The Deathly Hallows

So I spent this weekend wandering the countryside of greater Britain with three 17-year-olds, apparating and disapparating with them as we tried to avoid the Death Eaters of Lord Voldemort.

Yes, I read the seventh and last Harry Potter book. In one day. My verdict? Excellent, if a bit forced. The remarkable turns of phrase are present, as always; this woman knows how to write! The book begins at a good pace, someone dies almost right away and then fast, fast action wherein more die.

The book feels like it was written to be a movie and I wonder if that's the direction Rowling unconsciously took without realizing it, it surely must have played a part. The next few chapters slows everything way down; although punctuated by some quick scenes of action, it's mostly quiet as we get to understand how the characters deal with uncertainty and doubt. Things speed up considerably afterwards and there's a grand battle near the end, the one we all knew was in the offing.

Filled with unmistakably Christian religious iconography and metaphor, the book finds Harry victorious (as we knew he would, right?) at the end and we're also much wiser in re the seven-year build up of mysteries: we now understand a lot more about what happened and why The Boy Who Lived lived. Spellbinding. I'm going to miss reading about Harry.

The one thing that ticks me off (SPOILER--don't read this if you don't want to spoil your own reading): she killed off Fred. Why get rid of Fred when there's perfectly good old George? Bah, humbug.

The interesting thing, at least for me, is that I'd downloaded a fake 'Deathly Hallows' PDF. It seemed quite interesting--it had correctly guessed a lot of things that were ultimately in the real book--until I ran into a bump in the road: with talk of  shagging and Harry's body "responding" to Ginny who'd worn a push-up bra at a wedding, I stopped reading that slop immediately right then. Serves me right.