Having run a wee bit over on the time I allotted for writing up book 6, K has had time already to finish book 7. So it is just sitting here, waiting for me. And I have committed to write up my predictions before reading it. Argh! Something I had considered doing, but have seen already handled much more comprehensively at places like the Leaky Cauldron, is a list of all the open questions we hope to have answered in book 7. Instead, I will just focus on what we’ve been told will happen, along with some speculations of my own.

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A quick status update: Book 7 is out, and indeed was before I could finish the previous post. K’s copy arrived without fanfare, announced only by the heavy thump in the front mailbox, at 1:55pm CDT – right around the time I finished the crucial chapter “Horcruxes” in Half-Blood Prince. At 4pm, I finished re-reading book 6. And now I must wait for K. to finish the first reading of Deathly Hallows (for I cannot now imagine her stopping midway), which means I am partly tempted to drag out the process of analyzing book 6 and posting my predictions only before beginning book 7 for myself. So those of you who received your copies at midnight, or even by afternoon post, may be well along or finished before I begin. Ah well, we shall see how I manage.

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Before we return to the themes and clues scattered liberally throughout OOTP, a few brief administrative notices. First, KWMU’s Cityscape this morning covered “the Harry Potter phenomenon and activities surrounding the release of the final book” with an owner of Left Bank Books and a teacher. The show will repeat this evening, and it also available via mp3. Second, mentioned during the segment is a release street party for Deathly Hallows starting at 9pm along Euclid in the Central West End and running through at least 1am. Some of the events mentioned include a costume contest, trivia contest at the Coffee Cartel, and Herbology lessons put on by the Botanical Garden. Left Bank will put book 7 on sale starting at midnight. A list of other release parties at local bookstores and libraries is at STLToday. For my part, I will doubtless still be deep in book 6 by that time, working diligently to prepare both for the subsequent post on it and then my predictions while waiting for K’s pre-order to arrive.

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Like Dudley’s birthday, the fifth book seems compelled to bring us more than the last – more pages, more chapters, and more questions than ever before. Order of the Phoenix is so massive and complex that at times it can be difficult to decide just what it is ultimately about. Prior books have kept more or less to the subject emblazoned on their covers – the quest for the philosopher’s stone, for the Chamber of Secrets, for the prisoner of Azkaban, even (more obliquely) the Goblet of Fire in representing the Triwizard Tournament. But book 5 is not strictly about the Order of the Phoenix, although we certainly learn much about them. It is also not entirely about the trials at Hogwarts under the lash of Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge. The almost ubiquitous showdown with Voldemort is inconclusive (as it must be). Yet while the book cannot be easily summarized, it contains a wealth of important character development, revealing aspects of the wizarding world, and critical new clues about what we can expect from the final conflict.

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First, some HP news. (more…)

Another summer, another dreadful return to the privations of 4 Privet Drive. (more…)

A few months after the end of Philosopher’s Stone, we again find ourselves at 4 Privet Drive dreading another birthday with the Dursleys. Indeed, the overall structure of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets shows great similarities with its predecessor – both books begin and end in the same place, both build up to an ultimate confrontation between Harry and his nemesis Voldemort. Along with this primary arc of good vs evil in conflict with its (at this stage) predictable conclusion, we explore at least two other aspects of Harry’s world that reflect on our own.

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I don’t really intend on doing any kind of full review of these as I go, just highlight the structure, themes, and notable quotations or clues in each to see if they point to the answers to come in book 7. Plus I want to keep moving on to the next book vs getting caught in dissecting the last.

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Having now seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix twice (first with K. and yesterday with KA), I wanted to record some impressions before turning attention fully to the books. Foremost of these was that seeing the movie, each time, really did reinvigorate me for reading the books. This stands in stark contrast with the aftereffects of Goblet of Fire, which had been my favorite of the books and thus made me the most anxious as to how it would fare as a film. Not to dwell too long on its shortcomings, sufficed to say that I could only console myself at how much worse it could have been, and felt the movies’ appeal had returned overall to a pale shadow of the books since the higher regard they had achieved after Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban raised the bar. The difference, then, is that while still no substitute for the books – and more clearly viewed as meant not to be such – the OOTP movie reminded me of what was great about the book while trimming away much of what would not have translated well to screen.

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Today marks the beginning of the last week before the end of Harry Potter – as a series if not as a living character. In preparation I will of course have to re-read the preceding six books before Saturday’s release of Deathy Hallows, a practice previously reserved for getting through the Dune series (Heretics of Dune took several running starts to get through, with almost the entire population of familiar characters absent). I thought I would record my impressions of them as I do, and then make a final set of predictions before undertaking book 7 itself (as soon as K. finishes with her copy, of course).

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