Pötterdämmerung

[Matse]

[random offensive offtopic post]
There are even two Americans who did the moonwalk:
1. An honorable courageous man who risked his life for a dream.
2. A black, white, gay, hetero, pedophile, plastic surgery addicted freak who earned millions with what he could do worst.
[/random offensive offtopic post]

 

[Dark_Silence]

i finished the book this afternoon.... Some quite surprising things happen

sometimes i felt like no much was happening at the beginning, but in the end, a lot of action.

 

[La Rocque]

Thanks, plintus

Just saw an interview with JK Rowling , she said she is working on the next Harry Potter book sort of an encyclopedia of the HP saga? She wants to tie up some loose ends with a few of the HP characters.
And the beat goes on -

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

update: i've finished the book, and i think that in my personal rating of potter books it comes third (after half-blood prince and goblet of fire).

How can you put TH-BP 1st? I think that's the worst one. The Goblet of Fire is IMO teh best, perfect balance between action, relationships, sports and stuff .

I will write a review at Amazon.com and paste it here.

 

[rahvin]

SPOILERS


I'm finally done with the book myself. I didn't like it that much, but I'm a completist who would have probably loved 600 pages of explanations / tying of loose ends, so that's neither here nor there.

The first part of the book is way too disconnected and confusing, in my opinion. The school-year format suited Rowling's writing style much better: having the main characters jump around, seemingly at random, meeting other characters in a puzzling slideshow did not make for an exciting read.

The second half is much better, as it revisits a more familiar ground and does away with some cumbersome dynamics (such as the emo parts hyena was lamenting earlier). It's all still a little fabricated for my tastes (obligatory encounter with Draco-Crabbe-Goyle, obligatory cameos by all of Hogwarts' teachers...) but at least it's fun-packed and entertaining.

Most of the "shocking revelations" were figured out by fans at some point after book six, be it by cunning or luck, and I can't say something actually came out of left field to blow the reader away. The only things one couldn't fathom were probably the Hallows themselves and the many reasons behind Dumbledore's suicidal plan, but last-book additions are rarely very meaningful.

I'm satisfied with the body count: having Harry or one of his two sidekicks die would have been almost pathetic, as an attempt to surprise or move the readers. Instead, I couldn't care less about Tonks and Lupin, whom I always imagined as the goth chick in NCIS and a panting Saint Bernard, respectively. Snape had to die for dramatic reasons (as all tragic, seemingly-evil characters do), Fred's death was a pleasant way to streamline the Weasley family, and Dobby... well, as much as I love someone who shakes a finger at a powerful Death Eater saying "You must not hurt Harry Potter!", it's a difficult trick to pull off twice.

My favorite books in the series are GoF and OotP, followed by CoS, HBP, this one, and finally the snooze-fest PoA and the simplistic PS.

@hyena: I was trying to stay away from the Net until I was done with the book, so sorry if I didn't reply to mails you sent me. Not that I thought you would spoiler the book for me in one, of course, but I was concentrating on reading. Will get back to you later.

 

[Dark_Silence]

i should get all my HP books back from Belgium. Now I'd like to read them all in the order they were published.

 

[hyena]

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

I'm finally done with the book myself. I didn't like it that much, but I'm a completist who would have probably loved 600 pages of explanations / tying of loose ends, so that's neither here nor there.

you'll get these 600 pages JKR announced she's working on that exactly.

as for Snape, I was thinking of you - one thing is for the fandom, and explicitly some ships, to have called S/L ages ago, but you did too during dinner a year or so ago. well done!

anyway i'm horrified by Snape's horrible end.

i'll be waiting for your email then.

 

[QRV]

Finished it. Funny how by the last 200 pages or so I slowed down the pace. Guess I didn't really want it to end so soon.

Pros: Astounding psychological developement of the characters. Lupin's wish to evade his personal problems through revolutionary action; stress, dissention, impotence and anguish of the 3 main characters while on their almost impossible quest; the rage against a father figure that isn't there anymore; the sociopathic fragility of Voldemort... everything is simply brilliant. Also, the simbolism of the hallows is great, specially about the invisibility cloak and the story behind the wands. Can't complain on any of those matters.

Cons: Too many Hollywood-like action scenes worthy of any Western. The final epic battle of Hogwarts and the duel between Harry and Voldemort were much too predictable. Which isn't to say they weren't rather well-structured and highly entertaining, but still I'd have wished for something more creative. Also, the polarization ended polarized. Because of the complex link between Harry and Voldemort I had my hopes (albeit small ones) of an integration at the end, but the final result was as black and white as ever. Oh well, that was to be expected anyway.

But yeah, nice fucking book, all in all.


Edit: I knew that the whole animosity between Snape and James Potter was because of Lily. Just great. And did Neville get the sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat? I kind of missed that bit. How did it end up there, anyway?

 

[La Rocque]

J.K. Rowling at Work on Crime Novel
London(AP) (Aug. 19) - J.K. Rowling has been spotted at cafes in Scotland working on a detective novel, a British newspaper reported Saturday.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling's, as saying the creator of the "Harry Potter" books is turning to crime fiction.
"My wife spotted her writing her Edinburgh criminal detective novel," the newspaper, which was available late Saturday, quoted Rankin as telling a reporter at an Edinburgh literary festival.
"It is great that she has not abandoned writing or Edinburgh cafes," said Rankin, who is known for his own police novels set in the historic Scottish city.
Rowling famously wrote initial drafts of the Potter story in the Scottish city's cafes. Back then, she was a struggling single mother who wrote in cafes to save on the heating bill at home.
Now she's Britain's richest woman - worth $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine - and her seven Potter books have sold more than 335 million copies worldwide.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Rowling said she believed she was unlikely to repeat the success of the Potter series, but confirmed she had plans to work on new books
"I'll do exactly what I did with Harry - I'll write what I really want to write," Rowling said.

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

^ Awesome .

Hope she starts over and does not release more HP uke: crap uke: .

 

[Hiljainen]

i finally read it too
i didn't like it as much as the 6th book, but i'm still satisfied.
in case some people are still planning to read it:

SPOILERS





i was saddened by snape's end, though after a bit of re-reading of previous books i made my peace with the fact that he had to die in number 7. i would have liked to see his portrait though.
by the way, one thing that i don't get is the matter with the portraits: especially in this book we see that dead headmasters fully interact with living characters (see for example snape with dumbledore), so why would anyone be desperate after a death, and why doesn't anyone get a portrait?
i may be wrong but i seem to recall that portraits shouldn't be so..lifelike.

 

[La Rocque]

I never read Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows but from what I've read about this book
there really is a subtle undertone about post-9/11 politics in there as Rowling intended it to be.