Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The second Harry Potter book builds nicely from the first. While Book 1 was the standard “introduction to the world,” Book 2 is all about fame — good and bad. You have Gilderoy Lockhart (who I still see played by Kenneth Branagh) playing the publicity-seeking and famous celebrity. At the same time, Harry’s star is on the rise, and he gets to deal with the discomfort of fanboys (Colin Creevey) as well as what happens when fame turns to infamy (when he’s thought to be the one responsible for the attacks in the school). This roller coaster will continue through much of the book series.
The book also touches heavily on racism. The degrading servitude of Dobby the House Elf (yes, world’s most annoying character after Jar-Jar Binks) and his race is an obvious case, but more signficant are the divisions within the humans — pure-blood wizards, half-bloods, and those who come solely from Muggle families (“mud-bloods”). We learn that what drove one of the founders of the school, Salazar Slytherin, to break from the school was his insistence on just pure-blooded Wizards being admitted — a policy held in the present by folks like the Malfoys (and ironic, given Tom Riddle’s half-blood birth). Mudbloods and “squibs” (those of wizard families who don’t have magic) are the victims of the Chamber of Secrets. And worse-treated are the Muggles themselves — laws to protect them from magical attack are controversial, and even characters who genuinely like them or are fascinated by them still see them as quaint, sounding like Brits marveling at how cunning and clever the wogs are. Again, all themes that Rowling will come back to later.
The book itself is well-structured, a decent mystery, advancing the story even as the wizarding world is slowly built out for the reader. It lacks the expositional excess and narrative digressions that the later books hold, but also the darker, more sophisticated storylines, and remains quite suitable for kids. It’s a high point of the story and of Harry’s childhood before things start turning for the worse in the following installments.