensive or racist, but I don't think that this was the right solution. Not to mention the things are just damn annoying.

Hooking Up at Hogwarts: Is anyone else really interested to find out what happens after the Yule Ball? I mean, these kids are all drinking Butterbeer (which is, I think this book implies, an actually alcoholic but relatively weak drink, and really shows you how different it would have been if written by an American) and getting rutty. It's basically a Wizard prom, right? And, well, I don't know this from firsthand experience, but some less morally conflicted than I might use the Wizard prom as an excuse to get a little Wizard booty. What is Wizard sex like, exactly? Does Cho Chang hook up with Cedric Diggory, leading to an awkward discussion when she starts to get involved with Harry? And what would have happened with the 18-year old Krum and the 14-year old Hermione if she hadn't been all pissed at Ron? I shudder to think. These are the things I really want to know about Hogwarts.

I don't think that's longer than the last one, but it'll have to do. Anyone have any other observations?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

A few thoughts on the political system in the Harry Potter books:

I think one of the most interesting things about Rowling's Potter books is the government that's in charge of the Wizard world, the Ministry of Magic. It certainly seems to be a peculiar system: First of all, it seems to have little to no relationship with the Muggle government of Britain, though in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban we first find out that the Muggle Prime Minister is aware of its existence and can communicate with the Minister of Magic (or Minister for Magic, if you're reading in Britain). However, it does not seem that the Prime Minister holds any authority over the Minister or the Ministry of Magic; mostly the relationship consists of the Minister of Magic informing the Prime Minister of important goings-on in the Wizard world that affect Muggles, such as the importation of dragons for the Triwizard Tournament, or, in this case, the escape of Sirius Black, about whom Harry first learns from his Muggle television set. This reminds me of other certain political systems that divide government not just by region but by ethnicity or identity; such governments have recently been in the news because of the controversy over Sen. Akaka's bill to reorganize the Hawaiian government creating a branch of government solely for native Hawaiians. If I were a Harry Potter fanfic writer (and who knows, maybe one day I will be), I would be interested in situations in which these two governments overlap--what happens if a Muggle murders a Wizard, or vice versa? Would the Muggle Prime Minister cover up for the Ministry of Magic if the Ministry decided to send a Muggle to Azkaban for murdering a Wizard? And if a Wizard killed a Muggle, would the Prime Minister push for the harshest penalty under Wizard law (since, after all, holding a Wizard in a muggle prison seems impractical)? Have the two sides ever come close to civil war?

But besides that, as fanciful as Rowling paints the Wizard world, its political system is clearly in need of reform. The system is Sovietesque in its densely organized bureaucracy: In this book we have the example of the trial of Buckbeack, the hippogriff that Draco Malfoy goads into attacking him. The council which decides Buckbeack's fate is unfortunately under the sway of Draco's father and all-around git Lucius Malfoy, and passes a death sentence on Buckbeack (this is an animal, though, so really I guess it's "putting it down"). After an appeal that seems to have been forced through a kangaroo court (who moves the appeal up in a very insidious attempt to block the trio's efforts to research their defense), Buckbeack is SPOILER executed. Another example that comes to mind is Ron's father Arthur Weasley, who works for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office--but in the second book, it expressly states that Weasley is the author of a law that is being directly opposed by the Malfoys. Why is Weasley, a bureaucrat, making laws? Where is the Parliament in the Wizard world? Where is the independent judiciary which exists for Buckbeak's appeal? Quite simply, there aren't any; the Ministry of Magic is an oligarchy which is presided over by a number of closed (and unelected?) councils which create, pass, and execute laws, and also have complete power over the appeals process. There is no separation of powers--this is not a government, it is a junta. (Side note: you might say this is like the British House of Lords, who are both a lawmaking body and in effect an appeals court, but the House of Lords is nothing like it used to be and has few lawmaking powers, and certainly the Ministry of Magic is much, much more extreme in its monolithicness.)

