Books Without Borders :: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So August's main book is HP 7 - if you haven't finished it you may want to exit the thread now as it will no doubt have spoilers!

Ok so, my views on this one. Well as with all the HP books it was enjoyable and easy to read. I don’t think JK is an amazing writer, there are other teenage fantasy authors I hold higher from a literary standpoint (Pullman, Nix) but she does slap together an entertaining and light yarn so that’s all good. I always find myself disliking Harry a bit in the books (and I still haven’t forgiven him for getting Sirius killed), but as always the rest of the characters more than make up for it, Snape and Ron , the W twins and Hermione being among my favourites.
I thought book 7 started out really well, carrying you along quickly with the action and throwing in a shock or two with the first two casualties, but the whole moving around in the tent, Ron stomping off, the weird Patronus leading them to Gryffindor’s sword and Ron bit a little overlong and not quite flowing with the rest of the story. Also it was dull, ok we get the point, they are cut off, now back to the action please!!
Other faults, I thought the ending was poor, I should have been in floods of tears over one of the weasley’s dying but barely noticed, and I cry really easily at books, same for Lupin, I loved that character. I feel a bit as though the final battle and the whole, people you care about die, bit was glossed over quickly (perhaps to not traumatise the kiddies) and Harry coming back from the dead, in fact that whole, bit with Dumbledore seemed a bit random and frankly like a cop out. The only bit I really, really hated though, through the whole series of books, the bit that made me feel a bit like throwing up, was the Epilogue. Yeah yeah, we assumed it would be happily ever after, my god did it have to spelled out in so much saccharine detail!
So after all those grumbles, I really like these books and will of course re read them, and when I have kids they will be forced on them, along with CS Lewis (far too many religious tones, but otherwise good fun) and Douglas Adams (kids should learn young that life is strange and random).
Very Happy

Ok, what did everyone else think?

In short – I loved it.

I have now had time to speak to a number of people about this book (being now three weeks in, I feel less guilty for mentioning key points in public, although I am still appalled at those who seem to be relishing in broadcasting it) and am beginning to conclude that how much you enjoy it is based entirely on your expectations.

This is a children’s book. As Toast says, JK is by no means the best children’s writer out there and was unlikely to have become Dickens since her last effort. If you disliked or were disinterested by the others, this isn’t going to change your mind; it is however a ripping yarn and we do roll along at a merry little pace through the book. I had been afraid she was going to muck it up. I suspected a lame Star Wars / Enid Blyton / other trite ending, so I was impressed.

I disagree that there wasn’t enough action – I think she did a reasonable job of conveying the long boring days without dragging us through them with him aka Lord of the Rings. If Harry et al had gone “right oh lads, lets go have him”, knowing straight away what to do, how to do it, and through a series of happy coincidences having no trouble about it – we’d have cried cop out. It was a near impossible thing that he did, and he was but a child – I invite you to consider your own analytical powers age 16. I think it was well punctuated with gripping action – the near misses were near enough that every time I thought – this is it. Of course it helped that I was convinced that Harry was the final horcrux and would therefore die before the end.

I liked that Ron ran off (not at the time – I was distraught). If you have ever been a close friend of someone whose popularity far eclipses your own, you will know how difficult that is and I think he needed to do it - and to return – to acknowledge that. In fact I thought she pleasantly rounded all the characters off. Snape was good – big surprise, I don’t think there is an adult in the land who didn’t see it coming, but many of the kids were all too ready to believe his evilness, and how annoyed would you have been if _they_ were right?! And I was impressed with how she also rounded Dumbledore out, that he wasn’t wholly good as no real person can be.

I have yet to find anyone who likes the epilogue, it was weak and saccharined – but I also understand it. This is a children’s book and children want to know the end as it were, she has subsequently been bombarded with even more questions and there is now a wealth of information on ‘what happened next’, for some people it will never be enough. Me - I was happy enough that Voldemort was dead and Ron and Hermione were together, although I must admit to shedding a tear on finding out his second son’s full name.

And yes this book did make me cry. I cried for Dobby (although at least he did so a free elf and in defence of his beloved Harry) and I cried for Harry when he went in to the forest – I think she got the emotion of that scene, the fear tempered by determination to become acceptance, spot on. The other scene I thought that was perfect was during the final battle when the see their first friend fall and of course they want to fall apart too – but they can’t, they just have to suck it up and carry on, putting their grief on hold. I thought that was wonderfully written.

So in summary, I expected a weak ending, clumsily bringing together strands in to a tired imitation of a classic, full of pointless cameos and betrayals of characters – what I got was a fast paced adventure that kept me guessing (yes I thought I knew, but I didn’t know I knew), that stayed true to it’s concepts & it’s characters, answered my questions and brought the whole series, I thought, to a very satisfactory end.

