the ramble dump

And so, like many other things this year, the Harry Potter series has come to an end. I finished Book 7 last night. In many ways, it is my favourite.

As you may have noticed, a lot of hype surrounds the Harry Potter franchise. I got into the series when I was nine or ten or thereabouts, when two, possibly three, of the books were out. It's hard to place where exactly Harry Potter became a phenomenon. It just sort of...happened. The hype has worked in an odd sort of way for me, putting me off slightly as the franchise began to reach public saturation point, but at the same time I wonder if, after all this time, I would have followed the series to the end of it wasn't so culturally prominent.

Elsewhere, hype's had the effect it always has. Something good has been blown out of all reasonable proportion by fans, publishers, journalists and critics alike, reaching fever pitch as Warner Bros get their sticky fingers into it. Insensible amounts of both merchandise and fanfic have been produced. The backlash follows, the slightly peevish detractors hastening to point out that Potter isn't really deserving of quite so much hysteria, but that's the way hype works. Critical scrutiny intensifies, a few start to pull apart and denounce the the books; the screaming mass of young fans reacts, accusing all who dare to utter a word against J.K. Holy as bitter or jealous or both. And so on and so forth.

They are, say I, good books. They're no works of art, and their main virtue is being so very readable, but while some critics have diminished it to being simply 'useful' or 'saleable' prose, I think that unduly discredits the fact that J.K. Rowling can spin a very good story. She strikes a happy medium between descriptive and natural prose with the result of a style that is charming enough to keep us hooked, just like the world she writes about. It might not have the same quaint, stilted and respectfully 'literary' charm as an author like Enid Blyton, but as a coming-of-age story, the more natural approach is probably more meaningful to the modern, non-gingerbeer drinking reader.

Rowling's appeal comes not from her magical world as such, which is only as original as any other magical world, but the fact that she makes it into such a parallel of our own, with the principles behind even the most fantastical elements or the darkest magic grounded firmly in this world (love, greed, power, death etc: problems, experiences and temptations we all have to deal with). Then there's the chocolate frogs with collectible cards, Quidditch, Apparition tests, and a dozen other direct parallels, which, while not especially imaginative, are interesting enough takes on the norm and make the wizards more like real people, and the students like real students. There are times when the similarity to our own world becomes almost bleak and depressing, as with the bureaucratic Ministry of Magic; and it's the older, dustier Hogwartian magic that really holds the interest of the reader and the characters, because that's where the adventures, dangers, twists and turns occur. And all the while, Harry suffers real, teenaged problems too. Which are, truthfully, the less interesting bits for me, but their inclusion is understandable and Rowling usually manages to strike a good balance (although it very nearly tips in Book 5).

One of the best things about the books is Rowling's ability to create warm and fuzzy moments when portraying friends and family, especially with little things like Mrs Weasley and her Christmas jumpers. In a way, these boardingschoolish portrayals do sometimes feel like they're harking back to some cosy, bygone time, but it doesn't make them feel any less genuine. One thing my sister pointed out was how the writing style has changed over the course of the series: in the earlier books, Rowling hadn't quite managed to shake off the tone of traditional children's literature, and some of the dialogue was very Blytonesque, but this helped to add to the charm, novelty and wonder experienced by the characters at that age. As the kids got older, this would probably have started to feel a bit inappropriate, and the writing has accordingly become increasingly natural, increasingly dark and, at times, increasingly soapy.

Sometimes the dark, danger or peril does seem a bit forced, as with the lake of dead people at the end of Book 6 (which distractedly reminded me of a similar scene in The Two Towers anyway), or the death count of significant characters in the final battle for Hogwarts in Book 7, but for the most part Rowling deals with these things with a little more narrative subtlety (despite the extremely irritating 'Someone dies in this book!' promotion that's been used). Rowling also writes some fantastically animated action scenes, one of my favourites being the chaotic Quidditch World Cup match in Book 4, and Book 7 provided a series of brilliantly action-packed excursions to various places. Again, though, that final Hogwarts battle may have benefited from a little more restraint, but having what seemed like every single surviving character returning into the fray was just as awesome as it was ridiculous.

Another strong point in the series has been the complex plotting and character development through revelations and backstory, which returned spectacularly in Book 7 after a rather linear Book 6. Just like having everyone returning for that last battle, it was a nice touch having obscurely mentioned characters like Grindelwald, Bathilda Bagshot and the Grey Lady suddenly playing significant roles, but again there was the feeling that it was very nearly approaching the line between being neat and being overly convenient. Tie too many things directly into each other and the world starts shrinking.

I think the epilogue is best not mentioned, but other than that, Deathly Hallows was an excellent end to a series that I've now been following for years. And whatever I might feel about the films and the rest of the franchise, Harry Potter is definitely a lot more deserving of its attention than certain other recent literary phenomena.

Labels: harry potter, i am the ramblemaster, literature, rabbit-hole theory, tolkien

# posted by Chris @ 2:39 PM