Thursday, November 18, 2010

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

In a lifetime of reading many different types of books, I'm not sure that I have ever enjoyed any reading experience as much as I enjoyed the Harry Potter books. Harry Potter has been around for just over a decade now, and I think it's easy to take for granted just how successful the books were and what a huge deal they were at the time of publication. But I was there -- I stood in line at midnight to get each of the last four books the day they were issued -- and I've never seen anything like it. To get even close to the Harry Potter craze you would have to go outside the world of books altogether -- it would have to be something like the Springsteen "Born in the USA" tour or the hype surrounding the Michael Jackson "Thriller" album.

I spent much of the last few months listening to volumes three through seven of the Harry Potter series, and I have to say that they were great. When you consider that J.K. Rowling had to write the last four books in the series in the midst of a blizzard of publicity and expectation unlike anything faced by a recent author, her accomplishment is quite extraordinary. Her imagination never flags, her grip on her characters never falters, her voice never gets off-key, her tone never gets too adult or too juvenile -- all in all, it is an amazing accomplishment.

Most importantly, from my perspective, she actually ends the series -- ends it not in an ambiguous, Sopranos-style ending, but with an honest-to-God, final battle, good versus evil and here's what happens to everyone after the adventures conclude ending. This is quite rare these days. TV shows usually don't end in any sort of satisfactory manner -- they just sort of peter out. Movies are followed with one sequel after another until the power of the original edition is lost. Bookstore shelves sag under series that just go on and on without a satisfactory conclusion. But J.K. Rowling actually wrote an ending, and I give her credit for that.

I give her more credit for the type of ending she wrote. She didn't end the story in some sort of vague manner, or fill her final pages with doubts and controversy. The bad guys are defeated, the good guys get happily married, and life goes back to normal. In the modern world, it is very tempting to reject the notion that there are "good" guys and "bad" guys, or that "normal" life is worth defending. J.K. Rowling must have known that every literary critic in the world would roll their eyes at such a traditional ending. But she was apparently more satisfying in pleasing her fans than the critics, and I give her credit for that.

Even more importantly, by having such a traditional ending, she tied her story into the Great Story -- the Story behind all stories, in which a Hero goes into the world and defeats the forces of evil -- not for His own glory, or His own desires, but so mankind can enjoy a salvation that would not otherwise be possible. And my soul resonates to that Story like a tuning fork when you finally play the right note.

Highly recommended.

3 comments:

  1. It is brilliant. I can honestly say too that even though it has a happy ending, it feels like a very real ending. Not just because good people die, but also because we see how easily good people can become corrupted.

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  2. I've never read any of these books, but I will say that I do think things are most often great (and maybe only great) when they are Thing According to the Gospel. There are a lot of things written out there titled, "The Gospel According to Thing." Some of them are really interesting. i think The Gospel According to Peanuts, which may or may have been the first of these to play on that wording, is fantastic. I wouldn't begin to say that The Gospel According to Thing isn't worthy of study, but I would say that what really matters is the moments when Thing is Thing According to the Gospel. If Thing has enough of those moments, it probably can't help being great. I can only imagine this must be the case with the Harry Potter series.

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  3. I agree with you, Eric. There is a reason why so many stories turn on the notion of a lone hero who overcomes impossible odds to conquer evil and death. It is a Story that we are hard-wired to like.

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