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Saturday, July 23, 2005
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Note: All possible spoiler information will be in white text, just highlight it to read. Like magic!
I finally finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night. While the last book was twice as long, I apparently had a lot more free time then back because I read it straight through in two days. This time I read whenever I could from Sunday until Friday night, even though it was a mere 650-plus pages.
I am, by nature, a public reader. I'm not sure if it's indicative of an antisocial personality, but I really like to read on a bus, in a coffee shop, wherever... To me, it's often the preferred way of passing time, moreso than watching PVs on my iPaq or my Gameboy (though I indulge in those, as well). People often don't comment on my reading, though a couple weeks back I was looking at the latest Ultimate Fantastic Four and was pleasantly asked if I enjoyed the movie.
Reading Harry Potter, however, has provoked many comments. I've seen kids stare at me in bewilderment - why would an adult read a book meant for them? I've had one older gentlemen (i.e., retirement age) ask me where I got my copy, and another ask if what I was reading was the new book, as he still had to get his. I've directed at least three or four people to the nearest Borders Books, either at Ward Ave or in Waikiki. One young lady smiled at me as I was walking down the street, absorbed in a chapter (if I'm in the middle of a chapter and need to know what's next, I'll walk and read at the same time - I know it's dangerous, I'm bad like that). Several people have asked how far into the book I am and a couple of people warned me about the big death at the end.
It was an amazing testament to how popular and beloved the Harry Potter series is, how strangers will speak to each other about the books or characters, and you'd feel a small bond because of it. Not everyone reads the book, after all - none of my current co-workers, for instance. But what's equally impressive is that the readership of Harry Potter is remarkably wide demographically - the "typical" fan may be a child or teen who grew up on the book in the past seven years or so, but it also includes people of all ages, both sexes, and even those who wouldn't otherwise read a young adult or fantasy series.
Anyway, I found the book as enjoyable as all the other previous volumes. The whole mythology of the series is weighing heavier, though, with references to Volume Five being made constantly - making me wish I read it right before. (For Book Seven, I'll definitely read the first six books beforehand.) Unfortunately, I'd heard from the beginning that some major character would die in this book, so there was that meta anticipation until the choice became obvious. And I was sort of relieved at the choice, since it spared the ones I thought would die, as well as better fits the whole heroic journey model.
Rowling isn't a great writer, by any means, but she is certainly a very good one. There weren't any bad sentences or creative choices that jumped out at me: if anything, writing Young Adult fiction means having a directness and simplicity of style that is difficult to pull off in a lively manner. Rowling does exactly that. The whiff of genre influence is evident, but her cross-pollination helps keep it fresh: after all, this is a fantasy heroic quest set in a British boarding school, so it only works if expectations from both are fulfilled. Characterization is her best skill: we care for the characters, we want to know what happens next.
Once again, I managed to keep a dry eye while reading the book until a nice fillip of characterization towards the very end regarding Fleur's vanity. The same thing happened in the first book for me: all the nobility of Harry, Ron, and Hermione was okay, but it wasn't until Neville Longbottom earned Gryffindor ten points for standing up to his three friends that I was emotionally moved. This shows Rowling's greatest strength as a writer, and one well suited for young adult fiction: showing the different sides of a character without changing who they are, insteading enriching and complicating how we understand them. It would be too easy to have a character who's an annoyance or a fool to suddenly become more noble or likeable by changing their ways - what's tougher is to show that who the person is has as many good aspects as well as bad ones. Rowling has done that time and again - she has her villains and fools (the latter mostly in the bureacracy of the Ministry of Magic), but also minor characters with surprising depth. Of course, Rowling has the greatest bit of character rehabiliation to perform for the last book: making Snape a sympathetic, perhaps even heroic, figure. Whether or not she can succeed is debatable; that said, the fact that he's played by Alan Rickman in the movies makes him more likeable to me, at least.
With the fourth movie coming out later this year, it looks like another year of Potter-mania has landed. But what faithful readers want is Book Seven. I'm thinking it'll be a monster, over a thousand pages. That'll be a fine send-off, however, and hopefully it'll happen sometime in 2006 and not any later.
