| Sunday, July 22, 2007 |
| The trouble with Harry |
Note: There will be NO SPOILERS in this post! A couple of minor plot points will be mentioned in passing, but that's it.
I wouldn't call myself a Potterhead. I have read all of the "Harry Potter" books, but I've only seen one of the movies (I had a hard time staying awake), and I never spend any time between releases contemplating the characters' fates or hanging out in online fan fora like Mugglenet.com. However, I do think the books are sort of fun -- who wouldn't want to find out that they're not just an ordinary kid, they're a wizard, and an extra-special one at that? Along with Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events," they've forced me to skulk around the children's section of the library.
I think there were four books out when I started reading the series. As the hoopla surrounding the books grew, I realized that unless I read them right away, there was no way to avoid spoilers. Things reached a fever pitch with the sixth volume, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I managed to get on the waiting list at my local library months before it was released so that I could get it on the day it came out. A good thing, too, since almost immediately, news of a major character's death was all over the Internet. Some cheeky bastard even started selling a T-shirt that said, "[Character] dies on page 596."
After that big fat spoiler, I knew it was even more imperative to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as soon as possible. Again, I reserved the book at the library as soon as it was entered into the system; there were already 110 people ahead of me, but luckily, they order about a zillion copies. Then I put my name on the list at a second library as a back-up. Both came in Saturday morning, so Joe went out and picked them up soon after the libraries opened. One for each of us! Finishing the book was no simple task, since it's over 750 pages long. And while it might be heresy to diehards, I think J.K. Rowling, or her editor, could easily have cut out a couple hundred pages; there is way too much time spent on Hermione, Ron and Harry running around the English countryside, for instance. After spending months on the run, avoiding danger, what finally takes them out of their safe zone is a really stupid mistake on Harry's part.
At least the books are brisk, easy reads, even though I kept forgetting plot points from the series -- unless you're in the habit of rereading them multiple times, who can keep track of the whole Potterverse during the long breaks between books? I couldn't recall what a Horcrux was, for instance, and was Mundungus Fletcher good or evil? Do you have to memorize the whole Black family tree to keep track of who's who?
I finished the book around 1 AM. I was satisfied with the ending. And now that I've made it through all 4,000+ pages of the Harry Potter series, I'm content to put it behind me. I'm not sorry that there won't be any more Potter books; it was originally mapped out as a seven-part series, and Rowling delivered on her promise to tell the complete story of Harry's years at Hogwarts. Now that I've read "Deathly Hallows," I can move on to the other books in my to-be-read pile. Luckily, I don't have to dodge spoilers for any of those, so I can read them at my leisure. |
posted by 125records @ 7:50 PM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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No spoilers here either - I've just finished the book, and I must say you are correct about the "running around the countryside" bit. That was the one part of the book where my attention was flagging a bit (probably also because it was 2 in the morning: that's when I broke my reading and went to bed). I felt the same thing about 5 and 6 - though I now can't remember which parts were draggy.
Still, overall I'm very satisfied with the way Rowling brought this thing to its conclusion. Things made sense, but were not utterly predictable. (Okay, some things were...but you know, some things in life are utterly predictable but still happen.)
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VAGUE HINT OF A SORT OF QUASI-SPOILER HERE: I could comment at length but will satisfy myself with noting that 2 penultimate-chapter, jaw-dropping actions by 2 women w/something crucial, but not much else, in common delighted me about as much as anything else in the whole series.
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No spoilers here either - I've just finished the book, and I must say you are correct about the "running around the countryside" bit. That was the one part of the book where my attention was flagging a bit (probably also because it was 2 in the morning: that's when I broke my reading and went to bed). I felt the same thing about 5 and 6 - though I now can't remember which parts were draggy.
Still, overall I'm very satisfied with the way Rowling brought this thing to its conclusion. Things made sense, but were not utterly predictable. (Okay, some things were...but you know, some things in life are utterly predictable but still happen.)