I'll admit this up-front: I don't have a hell of a lot to say about book six of the Harry Potter series. That's not a knock on it's quality: it's really very good. It's just that I finished it a while ago, and the details have started to inter-mingle with the rest of the series. I have a few observations I want to share, though.
The Harry Potter books are generally structured as mysteries. Each book has a central question that Harry and co. are trying to find the answer to, and that the book revolves around. Who's trying to get into the Hogwarts vault? Who's been opening the Chamber of Secrets? Who entered Harry in the Tri-Wizard Tournament? One of the things that has become apparent about these mysteries is that Harry Potter is always wrong. He usually jumps to an early conclusion, often accusing someone he doesn't like, and his accusation gets slowly disproven as the book progresses. What I like about Half-Blood Prince is that this is turned on its head. Harry works out really quickly that Draco Malfoy is up to some shady business, and tries his best to stop him. This time, he's right. Draco was neck-deep in it. It didn't do Harry much good, but I did like the reversal of the usual structure.
The other mystery here involves the titular Half-Blood Prince, whose potions textbook Harry acquires early on, and uses to great effect. I was never quite satisfied by the reveal of Snape as the Prince. It makes perfect sense, but as a dramatic payoff it didn't work for me. I'm not really sure what the significance of Snape's book was, or why it was important at all for Harry to possess it. I'm probably missing something subtle here, but there's just something about this subplot that left me cold, and I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it was Rowling trying to set up Snape's double-agent role, but I still can't see it.
Also, is this the book where Harry hooks up with Ginny? Because I always felt like that came right out of nowhere. Literally, in the space of one paragraph, Harry is suddenly smitten, with zero indication that he had any feelings for her before that. I'm not convinced by their relationship at all (to be honest, I find that romantic relationships are the weakest aspect of Rowling's writing, expecially where teenage boys are concerned).
I think that's about it, but there was a ton of stuff I liked. The secret history of Voldemort was awesome. The whole sequence with Harry and Dumbledore in the cave trying to get the Horcrux was beautifully eerie. Dumbledore's death was perfectly done. It's a great book, and a great set-up for the finale.
No comments:
Post a Comment