Harry Potter Book 6
(No Spoilers Guarantied)
This book, part of a series, (which always makes reviewing subject to a different criteria than if it is not a series), is even more subject to contingent review because it is, as they are saying in all the other reviews "the penultimate" book in the series.
Book number 6, one shy of the magic number 7, is then a peculiar thing to judge because it demands that it be looked at as an example of a penultimate book more than it does that it be looked at as simply another book. It is like the proverbial cliff hanger in a television series meant to insure that you tune in next season to see how it all works out. (As I often experienced with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with which I now associate some semblance to the Harry Potter series.)
Indeed, if asked, "what did you think of it?," in the spirit of the more casual sense of that inquiry, I'm inclined to say "it's good," but with that certain catch in my voice that conveys a reticence to say so, or a need to say more than just that, but not the confidence or certainty that it is warranted to do so. It's like a casual acquaintance asking you how you are when you are in the midst of a particularly strange or awful day, and you're feeling torn between proper protocol to just say "fine, and how are you?," and the need to really tell the truth and disclose the contents of your thinking. Or maybe it is like the first date that went OK, but you aren't so sure the next one will go as well, and you don't really wish to speak of it, in case you jinx the outcome.
I guess one thing that could be wondered about is, well, does it succeed in building anticipation for the next, and presumably ultimate, book? But that hardly seems to be much of an accomplishment even if we answer yes. For sure, I am anticipating the next book. I have been anticipating each and every book, though, without there being any cliff hanger in any of the previous books.
And saying this, I am not so sure that the complete progression of story was ever the point for me, but apparently it is for many of the other reviewers I have read, so I suppose I am peculiar in that sense - that I was just entertained by each installment without wondering that much about what would happen next, really.
That being said, I was not so entertained by this installment, although I read it all within 24 hours. However, there are some very interesting developments in it. And how fair is it to speak of being entertained by the first act of a play, without the understanding of how the acts to follow will actually play out? But I don't think this book would work outside of the total context of the series at all. Whereas the previous five could stand on their own and serve as an adequate introduction to the series.
There is something much more gestural about this installment, which is to say that although it still does tell a story, for the sake, it's true, of setting up the first act of the "ultimate" story in the series, and it does set this up very well, I think, but still there is a continual sense of the book as book. The story thereby registers as much as a function, or device, as it does a specific story. I was much more aware of what the writer was doing as a writer of this series. And that is different from my previous experience. It's not a bad thing, or even really a distracting thing, but it does take me outside of the story for a bit.
There are aspects that are consistent with the previous books, which I enjoyed a lot, that are missing or else are made to fall away within this story, and there is a deliberate sense of that being part of Harry's growing up. This poses an interesting relationship to the idea of growing up within the teenage years that is meant to be perhaps more general than the special circumstances that guide the maturation of a boy with magic powers, let alone one with a bull's eye on him from the biggest of the big bad's out there.
But what is most interesting about book 6, is the development of Harry's interior life. There is a strong continuity in this regard from book 5, where the temperamental qualities of being a teenager were represented in a slightly overstated, earnest, and yet convincingly enough, sort of way. The effect of this, aside from it being rendered convincingly or not, made Harry a slightly more complex character with qualities that were not always likable. And this further made him seem a little bit more real. This operation continues apace in book 6.
I find this somewhat ironic, that a story about a boy wizard, who's suddenly endowed with the knowledge of his power after a life of complete and utter powerlessness, just before being conscripted into training, and then revealed to be "chosen" for a significant and profound destiny that will determine the worldly balance of power, but for which he must be willing to sacrifice all, including perhaps his very life (this is rather Christian, isn't it, or at the least it's messianic?) should be subject to a perceived need for realism, to perhaps make him seem more like an ordinary teenager.
For what purpose, I wonder, if this is in fact the case? Is it so that more readers can identify with him? Is it an aesthetic need on the part of J.K. Rowling? I don't know. But it is interesting to witness this tension between the real and the fantastic, and it does succeed to underscore the tension in Harry's decisions, particularly when it comes to his attempts to sort out who is good from who is bad, like a kind of wizard detective (there is always the sense of scooby doo gang mystery in these books, which also harkens back again to Buffy and her "scooby gang" - and I am reminded of how that gang developed, or grew up" too, and how it meant they had to go partly go their separate ways), and which makes of him not only a maturing adult and a maturing wizard, but also a maturing hero.
This, in this sense then, is the story of becoming a hero, and this book 6 is the penultimate act before the ultimate act, then, of heroism itself - and in this sense, it is the answer to a philosophical question of what heroism is according to J.K. Rowling, and for that answer, I wait with baited breath.
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