Thursday, April 27, 2006

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

 (Book Review)

As regular readers of this blog might recall, I ruined the ending of this book for myself a long time ago. Truth be told, even before I linked to the ifilm clip I had asked a friend to tell me the ending. “I’m never going to read the book anyway,” I told him. “Just tell me what happens at the end.” He obliged, and then a few months later I got addicted to the Harry Potter Audio books.

The shocking ending aside, there are a number of other thread plots that kept my interest while listening to this book. More teenage romance, quidditch matches, mysterious potion books, et cetera.

Although the damage has already been done to the Brett-Sarah family, I’ll try and keep my remarks general for the sake of anyone else who may not have finished this book yet.

*I get more and more addicted as these books progress. The author does a good job of juggling several subplots at once, and the characters are some of the most vibrant literary creations I’ve come across in a long time. They seem like real people to me instead of just fictional characters, and I don’t think that’s easy to pull off.

* That being said, I think a few of the plot lines are getting recycled from book to book. I suppose this is inevitable in a 7 book series, especially one that revolves around school life. After all, what is school but the same things happening year after year?

* Phil once wrote in his blog: When the whole of late capitalist life becomes a full-time computer simulated hallucination I... will spend all my time in virtual reality, kicking Snape's ass! Fuck you, Snape! You're a ball-coddling coward!)
In spite of the last scene, I think there are enough clues to indicate Snape is still acting on the good side. I won’t write them all out here, but next time we meet up, Phil, we’ll have to discuss this.

Now I, like the rest of the world, am now eagerly awaiting the last book so I can find out how it all ends up.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Bat-Mite, a childlike Imp in a bat custom, appeared often in Batman comics from 1959 to 1964. After 1964 an effort was made to make Batman comics more serious, and subsequently Bat-Mite seldom appeared.

Link of the Day
More of Bush's Disastrous Environmental Choices

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowlng: Book Review (Scripted)

3 comments:

Otherside said...

Hehehe. Well, now that you're as far as I am in this series, which is your favourite? Do you still favour movies to books?

Joel Swagman said...

Yeah, funny you should mention that actually. Now that I've read all the books I've rewatched the first few movies. I hadn't seen them in a while, and they weren't near as good as I remembered. The movies are much better, I take it all back.

Joel Swagman said...

Opps, I meant to say the books are much better.