From: Connie Rockman <connie.rock>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 23:08:33 -0400

Well, I just finished the book tonight, so I'll get my comments in under the wire. I'm glad I took a week to read it, because I felt the need to mull things over between chapters. I also went back and forth between reading and listening to the audio version with Jim Dale's usual stellar performance (his Umbridge voice is great).

I found Harry's anger and moodiness completely believable, not tedious as someone said. Given Harry's background, and all the years he spent being downtrodden by the Dursley's, this sort of personality emerging as he gets further into adolescence seems to me one of the more brilliant touches of Rowling's saga. Yes, he loves Hogwarts, and yes, he had a rush of joy at discovering the whole wizarding world, and luckily he has his good friends who stick by him . . . but now he's in a different place, and the pressures of school, being hounded by the Daily Prophet, being snubbed by so many of the students, the looming exams, and the hurt of being apparently ignored by Dumbledore . . . it all adds up to pressures that would put him in a sustained bad mood, in addition to the angst of simply being 15. His slow realization that pretty Cho Chang is not going to meet his expectations of developing a relationship is also a great bit of character building.

I found this book to be even more of a segment in an ongoing series than the others, some of which could stand by themselves. And that's another strength of Rowling's writing. Plot elements that are left dangling? well, of course! I don't think for a minute we've seen the last of that mirror . . . notice Harry did toss the shards into his trunk when he packed. The fact that he had forgotten that package from Sirius . . . and that Sirius didn't mention it later . . . well, I hate to think of the number of times I've forgotten important elements of my own daily life when I've been under stress. It just made it all feel more like a reflection of life than a book that ties things up neatly. I'm not making excuses for Rowling - I'm just withholding judgment until the series is complete, because all we have here is yet another fragment of the whole.

The satire on educational "reform," bureaucracy, student rebellion, and that dig at the end about "homeland security" for wizards . . . all brilliant. I have to believe that some of the edge to Rowling's satire comes from her own experiences in recent years - Surely Rita Skeeter's personality grew out of her own dealings with persistently nosy reporters, and Dolores Umbridge's character became so fully developed from the criticism of the books by small-minded educational bureaucrats.

Dumbledore's admission of not always making the right decisions is another fine point in this ongoing plot . . . and Harry's dealing with his grief at the end, needing people to understand, but also needing to be alone . . . seemed so true to life to me. Harry still has a heap of growing to do . . . but, then, don't we all?

Connie Rockman
Received on Tue 01 Jul 2003 10:08:33 PM CDT