Volume 8, Issue 8 – August, 2005

J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Scholastic (Hardcover), ISBN 0439784549

As the mammoth publicity engine surrounding J.K. Rowling winds down for another few years, I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. For avid bookworms, nothing could be worse than having the mystique and excitement stripped away from the penultimate installment by avid, hysterical fans of the entire franchise (complete with lunchboxes and action figures). Not to mention hordes of unattractively cynical talking-heads-cum-journalists analyzing the “Harry Potter phenomenon,” “Kidult” crossover books, and the impact on our reading habits and those of our children to death.

I promised myself that I would avoid any and all interviews, advertisements and publicity stunts, in order to open this review without mentioning them. Instead, I considered using this as a platform to launch a withering attack on all of it, and on the sneering, whey-faced individuals who feel we should be ashamed of enjoying children’s books in the same way as any other, but lacking the space in this review, I’ll restrain myself.

For the uninitiated, then, let’s get right to the point. Is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince any good? The answer proves to be a measured yes.

Continuing where The Order of the Phoenix left off — after a not-quite satisfying explanation of his past and encroaching destiny — Harry waits at Privet Drive to be escorted to his beloved Hogwarts by no less a personage than venerated anti-Voldemort figurehead Albus Dumbledore.

Thus, the struggle against Lord Voldemort begins in earnest. Fittingly, after an intriguing, if gentle beginning, mysteries, shocks and murders come thick and fast. Characters show their true colors at last. The situations reveal villains’ true motivations. Even the slithering, snobbish Draco Malfoy deepens into a slightly richer arch-rival. The sweet, kid-friendly humor and observation dissipates as the novel progresses and Rowling allows her creations occasional lapses out of the jolly, if modernized, Enid-Blyton boarding school stuff into grittier, racier language.

In short, Harry comes of age, but not enough to greatly disconcert any anxious parents who continue to underestimate their child’s ability to cope with a variety of traumas and upheavals. As in the previous novel, Harry finds himself shouldering massive burdens, exams and careers meetings jostle for importance with terrible grief and responsibility. Meanwhile, Rowling relegates Ron and Hermione to sidekick and conscience, respectively. All three characters’ lives, not to mention love lives, suddenly become teeming and complex. Comic characters such as the Dursleys fade into the background. New peripheral characters, acidly sketched, take the stage — a change most succinctly epitomized by a Ministry of Magic shake-up and Cornelius Fudge’s leaner, meaner and considerably more media-savvy replacement.

Muggle government fares little better. Speculation already surrounds the dithering PM who opens the novel, and just might be a thinly veiled portrait of a certain Mr. Blair?

That and a brewing Potter backlash aside, various relationships set up by the last five books reach their natural culmination. In the midst of all this complication, Harry finally finds a sense of purpose and leaves the adolescent stropping behind to become a compelling hero in his own right.