I’ll come back from vacation briefly to confess that I spent most of yesterday reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Verdict: I thought it was quite good, not without the inevitable rough patches but overall probably the best book of the series. Harry himself is still an insufferable git, willing to think the worst of his closest friends at the slightest provocation, but the teenage-angst stuff is kept to a minimum.
Best line, at least in context:
“NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!”
I got a bit misty in places, including that one. Rowling does a much better job at tugging on heartstrings here than in previous installments.
Let’s allow spoilers in the comments, so don’t read them if you don’t want to be spoiled.
Next wave of fantasy films is to be very close to the topics of Cosmic Variance: “His Dark Materials”. Not only Dark Matter, but also extra dimensions are explicitly named in the books, let’s see what happens in the filmed version.
I loved the book, finally another person who has already finished it. I always knew Snape was a friend!!!
Not a fan, and felt like yelling at everyone at the mall on saturday “Dobby dies, Snape is good, Voldimort dies, Harry and whatserface have three kids, as do Hermonie and Ron (together, not separately) and Draco has a boy called Scorpio”. But then, I had managed to restrain myself when sitting next to “The Secret” reader on a plane a few days before, so I decided not to.
I rather liked the last 250 pages, but didn’t like the aimless drifting that happened in the earlier parts. I mean, if it had served a purpose yeah I would’ve been fine with it, but they just ended up going and doing what Harry wanted to do anyway so what was the point? (I was also not a fan of Harry Potter being Jesus, kinda-sorta.)
And yes, I loved that line too. 😀 First (and only) time Rowling actually used something approximating a swear word in the books, so I actually laughed out loud.
And if anyone here has yet to read “His Dark Materials,” stop whatever you are doing and read it now!!!! It was my favorite book when I was in sixth grade, and as A Rivero said it was filled with talk of extra dimensions, dark matter, science vs religion, and all these other things 11 year olds clearly need to know about. The author (Phillip Pullman) had a philosophy that you needed to give scientific explanations for what was going on, you see…
But yes, that book introduced me to most of modern physics and probably helped me become an aspiring physicist today. Having scientists/physicists as lead charecters and having the protagonist say in the second book that she thought being a physicist would be cool when she grew up probably helped a great deal too. 🙂
Somehow, I was delighted to hear my favorite Big Brain Cosmologist had read and enjoyed this… and…bewildered as I admit I am as how this might be possible for anyone half way well read… all I can say is…
Let’s hear it for human diversity, eh!
Glad you enjoyed it! And even more, that you weren’t ashamed to admit it. Good for you!
personally I liked the way harry called voldemort ‘riddle’ in the final showdown. Also Neville showing his true colours was gratifying. I also liked the ’19 years later’ epilogue – yes, it’s corny, but I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.
Some of the middle part of the book was unnecessary, but to be honest, even if it was 2000 pages long I’d still love every minute of reading it!
I definitely liked that line … I was completely not expecting to burst out loud laughing at that particular point in the book.
Oh, yeah, I absolutely loved that book too. Got it yesterday morning, finished it last night. Easily the best in the series, and a very fitting end.
Yeah, it was pretty good. The rough patches were pretty rough, particularly the (inevitable) stall in the search for the Horcruxes, but I viewed them as painful but necessary parts of the story. Pretty satisfying conclusion, IMO.
19 years later…Harry Potter, burdened with all the stress that comes of raising children in conditions of economic uncertainty, walks down the street with a heavy, tired-looking Ginny who never seems to be interested in sex. They pass by the bookstore and one of the brats throws a tantrum. “No, I am *not* going to buy you those frigging seven books, you little shit! You wouldn’t even read “Stalky and Co”!” said Harry.
Harry vs Voldemort confrontations, Ron + Hermione, Neville, house elves, Dumbledore’s past, Luna & father, Potterwatch: Good or excellent. The final plot twists with the wands left me breathless.
Deathly Hallows, Snape’s past revelation: Not bad but could have been better
Snape’s death, Lupin + Tonks, Ginny, epilogue: Bad or horrible. Snape was quickly and pointlessly dispatched instead of having a major role in the climax as he deserved; a major character like Lupin died offstage and without any pathos; Ginny didn’t do anything in the whole book, and the epilogue gave all the “answers” that readers knew already while omitting the interesting ones. What happened to Luna? To George without Fred? To the Ministry, and to non-human races? Who is headmaster of Hogwarts? And so on…
Overall: a very good end to the series. Difficult to compare with the others as it has a very different structure and tone. But very good.
Just finished it around 1am this morning, and I thought it was an excellent and satisfying end to the story (modulo the aforementioned rough patches).
