J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a considerable improvement over the last book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and bears out my theory that Phoenix was the Teckla of the series: the painful but necessary turning point.
[I’m not going to talk about specific plot developments here, but I can’t say what I thought of the book without giving some indication of the shape of the story. Don’t read any further if you still haven’t read the book and don’t want to know a thing about it.]
As this book opens, Harry has decided to get his act together, stop YELLING ALL THE TIME, and behave in a manner befitting the past sacrifices of others. This is not psychologically realistic (and indeed I would have welcomed more acknowledgements of his grief), but it is a relief. Not only that—but Dumbledore is actually giving Harry information: indeed, that’s the fundamental core of the book, Dumbledore preparing Harry for what lies ahead of him. And the information that we get, and the paths this takes Harry, open up some fascinating possibilities for book 7. The story ended up going in at least two directions that I did not expect in the least, which impressed me. I’m also inordinately pleased by the climax of the book: Chad and I both came to diametrically opposed conclusions about what was going on, and for some reason I just think that’s really neat, that Rowling was able to set that up.
So, Harry and Dumbledore are behaving much more bearably, interesting things are afoot, and it’s also much shorter than Phoenix, which is all to the good. It’s still a flawed book: besides the psychological issues I mentioned above, the entire “Half-Blood Prince” thing felt like a red herring to me; I don’t really see what it added to the story, at least not relative to the time it consumed. I would have preferred to see that time spent on wider issues: I read Phoenix as a broad indictment of Wizarding society and government, particularly its prejudices—attitudes that were shared by Voldemort but that didn’t originate with him. I was hoping that the series would contain not only the defeat of Voldemort (presuming, of course, that he is defeated, which I think is reasonably safe) but a larger and more fundamental reform of Wizarding society. We get very little about that in this book, and I am unsure that there will be room in the last for this to happen satisfactorily.
By and large, I was pleased with this book, and I am much more interested now in the series than I was a week ago, when I only read the book on the release date to be able to participate in the initial rush of discussion. (Because it’s fun, that’s why. Not just online stuff—a surprising number of people at work have read it, and I’m just tickled to have very intense fannish conversations about these “kids’ books” at the proverbial water cooler.)
[reposted to correct entry]
Trent Goulding wrote: I enjoyed it a lot, more than Phoenix, although I didn’t dislike Phoenix (or think it entirely analogous to Teckla, which is more a comment on how much I dislike Teckla than anything, I suppose). The worst parts of Phoenix were the Harry-being-pissy parts, which granted, were an awful lot of parts…anyhoo, moving on…
I’m gratified to see that commentary that I’ve read is pretty much in accord with the broad outlines of what I think happened at the climax on the rooftop, and that the actions of the HBP have to be seen in a different context than what seems to have happened on the surface.
I think one of the most important themes of this work is that to the extent that Harry is extraordinary – taking Dumbledore’s word for it, in addition to whatever evidence the story presents us – he’s extraordinary very much not because he’s ultra-bright, or a great wizard. He’s clearly not either of those…something that was even more clear in this book, since we see examples of those that are. Dumbledore, for instance, does things that are leaps beyond where Harry can imagine. No fair comparison, because he’s old and experienced? How about the HBP himself, inventing his own advanced spells and working out better potions methods, all presumably while still a student at Hogwarts. What makes Harry extraordinary? His character? His character in light of his history and upbringing? Interesting questions.
Trent, the two dashes turning into deletes is some weird quirk of the new auto-formatting module. Real Soon Now I’ll be switching this over to Movable Type and that problem should go away.
I had lost interest in the series while reading Phoenix, but have decided to give Half-Blood Prince a go after reading your review. I am glad to hear it is shorter: I thought Phoenix to drastically overlong for the story it told.
Elaine, there’s still some life-at-Hogwarts stuff, but I thought this one considerably tighter. As I said, still not as tight as it could be in places, but definitely a more satisfying read for me.
Trent: Harry is special because he’s got his name in the title, plus a prophecy. Title + Prophecy = Hero.
Really, though, somebody should re-write these books from Hermione’s point of view, because it’s pretty clear from the first book onward that she’s done more against evil than Potter.