Light Reader Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 5

I liked this one.
I feel I have to start off by saying that because I can already sense myself gearing up to pull this book apart and I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I agree with Hageltoast that there are better teen authors out there and would recommend Nix and Stroud if you have enjoyed reading Harry Potter (or if you haven’t actually!). To be honest Harry isn’t that likeable a character, no matter how much Dumbledore goes on about him and as for that episode where he went all ‘Death’ on us and started SPEAKING IN CAPITALS THROUGHOUT ‘ORDER OF THE PHOENIX’…

To be honest, what makes the Potter books an enjoyable read are the secondary characters that populate the wizarding world. Sadly they don’t get as much page time in ‘Hallows’ as in previous books. Hermione, who is easily the most interesting of the three leads is heavily sidelined in this book with little more to do than worry about Ron (who, according to some sort of weird tradition has run off sulking again- at least he has the excuse of the influence of a horcrux they are carrying this time). This is a shame as it was often Hermione who would work out the things that were needed to push the story forward in previous books, so it is a shame to see her demoted to… well, someone who just happens to be there.
‘Hallows’ does get off to a great start with the flight from the Dursley’s house, but grinds to a terrible halt once Harry and his friends go off on their camping trip. This whole section feels completely redundant as nothing happens for several chapters, other than people sitting around in a wood. Nothing. The moment Ron ran off in a sulk I was hoping for everything to suddenly go all ‘Blair Witch’- it would have been a hell of a twist and livened things up no end. Although having Hermione find Ron’s plucked teeth lying outside her tent may not have gone down well with the younger readers, so perhaps not. I would have preferred us to have seen some of what was happening at Hogwarts during this period, especially to break up these duller chapters.
The result of the camping trip- that they acquire Gryffindor’s sword also feels pretty pointless as they subsequently lose it and none of the swords journey in this book needs to happen for that moment at the end where Neville goes all hardcore in the final battle and heads start to roll. Neville has always been one of my favourite characters so the moment where he goes up against Voldemort is easily one of my favourites.
I also like Lupin, but I knew his days were numbered when he proudly arrives to tell everyone about the birth of his son- a cliché that Michael Bay would be proud of. However, I didn’t see Tonk’s fate coming which, perhaps gives Lupin’s demise more weight.
Another favourite of mine has always been Snape although once again I felt he was a little short changed in this book. I had already worked out bits of his relationship with Lily Potter from previous books and I imagine that many older readers were firmly convinced that he was really one of the good guys. This meant that there were no major revelations here, but imagine how disappointed we would have all been if he had turned out to be a villain. What I would have liked was for Snape to have had a more dramatic death instead of the off hand way he is disposed of in ‘Hallows.’ After all, this is someone we have loved to hate since book one, so why shouldn’t he get a big send off? The Potter books simply wouldn’t be as good without Snape.
As for the epilogue, I didn’t feel too strongly about it. As this is a children’s book I thought it tied things up in a fairly straightforward way. It was good that it clearly seems to bring an end to the Harry Potter stories, although I would like to know more about what happened next to some of the other characters we don’t see highlighted in that epilogue. What happens to the rest of the Weasley clan? Who becomes headmaster of Hogwarts? And more importantly does Teddy really become a purple haired werewolf?
I think that the fact that I am left wanting more, in spite of some of the faults I have just mentioned, indicates that when all is said and done ‘The Deathly Hallows’ is a very enjoyable read.

Overall, I thought this book was great.

Deathly Hallows got off to a great start, with all of the excitement of the escape from the Dursleys' and a couple of deaths thrown in for good measure. Having read the first few chapters I was terrified that half of my favourite characters would be dead before the end (how could she kill poor Hedwig?).

After that the pace did slow a little, but if things had carried on at the same speed both they (Harry, Ron and Hermione) and we (the readers) would have collapsed with exhaustion before the end. It was also good that, despite the sense of impending doom, Bill and Fleur's wedding managed to go ahead as planned, providing some light entertainment.

I agree with Flapper that things did seem to grind to a bit of a halt after the trio were forced to go on the run in a tent. By the time they were caught they'd only managed to destroy one of the five remaining Horcruxes and we were more than halfway through the book. I was having serious doubts about whether they were going to manage to pull it off after all. But I disagree that these chapters were unnecessary. The fact that we as readers were frustrated at the lack of progress just emphasised the trio's frustration and isolation. Yes, it would have been nice to know what Neville and co were up to at Hogwarts but, apart from a handful of chapters, we've always seen things from Harry's perspective and changing that here would have seemed out of keeping with the rest of the series.

The final few chapters (excluding the epilogue) were fantastic and I had to keep reading to find out what happened next. The chapter where Harry went into the forest to meet his fate was particularly moving. It was almost a repeat of the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire, except this time I wasn't sure if Harry was going to survive. The following chapter was a bit of an anticlimax after that and I was a little confused as to what was actually happening. The fact that Dumbledore made a guest appearance to answer most of Harry’s questions seemed a little too convenient. However, it did set the scene nicely for the final confrontation which I thought was fantastic.

That brings me to the deaths which, I feel, deserve a mention. Although the book was littered with the deaths of minor characters that we’d met briefly at one time or another, I thought that the body count of popular minor characters was surprisingly low. I was convinced that Hagrid was never going to make it to the end of the book. The Hogwarts’ professors also escaped relatively unscathed. Most surprising was the fact that the Weasleys escaped so lightly. Only one casualty out of nine was pretty good going considering they were right in the thick of the battle. Of course she did kill poor Dobby which, as far as I was concerned, was the equivalent of at least three characters. That scene was very well-written and had me in tears, unlike the deaths of Fred, Lupin and Tonks which, as Toast said, were glossed over very quickly.

Finally, I feel obliged to mention the epilogue. This was a bit too happily ever after even for my taste. I found it surprising and a little out of keeping with the rest of the series. I fully expected the book to end where the main part did and would have been happy to have been left to imagine what happened next. Saying that, I understand why Rowling felt the need to draw a line under the whole series with a nice neat ending in the future and all loose ends tied up. It probably won’t stop a flood of sequels though.

So overall, a fantastic read that lived up to my expectations and kept me guessing until the end. A fitting conclusion to a great series of books.