Book Review

[kenjari]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling

I really, really enjoyed reading this book. It's got lots of excitement, suspense, and surprises. I missed my T stop multiple times because I got caught up in the story. Overall, I think it's a good ending to the series.


The Deaths:
Mad-Eye was surprising but not that emotionally jarring, kind of like a warm-up to show that the stakes are high.

Dobby's death was a complete tearjerker. The effect on Harry is beautifully done - we get to see that Harry is a truly good, compassionate person; we also get to see him dealing with the fact that not only are there thoise who are willing to die to help him, but that those deaths may not be avoidable.

Oh gods, Fred. Poor George - his life can never, ever be the same again.

I am disappointed that Tonks and Lupin get such short shrift. There should have been more of a story, or moment, or something there. Their deaths should have been given more weight.

I had long realized that Snape was not going to survive this book. I was hoping that his actual death would have been more redemptive. However, his memories and his final bequeathing of them to Harry was a perfect alternative. I'm glad that the question of Snape's real position regarding Voldemort was answered, and that I was right.
A little tangent about Snape... I often find myself strongly disliking Snape in the books but seeing lots of anti-hero appeal about him in the movies. I attribute this largely to the fact that I love Alan Rickman - perhaps there's a downside to that casting decision.

I think Rowling did a reasonably good job of handling Harry's death/not death. His return to life didn't feel like a cop-out or gratuitous character immunity. I also loved his use of the resurrection stone not as a way to reverse death but as a way to accept it; not as a way to avoid death but as a way to take the fear out of it.

Other Things I Didn't Like:

I wish Ginny had been given a bigger or more prominent role. She kept getting pushed off to the sidelines or acting offstage. I would have liked to have actually seen her resistance activities at Hogwarts, or at least heard more about them. I think their relationship and feelings for each other would have had more resonance if Ginny had been allowed to do something dangerous and heroic in her own right.

I was a little disappointed with Rowling's cut-and-dried treatment of Dumbledore's family situation. Portraying his resentment of the expectation to give up his life and dreams to be a full-time caretaker to his mentally handicapped and dangerously unstable sister and nothing but bad and selfish is a gross over-simplification. I can say from personal experience that this kind of situation is far more complicated on both the practical and emotional levels. Sure, Dumbledore didn't make the best choices, but neither did his other family members.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione's wandering camping trip went on a bit too long, especially the self-imposed isolation aspect of it. I wish they'd gotten over their "we must go it alone" fixation a little sooner. This could potentially have been alleviated by some "meanwhile, back at the ranch" sections focusing on what was going on at Hogwarts and in the rest of the wizarding world during this time. I would have liked a little more information about what else was going on, and the other ways in which people were resisting the Death Eaters.

Other Things I Liked:

Dudley acting decent. I'd like to think that maybe he sent Harry a Christmas or birthday card every year, to his parents' endless chagrin.

The WWII parallels, especially Potterwatch. Rowling gives just enough with the muggle-born round-ups, tests for blood purity, and jack-booted thugs without getting heavy-handed. I wonder how this reads to the intended age group, most of whom probably do not have living relatives who experienced WWII (unlike myself).

The semi-redemption of the Malfoys. They really do love each other, and, consistently with the books' themes, this causes cracks in their allegiance to Voldemort. I actually felt some small twinges of sympathy for them at times. I do wish we got a little more of Draco's story, though. I was quite pleased that the epilogue indicated some degree of contentment for him in his adult life.

Molly Weasley kicking Bellatrix's ass. Yay for showing that being kind and nurturing and spending time on domestic pursuits does not preclude having real power and strength.

Neville being courageous and heroic. I knew he had it in him. Plus, it's a great conclusion for the character development arc for him that begins in either Prisoner or Goblet.

I'm actually a fan of the epilogue. I really didn't mind the unequivocal "happily ever after" of it. It seems appropriate in a series that at least started off as children's literature. Sure, the main trio ends up with rather normal lives, but I think it works, especially for Harry. He's spent the first 17 years of his life as either a pariah to the Dursleys or as the famous Chosen One/Boy Who Lived to the wizarding world. A couple of decades of relative peace and normalcy probably feel like paradise to him.

Comments

[hca.livejournal.com]

I was a little disappointed with Rowling's cut-and-dried treatment of Dumbledore's family situation. Portraying his resentment of the expectation to give up his life and dreams to be a full-time caretaker to his mentally handicapped and dangerously unstable sister and nothing but bad and selfish is a gross over-simplification. I can say from personal experience that this kind of situation is far more complicated on both the practical and emotional levels. Sure, Dumbledore didn't make the best choices, but neither did his other family members.

I thought you'd be one of the people who'd see it this way, for the obvious reasons. I said in a reply to somebody that I thought Dumbledore's backstory was human, rather than dark, which I thought was great of JKR and more interesting than something like "he dabbled in the dark arts and then regretted it." I thought it was incredibly human to be the brilliant young scholar who is drawn to extreme political theory and thinks the world would be better if he ran it. And to be the well sibling, who is resentful as hell at having to sacrifice his life to the ill sibling. And both of these things led him to some questionable decisions and some very bad results, but the motivations were purely human. It got my attention in a good way.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I felt that while Dumbledore thought he was being bad and selfish, there wasn't an authorial judgment backing him up, and so that could have been merely a weakness of Dumbledore's - seeing himself as bad and unworthy when he's merely not superhuman.

[epilimnion.livejournal.com]

Upon reflection, I didn't htink JKR was presenting young Dumbledore as selfish/bad because of his reluctance and bad choices re his sister. I saw Dumbledore caught between a sense of family obligation and guilt on the one hand, and his own ambition on the other. This muddied his pool of choices, especially since it seemed that there had been little family forethought on the situation. Bad choices and mistakes were made all around and the one lesson Dumbledore retained was that ambition and power led him to make bad, one-sided choices. Perhaps if his sister had lived, we would have seen a Dumbledore who learned from the fight and neither neglected his sister nor gave up everything for her, but rather found a way to work things out equitably among everyone's best interests.