Harry Potter and the Sixth Exciting Adventure
July 29th, 2005 - 8:41pm - No Comments »
As mentioned yesterday, I’ve been reading the latest Harry Potter instalment over the past week or so. Actually, I’d say I read it for a total of 2 hours by Tuesday, and between Tuesday and Thursday finished the remainder.
My first experience with the Harry Potter series of books was in, I think, late 2000 when I was working at the-place-that-shall-not-be-named. At that time, I was reading through the Lord of the Rings books prior to the release of Fellowship of the Ring. Almost everyone on the train for around six to nine months was reading either a Harry Potter or Rings book — strange in itself, since there were usually few people reading.
I’d finished the Rings books, and felt a little bit lonely after seeing Frodo and eventually Sam depart to Valinor. Out of curiousity, I downloaded the first and second books from alt.binaries.ebooks or something similar, as OCRed text files. I then proceeded to print — double-sided — the first book out using work’s printer; not the easiest task when you’re printing out over a hundred pages, and you usually never have to print anything.
After a few hours of printing, I collated the pages into a protective plastic pocket. I tried to read some of the book at work, and failed dismally after reading about Uncle Vernon and his work in the factory. I decided to wait until I was on the train; after a few stops, I took the massive wad of paper from my bag, took the first page from the pocket and began reading.
I don’t remember much more specifically about my feelings towards the book, though I do remember seeing people cast curious sideways glances as to why I was reading from such a massive wad of paper. Perhaps they thought I was reading business proposals, as opposed to a stolen novel.
What I do remember, though, is that I finished the first book rather quickly — possibly in the space of a few train trips. Before the end of that same work week, I was back at the printer, dutifully waiting and collating the second stolen Harry Potter novel.
It didn’t take long for me to finish the second one, either. Justine had also told me that she was interested in the Harry Potter books, but didn’t want to buy one in case she didn’t like it. Shortly after stuffing the first massive wad into Justine’s hands, she began reading. By the time she was a few chapters in, Justine realised that she was going to finish reading, so bought the first book.
We now have all six, with the two most recent as the “children’s edition” hardcovers, since they match the other four paperbacks. Justine’s bought them all, but still hasn’t finished Order of the Phoenix despite having it arrive prior to it’s Australian release (we bought it from Amazon UK). I must admit, Order of the Phoenix wasn’t as engrossing to me as the others, so I can understand it a little.
After reminiscing about stolen books, and how annoying it was to actually read a book like that (perhaps on a PDA would be better; though I don’t think looking at the screen for hours on end would be comfortable), I think I shall relay my thoughts on the latest book (finally)!
I feel that the Half-Blood Prince started off a little poorly, what with it moving all over the place. Additionally, I felt as though I was missing out a little as I couldn’t remember each and every thing that had happened in Order of the Phoenix. Perhaps people who re-read immediately before Order of the Phoenix before Half-Blood Prince will have an easier time of it.
The usual pacing for Harry Potter books is for a huge build up, and decent pay off at the end. This one, to me, didn’t have the same sort of payoff. Quite a few things were revealed and we have a number of doom-laden portents, but I think the last 50 or so pages fell quite flat. It seems to me that Rowling didn’t quite know where to go after what I suppose I should call the revelation sequence.
The seventh book will probably require me to immediately re-read Half-Blood Prince prior to reading the new one. The first four books didn’t require this, though there were a lot of little nuances you would get had you read them.
All-in-all I’d have to say I definitely enjoyed this one, though I’m not really sure which I’ve enjoyed most. My thoughts right now are that Goblet of Fire and Half-Blood Prince are probably the two better ones, but I’m not really into ordering things in that way… except for Star Wars films.
