What I Thought Of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this week. The book is huge and it has taken a lot of my time (notice the lack of posting this week) but it was worth it. It is a good book.
It isn’t as good as the others in the series. It probably should have spent a little more time under the loving scalpel of a good editor (there really isn’t enough story to justify 870 pages) but it is still fun to read.
I guess I should mention that I didn’t actually read the whole thing…I listened to a lot of it. I ordered a copy of the book from Amazon UK instead of getting the American version. This meant it would take me longer to get my copy than if I had purchased it here. While we were waiting for the book Lisa and I decided to go in on a copy of the book on CD with Michael. The book on CD is read by Jim Dale who is absolutely amazing. I’ve heard several books on tape and CD but I’ve never heard anything like him before. He came up with hundreds of different voices for the characters in the book and some of them were simply inspired.
I’m going to post a few of my impressions about the book and CD here and a few major spoilers will be included. If you don’t want to know anything about the story DON’T continue reading!!!
I was struck by how anti-government the book is. The Ministry of Magic is protrayed as the enemy to a much greater extent than Voldermort and his death eaters. I found this very interesting and fun. The problem with this is that as I neared the end of the book I was a lot more interested in seeing Delores Umbridge, Percy Weasley, and Cornelius Fudge get their comupance than I was in anything the truely bad guys were doing. I wanted to hear about Fudge being replaced by Arthur Weasley as Minister and about Delores Umbridge suffering more than she did. We didn’t even get to hear Dumbledore gloat to these two after Fudge was proven to be a liar and fool. Rowling did an awesome job of getting me to hate Umbridge and Fudge as I read the book…I just wish they had suffered more at the end than they did. Oh well.
I do have a question. Why did Rowling even bother with the storyline about Hermione making the hats and socks for the house elves. Dobby collected all of the clothing and the other house elves refused to clean the Griffendor common room but this is about all the repercussion of what she was doing. Hermione never even acknowledged that Dobby had taken all of the stuff she made. I thought it this was all pretty unrealistic. Why would someone as studious as she is spend so much time making elf clothing then not try to find out where it was all going. She saw Dobby as he came to warn the DA that Umbridge was coming but she never said anything about the dozens of hats on his head.
I think this example is just one of several that Rowling rushed this book. I know it took a long time to come out and I can’t claim to know why but it clearly isn’t because she wanted it to be exceptionally polished. Someone should have read this book before it was published and told Rowling that the elf clothing element of the story didn’t go anywhere. I felt the same about the “love story” part of the book. Cho Chang was really lame. It really felt like this whole angle was pretty pretty sloppily done.
On the whole I really liked the book and the story. It was fun to read about the duel between Dumbldore and Voldermort. Dumbledore is excellent. I really look forward to the next book…but I hope it isn’t 900 pages long and I hope the story is tighter than this one was.
There. I’m done being a critic.
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Jeremy, if you liked Jim Dale, you really need to listen to Nigel Planer read a good Terry Pratchett book. I think that Jim Dale is good, but Nigel Planer is even better.
By the way, if you get a chance, check out the British version of the audio books. Some people think that the British version, read by Stephen Fry, reading is better and the Jim Dale version. Personally I think they are both good.
Comment by Daniel — June 30, 2003 @ 1:27 pm
Here, here!
I agree in part. OK, I agree in full, but I would have put the spoiler disclaimer at the top.
Comment by Michael — July 1, 2003 @ 2:10 pm
I also thought that book five was too long for the interesting storylines- I think Rowling just wants to give her audience as much Harry as she possibly can. Regarding the house elf storyline- I think it was important to remind everyone that many in the wizarding community (even really good people) are treating some of their fellow creatures badly. This was a major theme in Book five and I think hermione’s houseelf campagin was being setup here so that it can come into promience in future books. However, my big objection to Harry five is that the main story w/ Voldemort doesn’t make that much sence to me. What was so important about that Prophesey that voldemort couldn’t here it? I mean Dumbledore has people dying (or almost dying) to protect Voldemort from learning that its him or harry? I think everyone knows that already. And even if Voldemort (for whatever reason) couldn’t hear the prophesey– then why couldn’t dumbledore simply have smashed the ball on page one and saved us all the trouble….it broke in the end w/ noone new ahving heard it and the wizarding world didn’t come to an end…….
Comment by cory — August 2, 2003 @ 12:35 am
I agree that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is too long, but not by as much as you state above. Also I have to take umbrage (allusion intended, yes, that word is where JK came up with the name Umbridge. If you don’t know the word umbrage, look it up in the dictionary - while you’re at it, look up the meaning of the name Delores) with your statement that the house-elf subplot was superfluous. First, remember Rowling’s obsession with political parables - most of the Potter books are loaded with them. She is showing us a race of oppressed people who really don’t WANT to be liberated, don’t know what to do with themselves once they ARE liberated and will go to any lengths to avoid liberation. In their “enslavement”, the house elves are perfectly well cared for, are for the most part left alone which is what they appear to want, and take pride in their accomplishments and in servicing their masters’ needs and furthering his/her prestege. In all, the relationship between house elf and master, in most cases, appears to be more symbiotic than oppressive. When she is mistakenly freed, Binky the house elf descends into depressions and becomes a butterbeer-aholic. Rowling is teaching us two lessons here: 1) though they may think they want to be, not all people handle total freedom the same way, and 2) regardless of your intellect or your intentions (Hermione Grainger is both intelligent and kind of heart), meddling in the social development and internal affairs of a species or culture you don’t fully understand is just not a great idea (this concept is the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s “Prime Directive”, for you Star Trek fans, and is a possible overarching principle behind much of the trouble in the Middle East today). These two morals are why I expect to see a continuation of the house-elf subplot, and that it may have great impact on the outcome of the larger story in the last two volumes.
Comment by John Robertson — August 4, 2003 @ 12:56 am
So, you all think HP V was too long. I totally agree that it was long but I also belive that J.K Rowling would have found it difficult to squeeze the basic storyline of that book into say harry potter 3. And the love story was not sloppy, it was actually probably something to hook in more female readers, that aren’t all in to the duels and stuff. For your sake (not), I hope that HP 6 is twice as big as that, and that you Hp nerds can get a life and stop getting so hooked in and worked up about a book that is not about real-life sequences. You probably think i’m some old bat who knows nothing, but i’m not. I’m 15 years old and have the IQ of a 17 year old, without studying. I hate nerds, i hate studying, god only knows why he put this brain in my head but it seems to get me along. Now you are all probably atleast over 25, otherwise you probably don’t have girlfriends. Look at you. And I remind CORY, that Harry and Voldemort were the only ones who could touch their prophecy (duh) so therefore, (for all you idiots out there) Dumbledore couldn’t have smashed it. So i hope I haven’t criticised any of you (lol). Have fun with your conspiricies, I’m going skateboarding, The Queen Of ice is very worried about all of you, and she isn’t even a goth. You all suck.
Comment by Queen of Ice — November 15, 2003 @ 5:55 pm