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oh, very well
Figuring that somebody will spill the beans on the surprises sooner or later, I went to the bookstore yesterday and read the last 150 pages of Harry Potter VI.
It took about half an hour. Big type. Lots of white space. Lots of skimmable sludge.
I remember actually enjoying the first book in this series, but there's not a power in the 'verse could get me to go back and read the first 500 slabs of this tome.
I opened the tome in the middle of a long conversation between Harry and Dumbledore. They're trying to figure out what Voldemort is trying to do. It's not a patch on conversations in which Frodo and Gandalf are trying to figure out Sauron. It's difficult to keep reading the page when one's eyes are rolling over picayune back-reference distinctions between what Voldemort did two years ago, what he did four years ago, and what he did five years ago. I've never been able to remember which things happened in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Secrets and which happened in Harry Potter and the Fire of Ashbacan.
Throughout the new book, Harry lectures down at his professors and other superiors like an arrogant little sh*t.
I found out who the Half-Blood Prince is. I did not find out why it matters.
I found out who got killed. It was exactly the person I had expected. What I did not expect was the identity of the murderer. By using that person, Rowling has thereby undercut what I'd considered one of the most charming aspects of her series all the way back to book one. The remaining characters spend the closing chapters wondering why the victim had been foolish enough to trust the murderer. Good question.
It took about half an hour. Big type. Lots of white space. Lots of skimmable sludge.
I remember actually enjoying the first book in this series, but there's not a power in the 'verse could get me to go back and read the first 500 slabs of this tome.
I opened the tome in the middle of a long conversation between Harry and Dumbledore. They're trying to figure out what Voldemort is trying to do. It's not a patch on conversations in which Frodo and Gandalf are trying to figure out Sauron. It's difficult to keep reading the page when one's eyes are rolling over picayune back-reference distinctions between what Voldemort did two years ago, what he did four years ago, and what he did five years ago. I've never been able to remember which things happened in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Secrets and which happened in Harry Potter and the Fire of Ashbacan.
Throughout the new book, Harry lectures down at his professors and other superiors like an arrogant little sh*t.
I found out who the Half-Blood Prince is. I did not find out why it matters.
I found out who got killed. It was exactly the person I had expected. What I did not expect was the identity of the murderer. By using that person, Rowling has thereby undercut what I'd considered one of the most charming aspects of her series all the way back to book one. The remaining characters spend the closing chapters wondering why the victim had been foolish enough to trust the murderer. Good question.
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It's all fairly obvious, to make it more bearable for the kid reader--I suspect if you'd trod through the previous 500 pages, you'd see where it all was going.
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(Which was not obvious in the early books...my wonderment is, is the author re-shaping the character to fit the splendid actor who plays his cinematic self?)
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Rowling is a bad enough writer that I can well believe it will turn out in book 7 that Harry totally misinterpreted the murderer's scowl of revulsion and hatred just before the event.
I wouldn't buy it, and I don't buy the connection between the murder and the poison either. That was some time earlier; he had ceased being in quite such a state of extremis.
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