Story: Determined to destroy Lord Voldemort’s horcruxes, the keys to his immortality, Harry and his friends Ron Weasely and Hermione Granger forgo returning to Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft and set out on a quest to bring an end to the horror once and for all.
Review: Quick Note: I could go on endlessly about this books, but I’ll try not to. Unfortunately, due to its nature, it is unlikely that I will be able to avoid the occasional spoiler (though I will keep away from the major ones). If you haven’t read the book and want to know nothing, don’t continue.
It’s important when discussing “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” to recall something author J.K. Rowling said concerning its predecessor, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. She said that “Half-Blood Prince” was really only half a book, the other half of which is “Deathly Hallows”. She said that it would not work completely without its other half. That was certainly true and is, perhaps, even more true when it comes to the second part of the story.
Until now, the basic opening structure of the books had been standardized. They always began at the Dursleys, then a mini-adventure, the Hogwarts Express and finally the new school year, where the story began in earnest. In keeping with the “second half of the story” concept, this is abandoned in “Deathly Hallows”. We do see the Dursleys at the start as Harry is getting ready to say goodbye to his old life and leave his Aunt and Uncle’s home for the last time (and the protection it affords him). We get a modicum of closure (particularly with Dudley – something that was set up back in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”), but there’s little time for that as Harry and his friends are almost immediately under attack and the story is off and running.
And the peril in all-encompassing. The Wizarding World that we see in “Deathly Hallows” is not the pleasant land of wonder that we met back in the first novel. It is a horrible place, where Voldemort has taken control of everything from the Ministry of Magic to the Daily Prophet to Hogwarts itself. It gives the book an oppressive feel that is helped along by Rowling’s willingness (some would say over-eagerness) to kill off a lot of people. I can’t think of a more appropriate use of the word “overkill” than this tome. It starts right away with Harry losing someone very important to him and it keeps rolling as things get worse and worse. Characters from all throughout the saga start dropping like flies, some seemingly as an afterthought, not getting the respect they deserve. If there is one fatal flaw to the book (besides the Epilogue – more on that later), it is this. See, I get the fact that she needed to have people die, especially those close to Harry. Without that, the peril isn’t real. But the sheer volume of deaths, while realistic in a war setting, started to become so routine that they lose their emotional impact and just feel like piling on for the sake of it.
Which dovetails into the issue of the resolution of all the questions that have surrounded the series almost from the beginning. In a long story such as Harry’s, there is a sense of “rightness” as to what happens to certain people. We may not be happy about a particular event, but we sense that it is “right”. It fits the character. There are many instances where, while the ultimate outcome is fine, the circumstances don’t seem “right”. This is even true of Harry. If you’ve read the previous novels, you kind of know where everything is leading, but how it gets there is, at best, questionable and, at worst, a failed attempt to add intrigue to a story that is otherwise going by-the-numbers.
This formulaic approach to the characters is particularly true where Professor Snape is involved and even more particularly those questions raised in “Half-Blood Prince” (or “the Snape Bookâ€, as I like to call it). A reader’s satisfaction with these resolutions will be directly tied to what they expected to happen and what they wanted to happen. Most conversations I had prior to the book’s release were along the lines of “I’ll be happy as long as…” or “She just better not…” My expectations were, for the most part, met. But she did little to surprise or amaze me (except those deaths). Some of the twists and turns had been so strongly laid out in “Half-Blood Prince” that “Deathly Hallows” proved to be nothing but confirmation of what I already felt I knew.
But even beyond the questions regarding specific characters, Rowling fails to resolve the larger issues raised in her books. While I’m not one for reading fantasy novels for their social commentary, if that aspect is raised, it needs to be addressed. To a small degree, she does. The emergence of the non-humans to help defend Hogwarts at the end of the book clearly indicates that something has changed. But the degree of that change, how much the Wizarding World has learned from the mistakes that allowed Voldemort to rise is left unanswered. I’ve been going back over the older books and some of these issues are really obvious and require resolution. But we don’t get it here.
And that’s the problem with Rowling’s decision to structure books 6 and 7 as two parts of one book. “Half-Blood Prince” infuriated me. Although I found much of the information fascinating, I compare it to reading the “Dune Encyclopedia” instead of reading the “Dune” books themselves. (Something I actually did. I could debate the Kwisatz Haderach with the best of them, but never read one of the books.) “Half-Blood Prince” felt like an info dump with a wisp of story wrapped around it (mostly at the end). Everything was setup for the final book. And once we got to “Deathly Hallows”, we need to trudge through tedious quest sequences that do little to advance the actual story. Most of the middle section, with Harry, Ron and Hermione on the run “looking for the Horcruxes” could have been greatly condensed without losing a bit of the drama or character development. (A hint: there isn’t much.) Even the Death Eater attacks become boring as the pattern “go somewhere-learn something-get attacked” emerges. “It was Godric’s Hollow all over again, a complete waste of time!” says Hermione after one such encounter. I couldn’t agree more.
Rowling says the last two books need to be viewed as one. I say the last two books could have been one. What happens by splitting the final story in two is that the structure that was established way back in “Sorcerer’s Stone”/”Philosopher’s Stone” (Dursley’s-Hogwarts Express-Hogwarts) is lost. I can’t say for sure if Rowling’s themes could have been re-worked to fit such a scheme (Harry going back for his final year), but it was one of the things that I felt threw off the rhythm of the book.
So, after all that complaining, I must have really hated this one, musn’t I? But, somehow, it’s just not true. Yes, all the things I mentioned are real drawbacks that prevent “Deathly Hallows” from being the grand conclusion it could have been, but it still works. Rowling has clearly put a lot of effort into the creation of her universe. (Perhaps not on the level of Tolkien, but what is?) Even when things are strained or characters’ fates are rolling out in odd ways, they rarely disconnect from the characters we’ve come to know. (I can think of only one scene where an established character truly acts against his usual nature.) Rowling still has the ability to tell a good yarn and when she settles in, the stuff’s as good as anything in the series. There are very few new characters and none that we really get to know, but we do get to see more of previously established characters, particularly on Voldemort’s side.
Yes, the middle is tedious, but it’s not actually bad. No, the only thing that’s really bad about the book (and the only part that recieves almost universal negativity) is the epilogue. I’m not going to mention what happens there, but Rowling has stated that she wrote a much longer, more detailed version, because authors “shouldn’t reveal everythingâ€. Unfortunately, she reveals nothing at all of any importance. This has the effect of giving the book a second, unnecessary ending and acts as a bit of a comedown after a satisfying conclusion to the main storyline. My brother (who is the cynical sort) thinks she kept out all of that stuff in order to drum up interest in her upcoming “Harry Potter Encyclopedia”. I hope that’s not true and she just made a bad decision. As it stands, the epilogue does little but to frustrate the reader.
It’s a difficult thing, finishing off a series that is beloved by millions. (Just ask George Lucas.) Rowling handled it about as well as could be hoped. If she wasn’t exactly able to surprise her readers, at least she did little to outrage them or make them feel cheated. The major themes are addressed and most characters’ fates seem to fit. She may have overthought a few things. She may have lost some of her focus and forgotten to tie up a loose end or two. But when push came to shove and the reputation of the entire saga was on the line, she delivered.
Year: 2007
Author: J.K. Rowling
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 759 pages