I had a busy weekend. Saturday morning the Fruit of the Murphy Loin’s swim team won their conference meet which makes them undefeated on the all too short season — they were 5-0 in dual meets. Mid day Sunday I took my son Boy Scout camp where he’ll be for the next week. We watched movies – Napolean Dynamite (which isn’t), Hotel Rawanda (which is), and Cold Mountain (which my wife thought far more of than I did). And somehow I did manage to read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This time, no waiting around for midnight for us, we sailed in after the swim meet and sailed out immediately afterwards.
For those of you who think I kept my kids from reading it, my son thought it best he didn’t take the book to camp where it could be damaged and my daughter wanted to finish her current book before starting a new one.
Yes, I like it, a lot, and I think part of it is how well Rowling writes Dumbledore, and he is in the book early and often. Gone is the teenage angst from the last book, and good riddance to bad rubbish. Rowling does some things very, very well — her wonderful imagination and warm sense of humor combine to form an amazing yet fun world of wizards and magic that is full of detail and fairly coherent. It’s so good though, that paradoxically I feel let down at those times when you reach it’s limits of making sense or being internally consistant. And with six books, of increasing complexity and scope, you start to bump into them a bit more. And just I so I can speak freely, that’s all I’m going to say unless you care to read the extended entry.
Where There Be Spoilers!
The books started out light and breezy, but they have gotten darker and darker, and yes, this book puts the lights out with the death of Dumbledore. But that’s one of the things I like best about Rowling – she isn’t afraid to kill off interesting characters who she clearly loves. I suppose a ton of money in the bank helps, but more likely is a trueness to her story, and an understanding that sacrifice is important.
The book also indicates that the seventh year won’t be spent at Hogwarts, thus breaking the mold. In fact, it promises to be a much different book than the rest.
This book was also different in that Harry was pretty much a failure this time around. He never figured out what Malfoy was doing, he didn’t have a hand in winning the Quidditch cup, he relied on Snape’s notes in his old textbook in potions, he didn’t figure out who the Half Blood Prince was (neither did I), and he was unable to help Dumbledore in the end. His only success, really, was the result of the luck potion he took. It made me realize the Harry is pretty much a mediocre wizard, and his success hasn’t been built on his wizarding skills but his pluck, courage, and friendships, which is I suppose part of what Rowling is trying to say, especially in light of the discussion of the importance of love as a source of power. In a sense, the books aren’t about what you can do, but what you do.