Is it any wonder that this system leads to the unchecked power of unsavory elements in Wizard society: The Malfoys, the Crouches, Cornelius Fudge? These men are, at best, incompetent, and at worst corrupt and evil. Voldemort's forces have infiltrated the Wizard government to extremely high levels. The resulting policy is disastrous, and this part really does contain spoilers if you haven't read it: Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, escapes from Azkaban prison to exact revenge on Peter Pettigrew, who actually betrayed James and Lily Potter, the crime of which Black was convicted. When his plan for revenge goes a bit haywire, he is accused of trying to kill Harry (which everyone believed he was doing anyhow), and taken into Hogwarts to have his soul sucked out by Dementors. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment! Not only does Black not receive a trial for this new charge, his "execution" (and, let's face it, that's what having your soul sucked out is) is scheduled for less than an hour after his crime. Executions don't even happen like that in Saudi Arabia, people.

On the other side of the equation is Hogwarts, Wizard Britain's preeminent social institution. It is unclear to me whether it is a public or private school: The students don't seem to pay for it but for books and supplies, and the Ministry of Magic surely exerts a great power over it (going so far as to removed Dumbledore as headmaster in one book), but on the other hand the history suggests that it was privately founded by the four namesakes of the houses. Its similarity to Eton, Britain's most famous public school, certainly suggests it's public, but I tend to think its connection to the Ministry of Magic is not necessarily indicative of Hogwarts being run by the Ministry but indicative of the Ministry's absolute unchecked power over the Wizard world. But in any case, repeatedly Hogwarts acts as a foil for the Ministry of Magic, and this is the lynchpin of what can be seen as a libertarian streak in the Potter books: a corrupt and all-powerful government balanced out by a wise, tradition-bound, but not bureaucratic social institution. The relationship between the two is clearly contentious--from my understanding, much of Minister Fudge's blindness to the Voldemort issue in the latter books hinges on his paranoia of being replaced by Dumbledore, an immensely powerful and popular wizard. The fact that Dumbledore--who Rowling suggests is the greatest wizard of his age--is toiling away as a school principal strongly suggests that Hogwarts, to a degree unlike any school in Britain or America, is a huge pillar of Wizard society.

So what to make of this? Here is a suggestion: Rowling depicts magic as similar to technology in that the things Muggles do through technology Wizards do by magic. But magic is a highly traditional institution; there is no evidence in Rowling that it changes. That is to say, while Muggle technology expands at an ever-growing late, magic has no innovation. Are we surprised, then, that the Wizard government lags sharply behind in its political systems? It is Arthur Weasley, with his strong interest in Muggle technology and life that provides the examplar which will save Wizard society from its own baser instincts. Only by embracing the Muggle system of change and continual growth can Wizards create political reform. The solution: It's time to come out of the closet, Wizards. Reveal your existence to the Muggle world and create a unified society.

A few thoughts on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, with spoilers:

The main plotline in this book has to do with Sirius Black, a famous Wizard murderer in Azkaban for betraying Lily and James Potter, effectively handing them over to Voldemort. Throughout the book, Black seems to be getting closer to Harry, and the consensus is Black wants to kill him. The truth is that Black is Harry's godfather, come to find the real traitor: Peter Pettigrew, hiding out as Ron's pet rat Scabbers. Oh, and there's a new teacher who turns out to be a werewolf. And Hermione can turn back time because she wants to take more classes. Plus, Gryffindor wins the house cup for the first time in seven years!

Once again, the common contrivances are here. The books continue to grow stylistically and developmentally, but if you didn't follow the last few chapters, you're not alone. (Though Alfonso Cuaron seems to make pretty good sense out of it for the film.) These books, for whatever their virtues, have some serious ending problems.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

Here is a collection of random thoughts concerning JK Rowling's second Harry Potter novel:

Style: The writing in The Chamber of Secrets is light years ahead of The Sorcerer's Stone, regrettably still light years behind the rest of modern literature. All the complaints I had still, for the most part, hold true, especially the thing about how when people shout Rowling renders it in all caps. Lord, that bugs me. But hey, I know, people are tired of hearing this--"I don't read Harry Potter for the prose," they say, and besides, at least it's not "Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery." But moreover, I find that the two Potter books I've read lack something in particular that the films capture quite nicely: a sense of atmosphere. Half the thrill of the Harry Potter films is the long shots of Hogwarts overlooking the moor, or those labyrinthine, half-lit set pieces and chaotic, whimsical shots of Diagon Alley and the Ministry of Magic. I mean, isn't that grandeur what really makes fantasy films so fun? The plot to Lord of the Rings is really kind of stupid, but, my God, Minis Tirith and Helm's Deep look freaking awesome when you put them in a movie. The Potter books, however, are shockingly thin on description and exposition. Much of this, I'm sure, comes from my over-familiarity with the films in relation to the books, but throughout Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets I found myself really missing the way the films draw you in to the Hogwarts world.

