Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Caution: This entire Book Club contains spoilers.
Dear Will and Dan,
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StumbleUponI disagree about the epilogue. I find it perfectly fitting that a book about schoolchildren working out the consequences of their parents' experiences as schoolchildren should end with a glimpse of their own children heading off to school. I don't believe that Rowling doesn't know or doesn't care what happened to Harry, Hermione, Ron, etc.; I certainly don't believe that she considers their careers unimportant. Rather, she's telling her readers—particularly the children—that children are the heart of her story.
And anyway, who says Harry isn't an Auror and Hermione isn't the minister of magic? Rowling leaves that to her readers' imaginations, a plentiful commodity. This week most of it is bent on celebrating, deploring, reworking, extending, interpreting, interpolating, and generally poring over Rowling's world. Harry and his friends are in good hands—millions of them.
Unlike both of you—and most readers?—I find I have no desire for another sequel. Now that it's all over, I'm glad to be done with it. I loved the beginning of the series, which sparkled with light touches, cozy scenes, and ingenious devices, but I've found the past few books unwieldy, diffuse, and way too long, and the attempts at mythmaking tiresome. For me, the Deathly Hallows was the last haystack.
I could quibble for pages. House elves, for example: Wizardly restrictions on magic don't apply to them; they can apparate past enchanted defenses. In several of the books, the Death Eaters could have used a tidy, reliable method of infiltrating Hogwarts. Why aren't the good guys more worried about the house elf threat? Rowling's explanation—that Voldemort & Co. consider the elves beneath their notice—strikes me as lame.
Or take Lily's death. Dan, you mention Rowling's fascination with "parents' fierce and protective love for their children." You're right. It's all over the series—Molly Weasley, Luna's dad. So why does Rowling present Lily Potter's decision to give her life for her son as unique, the thing that sets him apart from wizardkind? Even the pointedly named Narcissa Malfoy puts aside her self-interest for her son's sake. What's so special about Lily's sacrifice? Isn't that just the logical conclusion of parental love—wouldn't any mother do the same?
I could go on and on like this, and not just with my own quibbles; my inbox, the "Fray," and the entire Internet are crammed with other people's. But I don't really believe we quibblers are disappointed in the book because of its faults and inconsistencies. I think it's the other way around. If we weren't disappointed already, we might not even consider those things flaws. One of my friends finds it grating that wizards live in a world that intersects with the Muggle world (Diagon Alley is in London), but they don't even know how to dress; she thinks Rowling goes for cheap laughs without caring how much they cost in inconsistencies. I love Rowling's humor, so that doesn't bother me. I'm sure if I loved her larger vision I would see the holes as a beautiful lacy pattern, useful for ventilation, that keeps the books from getting stuffy.
I hope Rowling goes on to write more novels—short ones, with her signature slapstick belle esprit. If she doesn't, I'll read other people's. There are plenty at least as good.
Wearily,
Polly
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Remarks from the Fray Editor:
If you're spoiler shy... If you're following Harry Potter discussions... If you haven't yet finished the book... If you're experiencing all three of these conditions, yet you're reading this article... Then you, my friend, are a foolhardy reader.
There seem to be a lot of foolhardy readers out there.
If you're afraid of spoilers close your eyes. Close this page. Don't enter the Fray. Open your book and get finished already, so that you can join this discussion. Spoilers follow below. The Fray overfills with 'em.—G.A.
Remarks from the Fray:
I find it odd that people seem disappointed that 19 years down the road the characters lead seemingly humdrum lives, about which we don't hear much. [That's] just the point.
Folks, most people don't aspire to be under constant threat of death - mostly people want to live happy, relatively uneventful lives. They want to live in a house they love, do work they enjoy, raise kids, be comfortable. The fact that killing Voldemort allowed this to happen is, I think, poignant - Harry was never comfortable as the Boy Who Lived, and now he can finally get away from it. Maybe as readers we want excitement and adventure and really wild things on the page, but by not making Harry et al want these things, Rowling is respecting the characters she created.
On a certain level, I find it a profound commentary on what most people want out of life - not fame or fortune or power, but love and happiness. Odd that so many readers don't seem to see that.
--brennan
(To reply, click here.)
The continued short shrift that Harry gives Hermione is incredibly frustrating in this book, more than in any other. Perhaps Rowling's one effort to comment on this is when she complains about having to do all the cooking - which is not only immediately dismissed, but also like, come on! The one thing Hermione is going to complain about is something so easily dismissed by the unsympathetic reader as an 'age old' feminist complaint. How about the fact that Hermione does everything and never gets a shred of the credit, other than some astonished expressions and the occasional "Mione that's amazing!"
She is consistently the character who saves Harry's ass and I continue to be frustrated that in the last book Rowling does nothing to really acknowledge or challenge this within her book - it is not just enough to assume that readers who like Hermione are going to get it, especially when Harry remains on such a pedestal, or that the lack of thoroughgoing challenge to Harry and Ron's behavior will be picked up on by readers with feminist sympathies, especially when most readers do not share such sympathies! It is especially important to be challenging this, I think, in a children's book.
It is not really believable that Hermione wouldn't challenge Harry more when she so relentlessly stands up for those who are denied rights, equality, and dignity. Maybe it's that other tendency on her part (or Rowling's?) to view her guy(s) as the only ones who are not sexist - they're my best friends, how can they be sexist? etc
Does Rowling's overall failure to inject a feminist critique into Harry Potter reflect her desire to prevent the boys from having to engage in some serious self-critique, a caving in to popular dislike of feminism, or her own discomfort with feminism?
--heypop
(To reply, click here.)
The Problem with the final Harry Potter book is lack of sex. In books 5-6 the students at Hogwarts slowly start to come to terms with their maturing attitudes to the opposite sex. Rowling deftly negotiates the concerns and fears of adolescence as they begin to date, and finally "snog". Throughout book 6 Rowling has various students, including Ron, Harry, and Ginny snogging constantly as they realize their emerging desires.
In book 7 Rowling starts with a great scene showing Harry's awkward attitude towards himself, his body, and his friends. "He felt like asking them to show a little more respect for his privacy as they all began stripping off with impunity, clearly much more at ease with his body then they would have been with their own." This one line gives much insight into the mindset of a 17 year old and allows Harry and his friends to seem believable.
When you contrast that with the 3 teens spending months living together in a forest, with no one supervising, and no one else to disturb them and yet there's no real awkwardness or tension ever described, you begin wonder why Rowling took her characters and replaced them with figurines. By the time Rowling has the plot moving she's turned each of them into an extreme example of their singular character traits. Never is it more apparent then when each wishes for their favorite Deathly Hallow.
Had she bothered making her characters continuously feel real, she could have actually written an interesting finale to the book...rather than a plot-driven bore upheld by at least half a dozen deux ex machina moments.
--Joschenker
(To reply, click here.)
(7/25)