Hogwarts 90210 (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Adult edition) - J.K. Rowling)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Adult edition) - J.K. Rowling
Date:	15/07/06 (187 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fluently written, existing fans will like it

Disadvantages: Franchise is running out of steam, may concentrate too much on teen angst

It’s nearly 10 years since the first of seven books was published in the Harry Potter franchise. Since the coming together of the author, J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Books, global sales have been astronomical mirrored by a string of movie adaptations to match the content of the books. I can’t profess to have read every single book (I’ve seen all of the movies on release at the cinema though) but the sixth of seven i.e. “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” was the third book I’d chosen to read following on from the “Goblet of Fire” and “Order of the Phoenix” instalments.

For anyone that hasn’t encountered the Harry Potter phenomenon, Harry Potter is a wizard. Not just any wizard, Harry is seen as the most powerful wizard in the wizard world matched only by the evil Voldemort who wants to bring his own brand of dark magic to bear in a new dictatorship that bows to him and him alone. As this instalment arrives, the central characters are now approaching the age of seventeen. It’s all a far cry from the time Professor Albus Dumbledore and Professor Minerva McGonagall met at Number Four Privet Drive in Little Whinging, a suburb of Surrey. Discovering that Lord Voldemort, the most powerful and fearsome Dark Wizard ever known, had been defeated at that time; they realised that the price of victory was the death of Harry’s parents - Lily and James Potter. Their infant son, Harry had somehow survived the encounter, with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, the only apparent side-effect of Voldemort’s attack. Unfortunately, Voldemort does rise again in subsequent volumes and by the time the sixth book has appeared, his malevolence and evil doing has crossed the boundaries of both the magical world and the world of ordinary, non-magical human beings referred to in the magic community as muggles. This is where we come in for this latest story.

“The Half Blood Prince” re-unites all the main characters from the previous books including The Weasley family, Hermione, Dumbledore and the teachers from Hogwarts school and, of course, Harry Potter himself. Like the previous books, nearly all of the story revolves around Hogwarts School for Wizards with Harry’s nemesis, Severus Snape now teaching defence against the dark arts and a new addition in the form of Professor Slughorn brought in to replace him as potions master. Harry is undergoing a series of additional, private lessons with Professor Dumbledore during which they are delving into memories of Voldemort’s past in order to find a way of defeating him. This provides the central thrust of the plot although the sub plot of Harry’s friends enduring their late teenage rites of passage and initial experiences with the opposite sex tends to dominate the main body of the book.

Rowling’s fluency in writing style is as clearly evident in this book as is the case throughout the others I have read. If I’m honest, I picked it up as a light, easy reader after having concentrated so hard on reading my previous book about Stalin and it fitted the bill perfectly. I raced through it in something like 10 days, which is quick for me, finding the way in which it is written a real page-turner. The author’s grasp of how teenagers think and feel is her great strength when she writes in this franchise. For anyone that’s read anything before in this series, it becomes very easy to identify with the main characters who provide the continuity from book to book. In the case of “Half-Blood Prince”, the story almost becomes a soap opera with Ron dating girls, Hermione feeling jealous, Harry watching from a distance and frequent referrals to “snogging” and the like.

Most of the ingredients that the Harry Potter fanbase would want are in there again. There’s plenty of high-flying broom action in further tales of Quidditch matches, all the suspense surrounding whether Severus Snape is on the side of the good guys or really loyal to the Death-Eater supporters of Lord Voldemort and the ongoing shenanigans associated with the pupils and teachers of Hogwarts School. Draco Malfoy gets his part as ne’r do well plotting and scheming to revenge his father’s imprisonment whilst the giant teacher Hagrid provides the oafish humour that goes with his West Country accent and lumbering manner. I would say that the closing chapters and, in particular, the finale are the best aspect of this particular tome adding some real excitement and adventure with a big, dramatic finish.

Critics of Rowling suggest that she tends to over-use adverbs and that her highly derivative tales are simply an amalgam of myths and legends that have all been done before. I’d go along with the adverb heavy observations although this insistence on making almost every passage sound dramatic tends to give the impetus for many of the chapters even if it does annoy the purists. Let’s face it, the Harry Potter books are hardly modern classics and there are better writers out there but very few will have clocked up the world-wide sales and acclaim that this particular Scottish author has and so why should she worry?

At 768 pages in the paperback version, the book is pretty big but chapters aren’t particularly long making it a highly accessible, fluent read. Published in both adult and children’s format, this latest book is very dark in places with the occasional violence it may be important to make sure that the purchaser picks up the correct version according to who the reader is. In the adult version that I read featuring a picture of the old spells and potions book of the title in a photo shot format, there was some graphic violence that may upset a younger child at one point.

With just one book to go and speculation surrounding how the Harry Potter sequence will finish, personally I think that the franchise is running out of steam. With so much of this particular book devoted to teen drama rather than more magical goings on, I got the impression that the author is losing her inspiration shown so often in the series. Maybe she’ll prove me wrong in the ultimate finale but this won’t stop the book selling in droves to the hordes of existing and new fans wanting to experience the highs and lows, the drama and the magic of the Happy Potter creation.

Recommended with 3 stars

Thanks for reading

Mara

I picked this up for £3.73 at Tesco. It is available at Amazon from £3.99

ISBN: 0-7475-8466-4

Published by Bloomsbury Books

Summary: Write up of 6th in book of 7 series