Plot (warning, contains spoilers): Okay, so a riveting plot is what you really want in a Harry Potter book. But Rowling doesn't exactly overwhelm there, either: All that stuff with Dobby the House Elf? Useless, and ultimately, nonsensical. Exactly when does a de facto slave find the time to go to London and harass a young wizard in the Muggle world? And why, exactly, does he give two shits? And how does he know where Harry lives? And then there's the way the Basilisk freezes people, but can't seem to look them straight in the eye--one time it's spotted in a reflection, another time in a camera, and another in a mirror--what kind of incompetent creature is this, really? This is an awfully contrived plot point, one which I suspect Rowling uses in order to stave off the reality of death at Hogwarts--which, I think, doesn't occur until Cedric Diggery's death in the fourth book. All that's part of the way the books get progressively darker and more mature, which I like, but holy crap the implementation of it is goofy. Oh, and being saved by the phoenix' tears: Come on. Worst deux ex machina device ever. Also: Basilisks and spiders are natural enemies. WTF.

Racism: I don't want you to think that I didn't like this book, in fact, I did--most of the time. One of the things I like best about the book is the idea that the wizard world is pervaded by its own peculiar brand of racism: against Muggles and, worse, "mudbloods." The purist ideals of Lucius Malfoy reflect similar ideas that still exist in our own world, and shaped much of modern history up until the second half of the 20th century (when I think that the Civil Rights Movement didn't happen until the 1950's and 60's, it blows my mind). And of course, it makes a lot of sense that wizards and witches, with their own peculiar abilities, would be susceptible to a sense of entitlement and superiority over Muggles. While much of the way Rowling depicts Wizard-Muggle relations rings fairly false, the struggle with anti-Mugglism is especially effective.

Harry and Voldemort: "We're the same, you and I," says the supervillain to the superhero just as the superhero finally has him on the ropes, making one last psychological attempt at seducing the superhero to join a life of evil. There's a reason this trope is so cliched: One of the things we fear most is seeing ourselves in our enemies. Interpersonal struggles become mental ones; we fight to overcome not only external demons but internal ones. Rowling's explanation for Harry Potter being a parselmouth (another idea I rather liked) and for almost being placed in Slytherin is severely disappointing: A piece of Voldemort's soul was planted in Harry during their confrontation in the crib. Wouldn't it be much better if those things were a part of Harry's natural psyche? (Don't the later books show his father carrying a little bit of a cruel streak?) The element of unsurety still lurks--there is always the possibility that Harry, with all his promise and power, will follow Tom Riddle's path--but this offhand explanation makes it all seem awfully artificial. I do, however, like Dumbledore's explanation to Harry about why he was not put in Slytherin: Because he begged not to be, and it is choice--not necessarily our internal dispositions--that matter in evaluating our character.

Bonus complaint: Why does Hogwarts have one house that clearly produces nothing but evil? Is this necessary? Do they have one at Eton?

Bonus bonus complaint: Why doesn't Harry do something about the dickish way that Dobby rules Russia?


All right, thanks everyone for letting me spoil your fun. Check back in a week or two and I'll ruin the third book for you.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

At exactly 11:25 am this morning, the last American to never read a Harry Potter book finished The Sorcerer's Stone. That American was me.

What did I think of it? Well, it's hard to say, exactly. Harry Potter has inundated our culture at a ridiculous speed; the stuff in The Sorcerer's Stone might as well be Alice in Wonderland. Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, the golden snitch, Gringotts, Nearly Headless Nick--all that stuff is as widely known as the Queen of Hearts or Tweedledum and Tweedledee (and probably more widely known than the Lobster Quadrille). As a result, there was no way to reproduce in me the sense of wonder and amazement that is one the Potter series' chief virtues. I mean, shit, how many times have I seen the film of this movie, which already contains the best ideas and jokes?

