The problem with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is very simple: nearly half the book (by my reckoning, 17 of 37 chapters) exists only because of an idiot plot. That’s a lot of filler, and while it’s nonobjectionable filler, still, it’s a long damn book—which is why I read it rather than listened. I think this may be the book most harmed by the authorial requirement that it cover an entire year. (As for the pacing of the series as a whole, I think up until this point, it’s fine, the way it distributes major events across the years/books. Seeing what this book sets up, however, reminds me of my concern that there’s not going to be enough room in the last book to resolve everything.)
Other thoughts:
- The bits where Harry and Ron are miserable are, once again, shorter than I remembered (it’s like the trek through Mordor), but I still didn’t enjoy them.
- Someone should ration Rowling’s ellipses.
- Does wizarding society not use the naming convention of “Firstname Lastname, Jr.”?
- Priori Incantatem is another reason for me to worry that Rowling’s sense of the mythic may not be up to ending the series, becase it just doesn’t click for me.
- I am hereby giving myself permission to skim the next one, in order to get the re-read finished before book 7’s release.
I don’t think British society in general uses the ‘Firstname Lastname, Jr.’ convention.
Thanks–I appreciate knowing that’s not actually a plot issue.
Oh gosh. By all means skim the next one. I’m trying to get through it now and it’s just torture, what with Angry!Harry and the plotlessness.
Agree with you about Priori Incantatem. If we had had any clue beforehand– but we didn’t. Also, I noticed this readthrough that Sirius knows about it but Voldemort doesn’t– what’s the deal with that?
charlene, on looking back, Sirius seems to know the effect but not how it’s created. Perhaps he’s just translating what Dumbledore’s said?
This was the first book where, I felt, she’d got so famous and so popular that either the publishers thought “more is more” and slopped out the great soggy lump of a book just as she’d written it, or they thought “she’s the richest woman in the world, how can we dare to edit her?” Either way, it could lose a good third of the content and be a much better book for it. Contrast it with Prisoner of Azkaban, which is such a neat plot (especially Buckbeak) – but it only gets worse in Order of the Phoenix!
Sue: I don’t remember what the deadline situation was like with this book, but yes, it would really have benefited from *someone* saying, “Umm, about this plot . . . ?”
Still gearing up for the next one. I may save it for Independence Day and hope for nice weather, conducive to skimming outside.