I finally finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night. While the last book was twice as long, I apparently had a lot more free time then back because I read it straight through in two days. This time I read whenever I could from Sunday until Friday night, even though it was a mere 650-plus pages.
I am, by nature, a public reader. I'm not sure if it's indicative of an antisocial personality, but I really like to read on a bus, in a coffee shop, wherever... To me, it's often the preferred way of passing time, moreso than watching PVs on my iPaq or my Gameboy (though I indulge in those, as well). People often don't comment on my reading, though a couple weeks back I was looking at the latest Ultimate Fantastic Four and was pleasantly asked if I enjoyed the movie.
Reading Harry Potter, however, has provoked many comments. I've seen kids stare at me in bewilderment - why would an adult read a book meant for them? I've had one older gentlemen (i.e., retirement age) ask me where I got my copy, and another ask if what I was reading was the new book, as he still had to get his. I've directed at least three or four people to the nearest Borders Books, either at Ward Ave or in Waikiki. One young lady smiled at me as I was walking down the street, absorbed in a chapter (if I'm in the middle of a chapter and need to know what's next, I'll walk and read at the same time - I know it's dangerous, I'm bad like that). Several people have asked how far into the book I am and a couple of people warned me about the big death at the end.
It was an amazing testament to how popular and beloved the Harry Potter series is, how strangers will speak to each other about the books or characters, and you'd feel a small bond because of it. Not everyone reads the book, after all - none of my current co-workers, for instance. But what's equally impressive is that the readership of Harry Potter is remarkably wide demographically - the "typical" fan may be a child or teen who grew up on the book in the past seven years or so, but it also includes people of all ages, both sexes, and even those who wouldn't otherwise read a young adult or fantasy series.
Anyway, I found the book as enjoyable as all the other previous volumes. The whole mythology of the series is weighing heavier, though, with references to Volume Five being made constantly - making me wish I read it right before. (For Book Seven, I'll definitely read the first six books beforehand.) Unfortunately, I'd heard from the beginning that some major character would die in this book, so there was that meta anticipation until the choice became obvious. And I was sort of relieved at the choice, since it spared the ones I thought would die, as well as better fits the whole heroic journey model.
Rowling isn't a great writer, by any means, but she is certainly a very good one. There weren't any bad sentences or creative choices that jumped out at me: if anything, writing Young Adult fiction means having a directness and simplicity of style that is difficult to pull off in a lively manner. Rowling does exactly that. The whiff of genre influence is evident, but her cross-pollination helps keep it fresh: after all, this is a fantasy heroic quest set in a British boarding school, so it only works if expectations from both are fulfilled. Characterization is her best skill: we care for the characters, we want to know what happens next.
Once again, I managed to keep a dry eye while reading the book until a nice fillip of characterization towards the very end regarding Fleur's vanity. The same thing happened in the first book for me: all the nobility of Harry, Ron, and Hermione was okay, but it wasn't until Neville Longbottom earned Gryffindor ten points for standing up to his three friends that I was emotionally moved. This shows Rowling's greatest strength as a writer, and one well suited for young adult fiction: showing the different sides of a character without changing who they are, insteading enriching and complicating how we understand them. It would be too easy to have a character who's an annoyance or a fool to suddenly become more noble or likeable by changing their ways - what's tougher is to show that who the person is has as many good aspects as well as bad ones. Rowling has done that time and again - she has her villains and fools (the latter mostly in the bureacracy of the Ministry of Magic), but also minor characters with surprising depth. Of course, Rowling has the greatest bit of character rehabiliation to perform for the last book: making Snape a sympathetic, perhaps even heroic, figure. Whether or not she can succeed is debatable; that said, the fact that he's played by Alan Rickman in the movies makes him more likeable to me, at least.
With the fourth movie coming out later this year, it looks like another year of Potter-mania has landed. But what faithful readers want is Book Seven. I'm thinking it'll be a monster, over a thousand pages. That'll be a fine send-off, however, and hopefully it'll happen sometime in 2006 and not any later.