That being said, even though I stubbornly resisted Pottermania, I do have a lot of respect and admiration for the colossal panorama that is the Potter series, which is basically a modern pop opus stitched together with ideas from lesser works (I can think of two or three "school for wizards and witches" books and shows from when I was a kid, though none so fully realized) that has the unique quality of growing darker and more mature as it follows its main character.

Still, I had trouble enjoying The Sorcerer's Stone, which, for me, was almost like reading a hastily written novelization of a popular movie. The prose is as good or worse than I had imagined, and often times descends into what sounds like advertising copy ("Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?"). Shouts and screams are rendered in all caps and dialogue is paced like a movie script, and Rowling does a whole lot of telling rather than showing.

It isn't great literature, then, but I don't think it's supposed to be; the Potter series' worth ought to be gauged more as a pop culture phenomenon. Still, I didn't get much out of the book (I'd rather watch the movie) and I hope that if I actually bite the bullet and read anymore they'll get a little bit better.

Bonus note: The American version of this book uses the title "Sorcerer's Stone" instead of "Philosopher's Stone," but also "soccer" instead of "football," which I guess made sense when they thought it was going to be basically a kid's book but now is kind of annoying and/or insulting. I suspect "candy" has been changed from "sweets" as well. Ought we to understand the fact that the movie uses largely American vocabulary in the mouths of British children as an example that America has appropriated what might otherwise be seen as a peculiarly British work of literature? Go USA!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

The Harry Potter books are extremely plot-driven. While Rowling’s writing is not bad, it is fairly utilitarian. That being said, her generally straightforward prose allows for some of the smoothest (and enjoyable) reading I have ever experienced. But ease of reading is only one of my criteria for determining how much I like a book. For example, Lolita was just a little over 300 pages, but took me nearly three weeks to finish. The writing was dense, with complex allusions and clever turns of phrase. On the other hand, I read The Goblet of Fire (700 some odd pages) in one day. I liked Goblet, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Lolita.

So, I was somewhat surprised when Rowling’s writing caught my attention on more than one occasion in The Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final chapter in the Potter saga. There were many instances where I thought Rowling showed a depth that she had not previously exhibited.

There was a good deal of exposition that had to be done in order for this book to make sense. After all, Rowling had a lot of loose ends to tie up. I don’t want to ruin the series for anyone by giving away too many plot points. I will say that I thought the epilogue was generally unnecessary. Some of what was established in the epilogue would no doubt have already been imagined by the readers. But I liked the book, and the series—The Order of the Phoenix is clearly the worst of the books. That’s all I’ll say. So, if you have any desire to read these books you should do so now, before some moron spoils the series for you by telling you how things end.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

After The Order of the Phoenix, I was hoping that the next Harry Potter book would be better…much better. The Half-Blood Prince did exactly what Phoenix did not: start off with a bang and maintain that energy throughout. The book opens with the Minister of Magic meeting with the Prime Minister—the Muggle Minister, if you will. This was a great way to begin the book. Rowling is able to quickly let readers know that Voldemort has been wreaking havoc on the non-magic world—as well as the wizarding world—and she is able to do so in an interesting way.

As Harry and company return to Hogwarts, things have changed. The threat that Voldemort poses is much more immediate. The students are constantly getting news of people that have ‘disappeared’, some of them relatives of Hogwarts students. And there is fear that despite all of its defenses, Hogwarts may not be impervious to attacks by Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

In potions class, Harry gets a used textbook with notes, shortcuts, and spells scribbled in the margins by its previous owner, the Half-Blood Prince. (Ladies and gentlemen, we have a title.) These spells appear to be of the prince’s own creation, and some of them involve darker magic than Harry is used to.

With the help of Dumbledore, Harry begins to find out pertinent information about Voldemort’s past. Horcruxes, y’all! Horcruxes. I am glad that I don’t have to wait for a year to read the next one.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

I found most of this book incredibly tedious. While I had trouble putting down the first four Harry Potter books, it was rare that I read more than fifty pages of The Order of the Phoenix at a time. The first half of the book was actually rather boring. An inordinate amount of time was spent on the Order of the Phoenix headquarters, the Black family house, where Sirius was hiding out. Harry et al did a lot of cleaning while at the headquarters. Please, Mrs. Rowling, tell me more.

