JKR... please, no romance
This is a revised version of the initial review I had posted. This was because I had commited the oft commited mistake of being hasty, i.e. written it without completely 'digesting' the book (I wrote the original review 190 min after getting the book by post... what this means is that I read the book in 190 min... pretty good, eh?).
Treebeard is right... we men folk are too hasty.
Compared to the Order of the Phoenix, it is excellent (Order of the Phoenix was a very obvious book, no suspense in the end).
The great parts of the book are as follows:
1) The series finale (book 7) has been brilliantly set up.
2) The title. It is a great title, and does perfect justice to the book.
3) The final chapter is an extremely well written piece. It is continuous, almost musical (sad sort, of course), esp. the part when Harry suddenly starts finding things funny, till the true depth of his loss hits him. It is perfectly written, for very rarely do you accept a loss immidiately, a perfect psychological analysis.
4) The one-liners... ah, right from
"There is no need to call me sir, professor" (Harry to Snape)
to
"Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies" (Voldemort to Dumbledore),
to perhaps the best of them all
"I am not worried Harry, I am with you" (Dumbledore to Harry)
5) The dialogues between Voldemort and Dumbledore... they are extremely powerful...
6) The elements of humor, mainly Luna's commentry.
However, there are certain deficiencies (is it too strong a word?)
1) There are too many things stuffed into the book, with justice being done not to all of them (this is good in principle, for the story is thus fast paced. But this fast pace should not be at the expense of detail, which it sadly is). The whole thing does not seem to build up to the climax, like Goblet of Fire does.
2) Romance... ah, JKR, since when have u got influenced by Hindi movies? (esp between Lupin and Tonks in the end... what on earth is going on? Not that I have anything against Lupin and Tonks being together, but surely, not at that juncture.)
3) Where is the major battle at the end? (ie Harry versus Lord Voldemort)
The creation of the concept of Horcruxes deserves praise. JKR has managed to package an already over-used concept to make it almost new. (Just for the record, there was a book written nearly half a century ago, that had a pretty similar concept, just one horcrux instead of 6. The mechanism of creation of the horcrux was different, but the rest is the same. Just like this time, the dark lord had been bested once before, but still lived because of this horcrux. So, the book was about the destruction of this horcrux. It was a pretty nifty book, with also a bunch of movies made about it. There were, in fact, three movies, which were all well appreciated by the general public.)
Anyway, the book starts well. Chapter 2, has to be the most stunning chapter after the one about Voldemort's rerising in Goblet of Fire. Then starts the monotony. Too many things happen which are interesting but not continuous. And Harry and the rest are teenagers, who are discovering that they too can fall in love, an immaterial issue dealt pathetically. Yes, this is a very strong word, but the reason I use this is because the emotions are not properly developed.
Character development is not good. The new Minister is superfluous, and the new teacher is written about well, but still it is difficult to associate with him. Many of the older characters are missing, especially Moody. Even the professors are only mentioned in the passing.
The book is full of great pieces, but the complete book does not seem united. It is almost like the Indian cricket team, great individual players, but not good at working together as a team.
But still, I make these criticisms only because I feel strongly for the Harry Potter series. The Half Blood Prince is certainly among the better books of the series (to me, it is at par with the Goblet of Fire. What the Goblet of Fire made up in terms of continuity and a shocking ending, the Half Blood Prince makes up in terms of plot, questions answered and emotions). But certain aspects could have been better. Certainly
8/10
Treebeard is right... we men folk are too hasty.
Compared to the Order of the Phoenix, it is excellent (Order of the Phoenix was a very obvious book, no suspense in the end).
The great parts of the book are as follows:
1) The series finale (book 7) has been brilliantly set up.
2) The title. It is a great title, and does perfect justice to the book.
3) The final chapter is an extremely well written piece. It is continuous, almost musical (sad sort, of course), esp. the part when Harry suddenly starts finding things funny, till the true depth of his loss hits him. It is perfectly written, for very rarely do you accept a loss immidiately, a perfect psychological analysis.
4) The one-liners... ah, right from
"There is no need to call me sir, professor" (Harry to Snape)
to
"Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies" (Voldemort to Dumbledore),
to perhaps the best of them all
"I am not worried Harry, I am with you" (Dumbledore to Harry)
5) The dialogues between Voldemort and Dumbledore... they are extremely powerful...
6) The elements of humor, mainly Luna's commentry.
However, there are certain deficiencies (is it too strong a word?)
1) There are too many things stuffed into the book, with justice being done not to all of them (this is good in principle, for the story is thus fast paced. But this fast pace should not be at the expense of detail, which it sadly is). The whole thing does not seem to build up to the climax, like Goblet of Fire does.
2) Romance... ah, JKR, since when have u got influenced by Hindi movies? (esp between Lupin and Tonks in the end... what on earth is going on? Not that I have anything against Lupin and Tonks being together, but surely, not at that juncture.)
3) Where is the major battle at the end? (ie Harry versus Lord Voldemort)
The creation of the concept of Horcruxes deserves praise. JKR has managed to package an already over-used concept to make it almost new. (Just for the record, there was a book written nearly half a century ago, that had a pretty similar concept, just one horcrux instead of 6. The mechanism of creation of the horcrux was different, but the rest is the same. Just like this time, the dark lord had been bested once before, but still lived because of this horcrux. So, the book was about the destruction of this horcrux. It was a pretty nifty book, with also a bunch of movies made about it. There were, in fact, three movies, which were all well appreciated by the general public.)
Anyway, the book starts well. Chapter 2, has to be the most stunning chapter after the one about Voldemort's rerising in Goblet of Fire. Then starts the monotony. Too many things happen which are interesting but not continuous. And Harry and the rest are teenagers, who are discovering that they too can fall in love, an immaterial issue dealt pathetically. Yes, this is a very strong word, but the reason I use this is because the emotions are not properly developed.
Character development is not good. The new Minister is superfluous, and the new teacher is written about well, but still it is difficult to associate with him. Many of the older characters are missing, especially Moody. Even the professors are only mentioned in the passing.
The book is full of great pieces, but the complete book does not seem united. It is almost like the Indian cricket team, great individual players, but not good at working together as a team.
But still, I make these criticisms only because I feel strongly for the Harry Potter series. The Half Blood Prince is certainly among the better books of the series (to me, it is at par with the Goblet of Fire. What the Goblet of Fire made up in terms of continuity and a shocking ending, the Half Blood Prince makes up in terms of plot, questions answered and emotions). But certain aspects could have been better. Certainly
8/10
posted by Raghav at 5:42 PM
1 Comments:
great review raghav .. just one more point i had to mention .. maybe im biased ... but whyyyyyyyyyy why why why kill dumbledore that way ? he was one of teh greatest wizards alive!! the only one Voldemort was scared of! Just making him drink a potion and killing him of by SNAPE of all the people is just pure waste !!
( can u hear the sobs !!)
Rachna
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