Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Spoiler Alert



I actually attempt to avoid serious spoilers, but you will find several minor ones. Be warned.

Yes, I was among the avalanche of people who got their Potter books on Saturday, July 21 and then devoured it. Considering I still had to take care of my two baby daughters and show a modicum of effort at work, it took me a week to blast through the 750 pages. Now while a disturbing percentage of America (Hell, the world) is aboard the Potter train, I can imagine a few remaining holdouts disgusted with this sort of behavior. Are the Harry Potter books really that good?

The short answer is, in fact, no they are not.

Don't get me wrong. The books are good. They are just not so good that the world should stop while everyone gets a chance to read them. Of course it is probably true that no book (or movie or television show) can meet that sort of standard, so let me also add the Potter books are not even among the best fantasy fiction being produced, targeted toward children or not. (Try David Eddings, Terry Pratchet, George R.R. Martin, or early Piers Anthony for just a few off the top of my head).

The Potter books are fun and easy to read. The steadily increasing page count never seems imposing because whenever you sit down to read a chapter, you always find that you do not come up for air again until a 100 pages have passed. They also have the advantage of improving with each book. Sequels better than the original are a rare commodity in any artistic endeavor. Ms. Rowling had an amazing run of luck to have her first one or two mediocre novels (which I found the Stone and Chamber to be) become best sellers, so everyone and their brother was already reading her stuff as she began to hit her stride. Rowling also did a very nice job from the beginning of creating a rich environment for her characters to inhabit: the school Hogwarts. She then did an excellent job of expanding that little microcosm into an entire fantasy world.

The real reason I and so many others HAD to read these books right away is because every one else was reading these books right away. In addition to wanting to keep up with the Joneses, there was the very real danger that if you did not read the book fast enough someone would spoil the ending for you. It would creep into late night monologues, onto chat sites, and into cocktail hour conversations. Someone at the table next to yours at the Hamburger Hamlet would start spouting off about how he knew all along that Snape would kill Dumbledore and you would be out of luck. In truth it was a literary arms race and everyone had to commit to a first strike or be left with only a smoldering, nuclear wasteland of a book.

WARNING, Long digression and rant about Quidditch:

Let me say right now that I hate Quidditch. And the reason that I hate it is not because I hate sporting events or broomstick flying, but that it was not well thought out. It really seemed like something J.K. threw into the first book for fun, only to find she had to return to it book after book. I mean, look at the rules: You get 10 points for putting the Quaffle through any of three hoops. However, grabbing the Golden Snitch scores 150 points and ends the game. How does that make a lick of sense? In no story I ever read did anyone ever outscore their opponent by more than 150 points. Only if one team was crushing another would capture of the Snitch not be the ONLY FACTOR in determining victory.

Let me compare it to basketball. A typical winning basketball team scores about 50 baskets for 100 points (yes, I know, 3-pointer and free throws...let it go). To get the 15 goal differential required for Quidditch to mean anything, the team would have to be leading 100-70, an absolute stomping. And then imagine the team you are stomping could shoot one basket, catch the snitch and win the game. How does that make any sense? There is only one way it might make sense and that's if the games lasted for days like a Cricket match (there is a history of silly scoring coming from the British Isles), so a 150 point differential could then be common and not a blow out. There is no evidence for this in the novels, although one could imagine it being part of professional Quidditch, off stage left. What is really frustrating is that the solution is quite simple. Make the Snitch worth 50 points instead of 150, a factor of 5x better than a goal, not 15x better. So a team leading 200-160 can lose if they don't get the Snitch but a team winning 200-60 can't. Boom. Problem solved, game becomes playable, I am not so annoyed. Oh, well.

RANT ENDED

So how about the Deathly Hallows?

Well first and foremost that title should come with a pronunciation guide. I kept saying Hollows instead of Hallows, which according to the dictionary are:
NOUN archaic,
a saint or a holy person

I guess they are also a holy thing, which is as much as I will say about the Hallows which kind of come out of left field in a disturbing, Vader made C3PO kind of way.

Without a doubt this is the grimmest book in the series. If you want dead characters, Rowling gives them to you in bushels. As a complete work, I actually found it slightly too dark and grim. There is a large section in the middle in which there is little action and only Harry Potter slowly sinking into a deeper and deeper depression. I might even describe those 100 or so pages as ponderous. The ending, however, kicks serious ass. As you might expect there is a major showdown with He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named and just about every character that has ever waltzed on through is there.

The book completely breaks the template that had sustained the books 1-6: Going to Hogwarts, taking classes, dealing with the Dark Arts teacher, playing Quidditch, being ignored by all the adults only to be proven right in the end. This book is Harry and friends versus Voldemort to the bitter end. You will miss the school stuff a bit, particularly as you slog through another bit of mid-book Potter angst and hopelessness, but I think everyone, Rowling included, was getting a bit tired of it. You could already see her breaking away from it a bit in books 5 and 6.

While the aforementioned Deathly Hallows seemed a bit much, the rest of the book does an excellent job of wrapping up all the mysteries and questions from the previous 6 novels. The nicest one was the full explanation of the complex web of Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry's parents. I think any Potter-maniac should be very satisfied upon reaching the end.

My one other complaint was that J.K. was so bloodthirsty that a couple of the deaths happened too fast. You either didn't get a chance to absorb the loss or you felt cheated of a final meeting or confrontation. Characters that have been around for 5+ novels should get some sort of death soliloquy, final foreshadowed speech, or at least a brief moment of silence.

To summarize, I loved the super-bang up ending and nicely orchestrated wrap-up. Was less fond of the depressing middle section that went on too long and the too rapid killing of a couple of characters. As an editor I might have suggested she cut down on the middle and add a little more verbiage to characters that were being offed, but if you have sold more books than God you probably get to make those decisions yourself.

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