You have to hand it to J.K. Rowling. How many people are able to write about an imaginary fantasy world and have in accepted not only by millions of children, but also their dollar, pound and lira providing adults? How terrific is this: people can bring up Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy or Quidditch in conversation and she knows that it was all made by her. Truly a very cool thing. Probably the only thing I will be long remembered for after I am recycled will be the time I threw up on David Kiernan on the school bus in fourth grade. Such is life. So she has me there.
However, after that glowing introduction, I must be frank and say that the fifth installment of the Harry Potter series simply is not worth your time and effort.
I can be notoriously critical of both movies and novels; Chris Benson can no doubt tell you about the three dozen or so movies he's loved that I came away shaking my head from. But I believe I am on firm ground here as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix rambles for 850 plus pages of schenanigans that just don't add up to all that much.
Exactly like the first four novels in the series, this book starts with Harry stuck at Privet Drive for another long summer. Somewhere in all this he is attacked by dementors, which was a nice beginning. Unfortunately the momentum created from this attack is lost as Harry wanders around the Ministery of Magic, Sirius Black's house and points inbetween for far too long. Then it's back to Hogwarts and about three hundred pages of very_slow_moving plot points. And that only gets you to the Christmas break.
In addition to the glacial pace, the characters are more one dimensional than would be expected, even in a novel somewhat geared for children. Malfoy is Malfoy, Hermoine is as whiny as ever, but to give credit Snape is shown in varying shades of gray which was pleasant. But far too often characters merely exist to, well, exist. Very often their actions do nothing to advance the plot. Was that a plot you said? A what?
Right-o. Plot. For some reason Voldemort is after a prophecy in the Ministery of Magic - for what reason I have no idea. Well, I have an idea, it's just not really important at all. See, if Voldemort gets a hold of this prophecy then he will know Harry Potter was the child who must be destroyed so that Voldemort can live. Christ, I thought it was that Neville Longbottom kid who was the key to the wizard universe. We needed a whole book for this?
It's been obvious from the earlier books that this whole series will come down to a Voldemort/Potter showdown in book seven. I'm cool with that. While we all know how that will end, the enjoyment of going along for the ride that was present in the first four books is almost completely missing in the fifth. But after four very well received books, should I really have even had my hopes up for this one? How many Potter books can be written that are new and fresh? How many of anything can be new and intriguing after four go arounds? So with that said, I am looking forward to the sixth installment to see if Rowling hires an editor (George Lucas too, you need one really something awful) and hacks through the pedantic, pedestrian jibberjabber.
