Outside of a Dog: Rowling, J.K.: (06) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (re-read)

Konrad Gaertner

Konrad Gaertner wrote on July 16, 2007 at 7:50 PM:

Harry Potter and the Cliched Beginning
Harry Potter and the Missing Memories
Harry Potter and the Good Plot?

Mike Kozlowski

Mike Kozlowski wrote on July 16, 2007 at 8:02 PM:

Well, I think it's obvious that the power of love is indeed the overriding theme. Consider that Harry Potter:

1. Don't need money, thanks to his massive inheritance.

2. Don't need fame, and indeed finds it notably unpleasant.

3. Don't need no credit card to ride that train, since the Hogwarts Express is free.

It might just save his life!

Kate

Kate wrote on July 16, 2007 at 8:35 PM:

Konrad: none of those are quite doing it for me, though it may be because the first is giving me Lemony Snicket flashbacks. Perhaps other people will think differently.

Mike: I hate you.

Sue

Sue wrote on July 17, 2007 at 7:03 AM:

The thing that really annoyed me about that interminable series of Pensieve scenes was that almost NONE of it was necessary for the book. It could have been cut back to the single one with Slughorn's fake memory (though even that would have been better done otherwise IMHO). We already knew Voldie killed his father and his grandparents, after all.

I wish I could get Tolkien to give JKR some lessons in resisting the allure of the backstory.

Kate

Kate wrote on July 17, 2007 at 7:23 AM:

Sue: and thus, we get through the school year.

Though I'm not sure that straight expository conversations would have been much better, really.

Leigh

Leigh wrote on July 19, 2007 at 9:08 AM:

You know, I have to admit I am surprised at how critical all of you are of her book length. Honestly, I think that was one of the best parts of the series. It's really rare to find an author willing to go into the detail she does, and I think that's part of why her books are so wildly popular when all the other fantasy novels that you have mentioned are, frankly, obscure on that same popularity scale. People LIKE reading the little details about schooling at Hogwarts, and the friendships and the houses and the boarding school life. Sure, she could make the plot tighter by skipping things and by leaving out those details, but I don't think that would improve anything about it. When an author can weave details, even ones that seem pointless at first, seamlessly into the integral plots of later books, that's skill. And I think that's what makes Harry Potter such a literary phenom

Kate

Kate wrote on July 19, 2007 at 9:28 AM:

Leigh: welcome, and sorry your initial comments got caught in the spam filter. (An IP lookup service thought your IP was a spam haven. I'm tweaking those settings.)

As for Harry Potter--I like the little details, and indeed I think it's one of Rowling's strengths, both because they're often fun by themselves and they turn out to be important later. But for the fun-by-themselves details, I prefer them to be accessorizing (as it were) a plot that isn't dragged out for stupid reasons.

Some authors can pull off lots of detail, and some can't; some popular authors have lots of detail, and others don't. It's all a matter of what a particular author does well.

Pam

Pam wrote on July 19, 2007 at 4:05 PM:

I agree with Leigh (#6) regarding the level of detail in the books. I also think that the increasing level of complexity of the latter books compared to the earlier ones nicely reflects the increasing complexity of one's world view as one grows up.

Also, Mike's comment (#2) is totally killing me.

David Tate

David Tate wrote on July 19, 2007 at 5:17 PM:

I'll put on my grumpy old man hat and observe that mere length does not imply either pleasing detail nor pleasing complexity. Sometimes, it's just length -- pointless padding, muddled confusion, or pseudo-complexity that could be resolved by any two of the characters communicating normally for 5 minutes. That kind of length just annoys me.

As for the popularity of the books, well, I note that they became wildly beloved on the basis of the first 2 or 3 books, which are all short. The first book is short by any measure; the next 2 are much shorter than the subsequent books. I personally didn't find that the length of the later books added anything to my enjoyment, and in some cases (I'm looking at you, Order of the Phoenix it detracted considerably.