A
stunning and thoroughly satisfying conclusion, July 21, 2007
By
This review is from: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(Book 7) (Hardcover)
This is arguably the most "hyped" book in history,
and if J.K. Rowling had to sneak down to the kitchen for a glass of red wine to
calm her nerves while writing The Goblet of Fire (as she said she did), one
wonders what assuaged her while writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The collective breath of tens of millions of readers has been held for two
years...and now...was it worth the wait? Did Ms. Rowling live up to the hype?
(For that, amongst hundreds of questions, is really the only question that
matters.)
The answer, most assuredly, is YES.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is told in a strikingly different style than the previous six books - even different from The Half Blood Prince, and, I daresay, it's a better written, better edited, tighter narrative. And while the action is lively and well paced throughout, Rowling found a way to answer most of our questions while introducing new and complex ideas. What fascinated me was this: Some people were right, with regard to who is good, who is bad, who will live, who will die - but almost nobody got the "why" part correct. I truthfully expected an exciting but rather predictable ending, but instead was thrown for a loop. We've known that Rowling is fiendishly clever for years - but I didn't think she was *this* clever.
Not since turning the final page of The Return of the King twenty-eight years ago have I felt such a keen sense of loss. My love affair (indeed, everyone's love affair, I imagine) with all things Harry began somewhere in the first three chapters of The Sorcerer's Stone, and has lasted, on this side of the Atlantic, three months shy of nine years. For all that time we have waited and wondered - was Dumbledore right to trust Snape? Will Ron and Hermione get together? What's to become of Ginny and Harry? What really happened on that tower, when Dumbledore was blasted backwards, that "blast" atypical of the Avada Kedavra curse as we've seen it when used throughout the series. So many more questions than those listed here, and so many devilishly well-hidden hints. The answers, as I hinted above, will shock and awe you.
When first we met Harry Potter, he was "The Boy Who Lived", with an address of "The Cupboard Under the Stairs". Who could help but bleed sympathy for Harry, treated abysmally - abused, really - by the only blood relatives he had, and forced to live under said stairs by those awful Muggles, the Dursleys? It was a sensationally brilliant introduction, one that ensured that our heartstrings would be plucked and enchanted to sing. He was The Boy Who Lived.
Since reading that first book, we have enjoyed Rowling's spry sense of humor - portraits that spoke, stairways that moved at any given moment, Hagrid jinxing Dudley so that a pigs tail grew from his behind, Fred and George's fantastic creations, etc, etc., etc., and more etc's. There was a sense of wonder and magic in Rowling's writing, so thoroughly captivating that the recommended age group of 9-12 in no way resembled the book's actual audience. It was common to see adults walking about with hardcover copies of the latest book, sans dust jacket (to hide the fact that they were reading a "kids" book, I suppose). It was also common to hear of eight year olds sitting down with a seven-hundred-plus page book! By themselves! If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.
As for Harry, we admired him. He wasn't afraid to stand up for what he felt was right, even if he found himself in detention for it. He was brutally honest, and immensely courageous and loyal. Harry came to embody, at times, who we would like to be. He wasn't perfect, of course. He suspected Snape of being the one who was after the Sorcerer's Stone, and in The Chamber of Secrets, he thought that Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin. This didn't diminish Harry in our eyes - it made him more human, more real, and even, perhaps, more enviable.
Endless fan sites have been erected. For an adult to go to any of them, and find that thirteen year olds are having an easier time parsing out the books plots, subplots, and mysteries, was (for me at least) humbling, but yet also a testament to Rowling herself, and her remarkable creation. She encouraged an entire generation of young readers to read and to think for themselves.
But the time has come to say good-bye, for this is truly the end.
So good-bye, Harry. Good-bye Hermione, Ron, Professor Dumbledore, *Professor* Snape, Professor McGonagall, Professor Hagrid, Ginny, Fred, George, Neville, Dobby (and all the house elves), even Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. We will miss all of you, every character we encountered, from Muggle to Mudblood to hippogriff and owl, and everything about the world you all so vibrantly inhabit. And to Ms. Rowling: know that you have brought immeasurable joy to millions and millions of Muggles worldwide, and know that we cannot possibly thank you enough. What a tremendous gift you were given. Thank you for sharing it with us.
The answer, most assuredly, is YES.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is told in a strikingly different style than the previous six books - even different from The Half Blood Prince, and, I daresay, it's a better written, better edited, tighter narrative. And while the action is lively and well paced throughout, Rowling found a way to answer most of our questions while introducing new and complex ideas. What fascinated me was this: Some people were right, with regard to who is good, who is bad, who will live, who will die - but almost nobody got the "why" part correct. I truthfully expected an exciting but rather predictable ending, but instead was thrown for a loop. We've known that Rowling is fiendishly clever for years - but I didn't think she was *this* clever.
Not since turning the final page of The Return of the King twenty-eight years ago have I felt such a keen sense of loss. My love affair (indeed, everyone's love affair, I imagine) with all things Harry began somewhere in the first three chapters of The Sorcerer's Stone, and has lasted, on this side of the Atlantic, three months shy of nine years. For all that time we have waited and wondered - was Dumbledore right to trust Snape? Will Ron and Hermione get together? What's to become of Ginny and Harry? What really happened on that tower, when Dumbledore was blasted backwards, that "blast" atypical of the Avada Kedavra curse as we've seen it when used throughout the series. So many more questions than those listed here, and so many devilishly well-hidden hints. The answers, as I hinted above, will shock and awe you.
