One advantage to the recent travel was the opportunity to plow through the latest HP book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (And, given the number of other copies I saw on the plane, I wasn’t the only one to take advantage of that.)
I actually don’t have much to say about the book, to be honest. It was a good read — a lot less over-complicated and messy than the previous two tomes. Indeed, the narrative is surprisingly straightforward compared to much of what Rowling has produced since the first few HP books, as indicated by the lack of a need to have Dumbledore spend the whole last chapter explaining what was really going on. Which is ironic in a fashion that I won’t go into detail here.
To be sure, the book doesn’t stand alone well — someone unfamiliar with the background and clues and history of the various characters and places and movements in the past would lose a lot, and, on the other and, there’s definitely a a large dose of “this is the penultimate chapter, setting up stuff for the next, final volume.” That’s not a bad thing, though, and it made for a good narrative drive that I appreciated.
Something that plays a much more prominent role in “Year 6” is the role of romance. The various school kids (and even some side cast) spend much of the book, especially in the first half, dropping into and out of relationships, and counter-relationships, and revenge relationships, and resisted relationships, and just general snogging relationships. It’s a bit refreshing to have Harry & Co. worried about something other than Deep Pseudo-Latin Mystical Mysteries and What’s Voldemort Gonna Do Next. Refreshing and realistic. It made the characters a lot more human.
Even the supporting cast — the Weasleys, Draco Malfoy, Snape, Dumbledore, and the other staff — get some great on-screen time, beyond the stereotypes they’ve tended to become over time. Loyalties are tested, feigned, betrayed, and reinforced. And, yes, yet another major (even more major) cast member dies, in a fashion that works and sets up the Final Book.
Where this is all going, I have no idea. But after reading HPatHBP, I’m a lot more eager than I have been to find out.
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