Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix fails to take flight
Written: Jun 22 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Ginny's development and the fact that the book is finally out
Cons: Too dark, too long, and a dreadfully turgid pacing
The Bottom Line: The series is still fantastic, but this book was a chore to work through. Harry has never been more unlikeable.
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| Redlass's Full Review: J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the ... |
Harry Potter lay outside on a hot summer day, waiting impatiently for important news. It was a scene many of his readers could sympathize with as they waited eagerly on the June date that marked the official release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, Harry didn't hear that all-important news he was waiting for. Equally unfortunate, is that book number five in this incredible series was the most disappointing installment J.K. Rowling has produced.
The Order of the Phoenix is a book of teenage angst, with some real peril and despicable characters thrown in just to give a reason for the 900-page tome. The book almost makes one wonder whether J.K. Rowling has achieved such a celebrity status that her editors are afraid to edit her or to make suggestions. I found myself all-too-frequently skimming over paragraphs that were filled with information that neither developed the characters, advanced the plot, or entertained with their originality or cleverness.
And it pains me to write this as I am a huge fan of the series and eagerly anticipated this book. After the exciting end of Goblet of Fire, this book should have begun with a bang and advanced quickly. Instead, we got to experience frustration with Harry as we got dark hints about lots of things happening, but rarely got to see them on stage.
The book is not a total loss. Indeed, it is important that anyone who follows the series read this book--as much as getting through the book is a task of drudgery at times. We do learn more about Harry and we do see that things are starting to head toward a major pitched battle.
There is even some decent character development, especially outside the main characters. Ginny really begins to shine in this book and becomes someone that we get to know--not just a paper doll character used to advance plot lines. She really is delightful as she begins to come into her own. We also see the strengthening of Neville Longbottom and the fleshing out of many of the adult characters.
Order of the Phoenix also has a certain amount of excitement and suspense, though it comes late in the book and lacks the pacing that made the first four books in the series so exciting. Rowling is good at creating suspense, she just waters it down too much in this installment.
Rowling also does her usual stellar job at creating villains we love to hate--especially villains who are not truly evil, just misguided. The new Dark Arts teacher, who is soon appointed Grand Inquisitor in some deliciously on-target satire about educational systems and theory, is despicable and makes your skin crawl. You want to slap her and set her lace doilies on fire. In fact, she is so well done and the satire is so compelling, that I'm willing to forgive the fact that her motivation is either weak, heavy with logical fallacies, or she is more than appears at the end of the book.
Unfortunately, in a series filled with books that are easy to rave about, the positive points I've just mentioned are insufficient to make this book stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its comrades. After I'd read the first 300 pages, I turned to my husband and said that the misery in the book was almost unrelenting. There was none of the sparkle that Rowling usually has nor did the darkness seem as compelling as her dark scenes usually are. I grew impatient with Potter and found that there were times it was hard to be sympathetic with him.
I also grew impatient with the continued attempts at making Snape a semi-villain. The justification for the continued emnity between Snape and Potter grows more flimsy with each book. Snape is portrayed as intelligent, yet treats Harry as if he were James Potter. Harry is supposed to have heart, but cannot acknowledge the wrongs done to Snape. Also, while Rowling could sufficiently fool us in the first few books about Snape's loyalty, it is now time to move past that. Rehashing the same doubts is ineffective.
I also found myself suspecting that Rowling was using advance publicity about the books to create some of the suspense rather than creating it within the pages of the novel itself. There have been stories about how Rowling was in tears and claiming that writers had to be ruthless killers, so many of us reading the book were watching closely to see when this death would occur and trying to guess which of the three it would be. I didn't doubt Rowling's ability to make me cry--she certainly did that to me in Book 4. This book, though, left me with dry eyes and impatience. In the pitched battle at the end, you are expecting deaths not because the writing was compelling and making you fearful, but because you had read the news reports. So we can thank Time magazine for the suspense rather than Rowling.
The book is still worth reading because one weak book in the series does not negate the overall strength of the series. Rowling has incredible storytelling ability and no one should miss out on the magic of the series. However, this is a book to be worked through not because of the pleasure in the pages, but because the story is a good one and the world Rowling created is worth re- visiting.
Next time, though, I hope Rowling leaves out the parts that were worthy only of skimming in this novel.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Redlass
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Member: Bridgette
Location: Lansing, Michigan
Reviews written: 526
Trusted by: 483 members
About Me:
I have many loves: family, books, theater, writing, and the many communities I belong to.
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