Some important stuff happened in the first 500 pages of this book, but there is a lot of filler, as well. With the help of a good editor, a lot could have easily been cut from the first of the book. This would have been a welcome improvement considering that the book is nearly 900 pages long.

Further reason for my disliking this book is that Harry Potter is kind of a dick…to everyone. Even after the book starts to pick up. He is still such a pissy little bugger. The last 150 pages of the book are much better, but do little to make up for what came before them. Compared to the previous book, The Goblet of Fire, book five was a let down.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

Since Alyson already spoiled each and every plot point in this book, I don't feel the need to write much, except that it was quite a bit more enjoyable to read than Order of the Phoenix. There was a lot more sex, for one thing.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I really liked The Prisoner of Azkaban, but The Goblet of Fire is my favorite of the series so far. I was told many times that each book was going to get darker as the series went along. This becomes evident by the fourth book.

Besides being notably darker, The Goblet of Fire is unique because it breaks from the established formula of the first three books. You know: Harry Potter's muggle relatives are horrible people. Harry loves going back to Hogwarts. Something is up at Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione suspect they know who is responsible. They turn out to be wrong and the culprit is someone you don't expect. Instead, Rowling introduces the Quidditch World Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, and a couple of new and interesting characters. The Goblet of Fire is also the first book of the series that doesn't tie up all of its loose ends. I am guessing that books five and six will follow suit.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

When people found out that I had started reading the Harry Potter books, they kept telling me that the series really takes off with the third book – that things really get started with The Prisoner of Azkaban. Well, everyone was right. This was leaps and bounds better than the first two, which were both pretty good. The main difference was that Azkaban felt like less of a kid's book.

Harry starts to find out more about his parents and his past in general in the third installment of Rowling’s series. Rowling also spends less time describing the wonderful world she has created, and a little more time developing her characters, which is good, considering that most of the new characters will no doubt be around for a while.

So I have read three of these books so far, and my main complaint is that Rowling starts each book as though her readers are almost completely unfamiliar with the series and its characters. Guess what? By the third book, I know how Quidditch is played, and that Mr. Dursley is fat. I just started The Goblet of Fire, and Rowling doesn’t do it quite as much. I am hoping it will stop altogether.

Beside that rant about something rather minor, I really have enjoyed these books.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter is a good wizard.
Voldemort is an evil wizard.
Hilarious hijinks ensue.

This book is a little longer and quite a bit darker than the first. As a result, I liked it better.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This book amounts to nothing more than a How-To book for kids about witchcraft. I am surprised that there weren't any boycotts by religious groups around the time of its publication. Go ahead. Let your kids read this book if you don't care about where they are going to spend eternity.
Now to read the next one.

Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter is a child wizard. He is special because, although his parents were killed by the evil Lord Voldemorte, he somehow managed to survive. He attends a school for young wizards called Hogwarts, is always getting caught up in all types of mischief, and still finds time to save the world, usually due to a) his friends b) a dues ex machina or c) both.

This oversimplified capsule of Harry Potter might make it sound like I don't like the series, and that's not true. I didn't pick up Order of the Phoenix because I liked the title; no, I've read the other four Potter books and decided I'd read the last two so I could read book seven when it comes out, thus avoiding having the book spoiled by Yahoo which will no doubt run a headline announcing the book's final twist days after its release. And so, I did. Also, I was in Salisbury, North Carolina without a car.

Order of the Phoenix is too long. The first 200 pages could have been condensed to 50 pages or less without losing anything vital. As a result, I was nearly halfway through the book (which clocks in at a hefty 850ish pages) before I really got involved. The second half was some of the more intense writing of the series, but it doesn't change the fact that the first half is 75% filler.

Much like Song of Susannah, anyone reading the Harry Potter series will no doubt read Phoenix, and if you enjoyed the rest of the series, you'll probably enjoy about half of this book. And, that's all, at least until I finish War and Peace. Cheers.