When first we met Harry Potter, he was "The Boy Who Lived", with an address of "The Cupboard Under the Stairs". Who could help but bleed sympathy for Harry, treated abysmally - abused, really - by the only blood relatives he had, and forced to live under said stairs by those awful Muggles, the Dursleys? It was a sensationally brilliant introduction, one that ensured that our heartstrings would be plucked and enchanted to sing. He was The Boy Who Lived.
Since reading that first book, we have enjoyed Rowling's spry sense of humor - portraits that spoke, stairways that moved at any given moment, Hagrid jinxing Dudley so that a pigs tail grew from his behind, Fred and George's fantastic creations, etc, etc., etc., and more etc's. There was a sense of wonder and magic in Rowling's writing, so thoroughly captivating that the recommended age group of 9-12 in no way resembled the book's actual audience. It was common to see adults walking about with hardcover copies of the latest book, sans dust jacket (to hide the fact that they were reading a "kids" book, I suppose). It was also common to hear of eight year olds sitting down with a seven-hundred-plus page book! By themselves! If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.
As for Harry, we admired him. He wasn't afraid to stand up for what he felt was right, even if he found himself in detention for it. He was brutally honest, and immensely courageous and loyal. Harry came to embody, at times, who we would like to be. He wasn't perfect, of course. He suspected Snape of being the one who was after the Sorcerer's Stone, and in The Chamber of Secrets, he thought that Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin. This didn't diminish Harry in our eyes - it made him more human, more real, and even, perhaps, more enviable.
Endless fan sites have been erected. For an adult to go to any of them, and find that thirteen year olds are having an easier time parsing out the books plots, subplots, and mysteries, was (for me at least) humbling, but yet also a testament to Rowling herself, and her remarkable creation. She encouraged an entire generation of young readers to read and to think for themselves.
But the time has come to say good-bye, for this is truly the end.
So good-bye, Harry. Good-bye Hermione, Ron, Professor Dumbledore, *Professor* Snape, Professor McGonagall, Professor Hagrid, Ginny, Fred, George, Neville, Dobby (and all the house elves), even Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. We will miss all of you, every character we encountered, from Muggle to Mudblood to hippogriff and owl, and everything about the world you all so vibrantly inhabit. And to Ms. Rowling: know that you have brought immeasurable joy to millions and millions of Muggles worldwide, and know that we cannot possibly thank you enough. What a tremendous gift you were given. Thank you for sharing it with us.
This is an example of a very comprehensive, yet very common
book review that you will see on sites such as amazon.com. This reader takes on
a very serious demeanor as he reviews J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows. It almost seems as if he is trying to live out some lost dream
to be a book reviewer for some big publisher. All of this aside, the impact
that these sorts of public book reviews (and public reviews on any sort of
media) can have a major impact on how well the book sells and can influence to
an extent the opinion that others may have on the book. This, for many people
will play a pivotal role in determining whether or not they will even bother to
read a book. I mean, if it’s the next Harry Potter book, and you are a big
Harry Potter fan, you are going to read it regardless of what the reviews say,
but for an independent novel that you may not know that much about, these
reviews given by who are often times complete strangers can hold significant
weight as to whether or not you will read the novel. I know for me personally,
although I never read books besides Harry Potter that are not assigned to me,
for other forms of media or other types of products, I will do a lot of research
and read a vast amount of different views to get a collective perspective on my
possible future purchase. Do the reviews and opinions of others hold much
weight with you when considering the purchase of literature or similar media? I
wholeheartedly admit that there is a slight problem with just taking other
peoples word for it that a piece of literature is as they state it, but I find
myself doing it anyway, because it is such a readily available source of
opinion, and I don’t want to waste my time with something that I will regret
after the fact. I feel if you are willing to take the time that reading the
first chapter will give you a pretty good idea as to what the rest of the novel
will be like and will give you a pretty good gauge as to whether or not you
will enjoy the piece of literature. Do you agree with this statement?. Even
this though has its flaws, since some books are slow to start, but nothing is
perfect. I think sites such as amazon encourage book reviews as they do because
it serves to offer there site some credibility. You are way more willing to buy
from a site where it is evident that millions of others shop at as opposed to
some homemade website with no reviews that is very suspect as to the
legitimateness of the website. I personally have never posted a book review and
I can say with confidence that I never will. I have no desire to voice my
opinion on such matters and so I won’t. Another fault in book reviews is that I
feel that the people who are likely to write one are the people who either
would give one or five star ratings. There is not much middle of the road
reviews who will bother to proclaim how average something was.
I don't think I agree with your statement about reading the first chapter and gauging if you want to read the rest of the book. In my opinion, the first chapter will do nothing more than allow you to begin to figure out the author's prose and style, and isn't a good measure of whether or not the rest of the book will be good.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that these book reviews can have an impact on how the book sells, but I dont think that book reviews are on sites such as amazon to give those sites credibility. On the other hand, I believe that book reviews are there to influence the general public, in the way that if all of these other people like it, it must be a good book and I have to buy it to sort of angle.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Laksh's statement that the first chapter does not necessarily reflect the quality of the entire novel.I do also agree to a certain extent that some of the book reviewers on amazon seem like they are trying to live out their dream of actually being a reviewer for a big publisher.
ReplyDelete