Tuesday 31 July 2007

Harry Potter

Finished in 3 1/2 hours over two sittings (one small waiting for the train on Friday, and one long session whilst hennaing my hair on Sunday). I shall give you my thoughts in the comments section of this post, as I don't want to accidentally spoil for anybody who might be passing through...

8 comments:

Jo said...

Interesting ending - not as many people died as I was expecting (I was anticipating that the pages would run with blood, and there were certainly many points in which she could have made it far worse than it actually was). In the end, really only two characters died that I actually cared about (and given that one of them was an owl, that is saying something!) I don't know if that was because I've had however long since the last book to forget who some of the more minor characters were, or if because they were slightly two dimensional, and therefore not real in my head.

However, the book did scream "needlessly messianic imagery" at me pretty much from the beginning. And we aren't talking the "Greater love hath no man..." that has been running through the whole series. There was the whole "coming back from the dead", the definite Judas/Snape comparisons (particularly the necessity of what Snape was doing, even though he knew that it wouldn't just lose him his life and his friends, but also his reputation - everybody *had* to believe that he was bad, which meant that there was a huge likelihood that there wouldn't be a single good word for him when he died). Plus the "wandering in the desert" (well, the Forest of Dean, really) etc, etc, etc. I could probably go through chapter by chapter, but I am sure that more scholarly people than I are already starting their PhDs...

Jo said...

But, overall, I did enjoy it (I wouldn't have got through it so quickly if I didn't). It was a fun book with some lovely moments of humour, and genuine excitement.

Strabec said...

Well, you've read my views on the subject, and I still say Snape had the best line...I really hope they keep it in the film. Knowing my luck they will probably cut it out. GRRRR.

19 years later was just a load of cheese really though wasn't it? I mean Albus Severus, poor kid. You can bet the older brother is called James Sirius.

Jo said...

You can't be Sirius... ;-)

19 yrs later is very cheesy (but I think has been put in to show - look they all get married and live happily ever after....)

Anonymous said...

I thought it was better than six and I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Took me three hours 20 :)

Jo said...

{grin} Speed Readers unite! :-)

uphilldowndale said...

On the beach every other towel had a kid on it reading HP, one of the kids (age 6!) read the last six pages and then went round threatening to tell them all the ending.

Jo said...

Now that is mean! Though not as mean as this lady (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/6925622.stm)
(sorry about the long link!)

I had to be really careful yesterday - one of my colleagues has just finished 1/2 blood prince, and is about 100 pages into the last one - he was talking about the death of Hedwig and Mad Moody, and I *nearly* mentioned Snape....
I had to spend thr rest of the conversation with my hand over my mouth - I really didn't want to spoil it for him!