Meh.
Make no mistake. On a scale from 0 to 10, this book still scores 60. My problem is that for me the Order of the Phoenix scored 100. Then again, I read that one in very special conditions. I was a fan but not a FAN. I loved JKR's style and characters but I was not exceedingly involved in the saga from an emotional point of view. OOTP blew me away. I should post a review of that too; suffice to say that I felt strongly that the saga had jumped from kid entertainment to mainstream adult literature. Harry Potter became a character - a MAN - I deeply admire, a reluctant hero. And I totally loved the depiction of the adult world around the kids, the Order itself, 12 Grimmauld Place, and the character of Sirius Black, who, alas, is a facet of myself.
So I approached this new book in a completely different way from OOTP. It was not anymore a light-hearted checking out of what my beloved author was up to. The emotional investment was much stronger, especially towards some character: Harry himself, as I said, on whose fate however I was reasonably sure, and a couple of minor characters I have come to really love. So probably I expected too much.
One pleasant thing was that I was able to immerse myself in MY book. I'm jealous this way. I always hate the hype, I hate to be one of the flock in all situations. I'm glad the saga is so successful, but I resent being bombarded by others' opinions, even when they are positive. Yes, there are a lot of sites who approach HP in an extremely mature and serious manner. But for example, I hated the third movie. Irrationally, I know, but I felt it intruded in MY vision. I would not have minded so much a completely miscast Sirius and Lupin and Pettigrew, if the arrogant "I-am-a-Potter-god" director had not decided to tear to shreds the adult subplot, which instead should have such an influence on Harry. I hate to say this because I'm usually critical of, say, LOTR purists, but I discovered I've turned into a HP purist.
(Gary Oldman is not miscast, I don't think he can botch a role; I just have a problem with the whole adult cast being moved forward twenty years, see also Snape - whom I love anyway. David Thewlis is great, and the right age, but they made him repulsive, though the scars were a good touch. Pettigrew is laughable - he should be a tragic Gollum-like figure, instead he's just a cartoon.)
Anyway, all of this disappeared when I turned the first page of HBP. Once again, it was just my book and I, all the rest forgotten. The faces in my mind were those I had imagined. I immersed myself totally into it... after picking myself up from the floor during the hilarious, utterly outrageous first chapter. That particular person will go down in history for yet another reason.
But here comes the "meh" part. I'll have to re-read it, of course, but on this reading the plot failed to engage me. Partly because I missed the adult interaction in OOTP, and Sirius, that ticking bomb who gave that book so much tension.
[small spoilers]
The great cast of Aurors assembled in OOTP is barely present here. No 12 Grimmauld Place. Moody doesn't even appear. Sirius himself... frankly, I thought that Harry forgot about him pretty quickly. Lip service is paid to his absence, but I felt no real longing in Harry, no desire to go near the Veil, to put together the mirror, nothing.
[end of small spoilers]
And then, I foresaw the ending at once. Though being totally unspoiled, I knew who the Half-Blood prince was when the infamous textbook appeared, and I knew what the mysterious pact was about, and I knew it would come to fruition, and how. Never before JKR has been so predictable to me.
And then... the romance. Yes, these are teenagers, blah blah blah. And some of it is poignant, especially a certain person slowly but surely maturing and saying some totally unexpected serious things out of the blue. But the Casablanca turn was so trite. Harry has discovered that he can be hurt through his loved ones already in the previous book: once again, the memory of Sirius is remarkably absent.
[BIG SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO KNOW ME]
And... X and Y getting together... I almost yelled aloud in the dead of the night when I read that: I had been rooting for them so much as characters and as a couple, and I was terrified she would get killed, but... even this stalwart shipper says that the romance was completely unjustified! They barely appear in this book, and whenever they are together, also in the previous one, there's absolutely nothing to indicate they are more than friends, no tension, no attraction, nothing. Once again, the adults are short-changed, it all happens off-screen. It felt like JKR had read my fan fictions and took them for granted when she wrote that part. Yes, >I< know how they got together and why, and I'm beside myself with joy that now it's canon. But from a literary point of view, it makes no sense.
[END OF BIG SPOILERS]
I have to run now. Of course, there was a lot to be liked in it. Off the top of my head, finally Malfoy is almost a human being in this one, not a cardboard villain. More will come... |