Interesting twist on Harry Potter

From Peter Lambert of the TLS:

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

J. K. Rowling

607pp. | Bloomsbury. £16.99. | 0 7475 8108

It is not easy being an adult Harry Potter fan. All around us are detractors, laughing at our obsession, questioning our intellectual maturity, forcing us to conceal hardback books behind carefully spread pages of the TLS. But the derision of our peers is nothing compared to the torture that J. K. Rowling is now putting us through. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the penultimate book in a series of seven, may be the most gripping yet, but it is also deeply distressing. Harry and his friends are fighting a losing battle against the evil Lord Voldemort, the death count is high, and Hogwarts Academy is awash with paranoia. As we follow the teenage wizard through a year of struggle and eventual tragedy, it becomes clear that Rowling is no longer interested in nurturing our dreams, but in stamping on them.

There was a time when Harry Potter was all about escapism: an unloved orphan turned out to be a glorified messiah, and had some terrific adventures in the process. This was uncut fantasy; for those who could stomach it, reading Rowling’s first book was, in Stephen Fry’s words, “like swimming in chocolate”. Only in retrospect do we realize this was part of a master plan: that the first, sugar-coated hit would lead to a lifetime of troubled addiction. Who would have guessed, before the arrival of Volume Four, that a Harry Potter novel might end not in resolution but in turmoil? Who would have believed, before Book Five, that a major character could be killed? Rowling’s genius has turned out to be her ability to manipulate readers over the course of an entire series: to set up a craving for escapism which, with increasing resolve, she refuses to satisfy.

What hurts most is the casual erosion of the customs and routines that once made Hogwarts such a delightful place to visit. The everyday rituals of magical existence have always been important – buying school books in Diagon Alley, drinking Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks – and part of the pleasure for readers is seeing these rituals happily revisited from book to book. Not so, however, in Half-Blood Prince. Quidditch is now fraught with danger, the house cup competition all but forgotten; even Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour is closed for business. A trip on the Hogwarts Express, once a perfect opportunity to swap chocolate frogs and catch up on some wizard chess, now ends with Harry’s nose shattering, “blood spurting everywhere”, as he is mercilessly kicked in the face.

And this is before anyone dies. Readers have now come to expect one important mortality per novel: it is a tribute to Rowling’s skills as a mystery writer that death can still surprise us here. The book’s blurb describes the writer as
possessing a “flair that is magical”; in fact, Rowling is not so much a magician as a muggle-conjurer, using one hand to dazzle us with red herrings, decoys and bluffs, while the other discreetly removes our wristwatch. Six books in, one might think readers would be wise to her tricks, but again, Rowling plays our familiarity to her advantage: we know that a twist is coming, she knows we know a twist is coming – and so the twist doesn’t come. Yet. It would be a crime worthy of the Dementor’s Kiss to unveil the identity of her latest surprise victim: let us simply state that there is something perversely cruel about a writer who begins her story with an orphan finding a surrogate family, then spends five books killing this new family off. No one is safe from Rowling’s merciless pen: one of the reasons fans are now desperate for Book Seven is the suspicion that she might use it to kill Harry, or, worse still, have him survive without any living friends.

As a series writer, J. K. Rowling is learning from previous mistakes: where the last two Potters were in danger of becoming flabby, this one feels lean; the story-telling is efficient. And the writer’s weakness for expository dialogue – in which large amounts of back-story are explained to Harry – is less in evidence here; Rowling is using new, inventive (and, naturally, magical) means to dramatize information. This is a children’s writer at the height of her
sadistic powers. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is taut, witty, effortlessly engaging, and very, very nasty. How we yearn for more.

I tend to agree that the Potter novels have become darker and less childlike. However, her main characters are older teenagers now, and they are addressing serious life issues that many teenagers are made to face in real life. The development of the kids in the novels (except for Malfoy, who exists only as a foil for Harry) is one of the things I most appreciate about Rowling's writing. Moreover, Harry Potter's entire life has been filled with tragedy, from the death of his parents and his banishment to the Dursley's cabinet under the stairs in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," right on up through the shocking event at the end of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince."

Like Peter Lambert, I yearn for more.