It's called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". I think it will probably be a bestseller, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I just read it and I thought it was great. I wondered what others may have thought of it so I went looking around on the internet (heard of that? There's this box in the corner of the room...) and, of course, found that, truly, everybody's a critic.
The first criticism that I ran across was as follows: Harry Potter went through all that just so, 19 years later, he and Ginny could be living humdrum suburban lives. Will Leitch, whoever he is, in Slate says, "Did we really go through all this just to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione take up residence on a cul-de-sac?" Well, really Will, I know you'd never stoop to living on a cul-de-sac, and your life is just one grand adventure after another, but, I hate to tell you, for many of us, maybe even Harry and Hermione, this is what we want. To rid the world of evil so we can enjoy life on the cul-de-sac, watching Albus and James and Lily grow and blossom and have their own adventures. Kudos to Rowling for recognizing that, after slaying the dragon or the wicked wizard, the cul-de-sac is a good place to start a family.
The second criticism I found was, of course, the feminist one. A Slate reader writes, "The continued short shrift that Harry gives Hermione is incredibly frustrating in this book, more than in any other. Perhaps Rowling's one effort to comment on this is when she complains about having to do all the cooking - which is not only immediately dismissed, but also like, come on! The one thing Hermione is going to complain about is something so easily dismissed by the unsympathetic reader as an 'age old' feminist complaint. How about the fact that Hermione does everything and never gets a shred of the credit, other than some astonished expressions and the occasional "Mione that's amazing!" Which reminds me of the joke about how many feminists it takes to change a lightbulb. Here's an idea, slate reader. YOU write a book. Fill it full of tiresome, pedantic, feminist lessons and see how well it sells. In the meantime, those of us who aren't obsessed with the gender of characters in a book will enjoy this one.
Another Slate reader bemoans the lack of sex in the book. The characters don't feel real to this reader because they aren't continuously fornicating and snogging and thinking dirty thoughts during all that time they spent in tents in the woods. Well, I must say, I really enjoyed that Rowling was brave enough, in this day and age when we are just bombarded with sex from all sides, to almost ignore it. I don't care if the characters weren't "complete". I don't want to know Harry's lurid and lascivious thoughts. He can keep them to himself if he's half the man we think he is.
The book isn't perfect. (Actually, I understand there are six more books in the series that precede this one. You'd think they'd have made more of a splash!) But it's a tour de force. I can identify with the characters and root for or against them. The various themes are well-developed and food for thought. But mostly, I liked the way the book paced. Very, very slowly, at first. More than halfway through, it starts to pick up speed very slowly. Then faster and faster until you are just hurtling toward the end. And the end, I think, is beautiful.
I may have to see if anyone we know has the other six books.
And I can't wait for the movie.
Anybody else read this book?
10 comments:
There's also the capitalist criticism.
Criminy. What an embarrassment.
Ol' Megan should write a book full of tiresome, pedantic economic lessons and see how it sells.
I'll bet she's just the life of any party.
Anybody sees a global-warming criticism, please please let me know.
Global Warming? Never mentioned outright, but totally hinted at on page 632:
"'Like it hot, scum?' roared Crabbe as he ran. He seemed to have no control over what he had done. Flames of abnormal size were pursuing them...The smoke and heat were becoming overwhelming...'What can we do?' Hermione screamed over the deafening roar of the fire, 'What can we do?'"
I hate that woman. I'm not entirely sure that she has read the books at all. You can't make money appear! Its one of the Five Laws! And the Weasleys don't have a house elf.
She can go to hell.
Good read.
I don't see why anyone could complain about a lack of sex: Harry/Ginny had three kids, and Ron/Hermoine had, what, two? Besides, it's a kid's book, for crying out loud. But what is, uh, Slate?
"JK Rowling is not, to put it mildly, known for her seamless plotting or the gripping realism of her characters, most of whom spend the latter books pointlessly withholding information from each other that, if shared, would end the installment somewhere around page ten."
The plot was very well done, if not seamless. Plus it was 7 books over, what, like 3k-4k pages?
And Rowling's characters are very real. It's the world that's not.
If I'm not mistaken, the Weasleys are poor partly because they have seven kids.
It's too bad that over-thought-out articles like this get published so easily.
I always wondered how the kids stayed in shape enough to run around the whole time. It's not like they exercise much during quidditch practice.
I don't think there was enough sex in that book by that Tolkein guy. You know, the one about the rings. I mean, Frodo and Sam spent all that time together alone trying to find Mt. Doom or whatever it was. They had to at least think about it now and then, so why didn't he put it down on paper. And what's with the name Frodo anyway? It sounds like the name of some gay porn star.
Tolkien was homophobic.
Well now that I'm home I finally got to finish the book, and I thought it was great.
I was kind of disappointed by a lot of things though, and I actually think that economics article is pretty interesting. No, the Weasleys can't conjure up money, or food, and they don't have house elves, but they still do have a ton of other magical powers and are thought of as good wizards. I don't think they should have as hard of a time with things as they do.
As far as the amount of holes in the plot, this book has many more than the Lord of the Rings books did, and is also much less believable. ON THE OTHER HAND, it is a hell of a lot more fun. There are many things I would have done differently had I wrote them. But, I am not the author, it is not my choice, and I would not have nearly enough ability or patience to write anything even approaching the complexity of the HP series. Rowling did an amazing job of crafting the whole story, there are just some holes that detract from the overall believability and ruin it for me a little bit. Of course I was somewhat disappointed about some things not turning out the way I wanted but that's okay, it's her book not mine.
First of all, I wanted more of an epilogue. I want the whole biography for every single character and for the entire wizarding world. Like one of those things at the end of a docudrama movie where during the credits they show a picture of each character with a short paragraph about what happened to them after the movie. It was disappointing to watch them go through all that and then not really know what they get for it in the end.
Second, I still don't quite get Snape. It could just be that I'm too dumb, but I don't find his character in the end to be believable or satisfying.
Third, not enough time is spent on the dead people. ESPECIALLY Fred. Fred and George were my favorite characters in all the books, and I think she should have focused more on Fred's death and how George coped for the rest of his life. I couldn't believe that during the epilogue, there was no little boy named Fred running around or something. I found out from an interview with JK Rowling that George had a son and named it Fred. Still, I think this kid should have been mentioned in the book.
Fourth, the good guy's are all gun-controlled or something. They are always on defense, rarely attacking, and have some kind of strange reluctance to use deadly force against enemies who wouldn't hesitate at all to kill them. A couple of my favorite parts in the book were when Harry Crucios one of the Carrows and when Mrs. Weasley kills Bellatrix. If I were in the Order, I would be Avada Kedravaing, Crucioing, and Imperiusing Death Eater's left and right. I don't see the logic in going soft on any of them. It reminds me of when me and Laura were little, and we would play with action figures. At the end, the good guys would always finally get the bad guys and I'd say, "YEAH now let's kill 'em!" Then Laura would always get upset and want the bad guys to have a change of heart and decide to join the good guys.
On that note I also kind of wanted to see Draco do something good in the end. She really makes you end up feeling sorry for him.
Overall I loved the book and I wasn't at all disappointed until it ended. She had me wrapped up in the story so much. Really its only flaw I guess is that I wanted more of it. But I guess as she says in the book we must accept the fact that life (and a book) always comes to an end.
BTW Jesse the character's in the book probably get pretty good exercise by spending a lot of time resting, but then everyonce in a while having to exert all-out effort in running for their lives from some bad guy. Proper exercise should be brief, infrequent, and intense.
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