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I arrived fairly late to the world of Harry Potter. I had written off this series as kid stuff, judging the books by their cover and their publisher, Scholastic. A friend of mine who is a voracious reader told me that the reason why Harry was so popular was that adults read the books as much as kids did—if not more! By the time I started reading, four books in the series had been published, and once I started to read them, I had completely succumbed to the magic. Spoilers abound in this review, so if you haven't read the book yet, you are fairly warned.
I haven’t been read too many novels in the past few months. Video games, work, television, the Internet, and the Sony PSP have taken up all of my free time. Now with the penultimate book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
Chapter 2 is the most alarming chapter in almost any Potter book to date, and it makes the reader want to fly through the rest of the novel. In a dreary muggle neighborhood we find Professor Snape meeting Narcissa (mother of Draco) and Bellatrix, allies of Voldermort. Previously we’ve seen that Snape is a mysterious figure. Though an expert practitioner of the Dark Arts, Dumbledore has repeatedly claimed that Snape is on the side of good. In this chapter it appears that Snape has fallen back in league with Voldermort and answers all of Bellatrix’s questions. Why did he not join with Voldermort immediately after the Dark Lord’s revival? Why has he not killed Harry Potter after five years at Hogwarts? Snape answers all of these questions and furthermore makes an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco fulfill Voldermort’s plans. Rowling plays this chapter in a sneaky way: the point of view belongs to Narcissa and partially Bellatrix. We see what Snape is doing, we hear Snape state his intentions, but we don’t have privy to his innermost thoughts, another layer of mystery that we can’t wait to uncover. The film version of Half Blood Prince will have to be marvelous with Alan Rickman getting more delicious screen time in the role of Snape.
After Chapter 2, Rowling returns to her traditional structure: we see Harry at the Dursley’s (though there is no accident this time), Harry reunites with his surrogate family (Ron and Hermione), returns to Hogwarts, struggles with his classes until the end of the school year, when he confronts a number of adversaries. By the time we get to the end of the book, Hogwarts is changed forever and Rowling teases the reader with the thought that Harry might not even return for his final year of school. Voldermort never appears in the current timeline of the story, but we see him in a variety of flashbacks, courtesy of the Pensieve, a sort of Holodeck that plays back various memories that Dumbledore has collected. We see how Voldermort’s mother met his father, Tom Riddle. Riddle was a Muggle, making the various taunts about Mudbloods even more gut-wrenching because it’s all self-loathing. There have been many parallels suggested about Harry and Voldermort, and we see another one here, that both are orphans, mistreated in their Muggle homes, until Dumbledore summons them to Hogwarts. I’ve often thought that Harry’s orphanage makes him a classic hero in the mold of Superman and Batman, two heroes who do great things to uphold their parents’ memory. We see that Voldermort is almost Harry’s dark polar opposite. Rowling makes us empathize with Voldermort to a certain extent. We can feel sorrow for Voldermort’s predicament until he really turns evil and murders his Muggle born father.
Hagrid is a background character this time around, as the kids are too busy to take his Magical Creatures class. The main characters driving the book are Harry, Snape, Voldermort, Dumbledore, and Draco, who is mostly conspicuous because of his absence until the very end. Harry falls out of puppy love with Cho Chang and in real love with Ginny Weasley, Ron’s sister. Ron and Hermione provide interesting diversions and add to the soap opera elements. And the new Potions instructor, Professor Slughorn, makes every ass-kisser you’ve ever known seem pale in comparison. Snape finally becomes the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and he furthers his relationship with Harry in a way that gets discovered at the very end of the book. I don’t believe that Snape is evil at all. I think he has tried to help Harry by exposing his laziness. Harry has never been a very good student at Hogwarts. He’s cheated in various classes and utterly failed at Occlumency (closing the mind to telepathy), which led to the death of Sirius Black in book five. Snape hammers all of Harry’s weaknesses in the end, reminding him why he has no chance against Voldermort unless he becomes a better wizard. Harry will either have to improve or depend on Hermione for the knowledge to overcome his enemies.
When the as Half Blood Prince ends, you feel that book seven can’t arrive quickly enough, as this promises the mother of all magical battles. I am sure the earliest that this can arrive is 2007; perhaps we might have to wait as long as 2008. I bet the book reading public hasn’t been this captivated since Dickens serialized Great Expectations. When it does to come out, I imagine I will be so excited that I will have to read it in one day. Until then, Potter has rekindled my desire to read fiction, and I am currently reading Godplayers
JK Rowling interviews on the Half Blood Prince:
The Leaky Cauldron, 4-part interview.
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