Overall, I would say His Dark Materials is better written and more inventive (I really hope the movie is decent), but reading the Harry Potter books seems to tap into some deep reservoir of happy childhood memories for me. It’s hard to think there won’t be any more books to look forward to…
Oh, and Harold Bloom is a prat (as Fred and George would say).
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An interesting question is whether Harry Potter really exists in the universe. E.g. one could argue that Boltzmann Brain states that subjectively experience being Harry Potter for a fraction of a second must exist. All the different Boltzmann brains together, each experiencing different parts his life, then generate the complete life of Harry Potter.
Count Iblis: You don’t need a lot of different Boltzmann Brains. Just wait a few zillion^zillion years more after the Boltzamann Brains appear, and you wil get a really major quantum fluctuation that will simulate the whole Harry Potter world, complete with all its characters and events. Of course, it wouldn’t really work by magic but by a hugely unlikely succession of quantum events that mimic exactly the effect of magic, but the characters would not be able to tell the difference.
gfl:
Your restraint is appreciated.
As a girl with the name of Lyra, I’m not looking forward to His Dark Materials coming out. They’ll mannage to pronounce the name wrong (as usual) lol. It’s Lyr-a (Lear-a) not Ly-ra (Lie-ra). But that’s just my little rant. I’m planning on going by my middle name once the movie comes out, since I wont be able to escape the inevitable.
I haven’t read Harry Potter since the 4th book came out. I know she had to re-write them, and I didn’t like the way the stories started to go once she did. I’m glad she left in some of the good things though that I knew were coming, Dumbledore dying perviously, and I’m glad that Voldemort died, although that was obviously coming.
I also have to say, that being a PotHead (Harry Potter fan) when I was younger, drew me to the sciences, and that’s why I’m now getting my degree in chemisty. Just so I can see water light on fire, stuff “magically” appear, and a purple rock come from 2 clear liquids. Of course now I know it’s not magic, but it still makes me feel like it is.
Well I enjoy Harry Potter, I felt that the book should have been longer, after all it is the most important quest. I agree with Alejandro that having Lupin die like that was not the best thing, but I also remember how confusing the battle at the end of book Five, that was confusing because we were following several fights at the same time. I also agree that I wonder about who is the Headmaster, and what in the world is Harry doing? And Ron are they seeker and keepers on the same team? I would like to have that LOTR ending where you get a timeline to show what happened to each character.
I’m not a reader of these books, but I am a huge fan of the effect they’re having culturally. The evidence is right in this thread. Really amazing that it is inspiring so many ppl to do more with their lives, to look deeper, in whatever way suits them.
For me, that’s the measure of art. I love the fact that something that’s been treated with critical condescension (at best) until the last couple books is going to have a far greater positive cultural impact than every Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy novel added together and raised to the power of Pynchon.
Why did Neville run up to Voldemort unarmed (how did he know Voldemort would summon up the Sorting Hat from which Gryffindor’s sword would be available in order to kill Nagini)?
Thoroughly enjoyed it — especially the chance to spend an entire afternoon lost in a good story — something that doesn’t happen much these days. And the kids that I read the first few books to had to work this weekend so I got it first, finishing in time to hand it off to my son when he got home; he pulled an all-nighter on Saturday and passed it on to his sister to start after work yesterday.
We’ve agreed no discussion until she’s done, which will be a good excuse to go
out to the Chinese bistro for dinner tonight.
We also read and loved the Philip Pullman books, esp. the first one. Highly recommended.
I loved the book, but was hoping the kids could deal with the more sinister matter of “the wretched man” (Book 6, P. 1).
Arun: Neville didn’t run up unarmed; however, Voldemort disarmed him extremely easily.
Good grief – over 600 pages in one day? Respect 😉 I was goggle-eyed and mentally knackered after reading C J Samsom’s novel “Dissolution” in a single sitting, and that’s barely 400 pages.
Well worth the effort though. It’s a brilliant thriller, set in Tudor times, about skullduggery in an English monastery. Very much in the “Name of the Rose” genre, but better IMHO or certainly at least as good.
It’s one of the “Shardlake” series (that being the sleuth’s name) and I’d highly recommend them all, although of course they’re not exactly fantasy in the Potter style or SF a-la Pullman.
Potter #7 wasn’t the only “final episode” released this week – Sadly, the last episode of Rome 2 was shown on UK TV yesterday. What a brilliant series (two series) that has been as well – Made “I, Claudius” look like Muffin the Mule!
Cheers
Neville’s determination in the face of miniscule odds is part of his inspiring charm. He has no more chance than Harry apparently has had many times, yet his impulsive actions ultimately succeed.