I just finished listening to the unabridged version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Once again, J.K. Rowling has delivered a thoroughly enjoyable book, and Jim Dale has delivered another stellar reading performance. (WARNING - spoilers follow)...
To say that Dumbledore's death was shocking would be a massive understatement.
Granted, I am a little slow. It didn't occur to me, until I happened to read this item in SciFi Wire News about Jacqueline Carey's latest release, Godslayer, that the Harry Potter books followed the "...good-versus-evil epic fantasy in the classic mold, complete with a Dark Lord, an all-knowing wizardly mentor and a struggling, unlikely hero..."
Okay, did I read "the Hobbit," twice? Yes.
Did I see all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies? Yes.
Did I see the structural parallels to Tolkien's classics, which as noted in WSJ.com's Opinion Journal commentary "The Battle of the Books" "[follows] a literary one reaching back even further--of heroic sagas and mythic battles between the forces of light and of darkness. That tradition receiving [sic] its greatest 20th-century expression in the work of her compatriot, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, [in] whose three-volume masterwork, "The Lord of the Rings...?" No.
As an aside, while I agree that Tokien's works delive more deeply into questions of morality, I regard its dismissive judgement of Rowling's works as snobbish at best. Tolkien sought to create an examination of morality and good vs. evil at a philosophical level for adults, using an interesting and often entertaining story as a vehicle. Rowling seeks to create an entertaining environment to capture the imaginations of children, that along the way shows children (and adults) the joy of reading, and offers simple lessons in right vs. wrong. Neither is better than the other, no more than an apple is "better" than a peach.
But, once it was pointed out to me... of course, Harry Potter obviously fit the mold.
How then, could Rowling kill the wise mentor, much less not even only at the end of the last book?
And that wasn't the only shocker. I was sure that the potions book was Voldemort's. Finding out it was Snape's was totally believable, but also unexpected.
I tend to consume these books at a very shallow level. I'm in it just for the story, and I tend to just go along for the ride. I find it fascinatng that there is a huge subculture of Potter fans that dissect every word trying to find answers to puzzles before they are answered and seeking to find meaning buried in the narrative. I'm not passing judgement - I really do just find it interesting that different people can approach things so differently.
Needless to say, I eagerly await J.K. dolling out the answers for me whenver she gets around to writing the seventh and final book of the series.
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Posted by David at September 29, 2005 03:48 PM