Review of HP n the Half blood prince
SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2005
When the calling bell rang this morning , It was with a grumpy face that I opened the door.
The Royal mail delivered a neatly packed Harry potter - and the half blood prince at 9.32 a.m this morning.
I was expecting the delivery on 16th July as promised by Tesco.com from where I had ordered the book. But so early in the morning at 9.30 , was indeed a pleasant surprise. HP number six makes it to guiness book of world records for being the fastest or largest selling book till date.
Like the 2 million readers around the world I contribute my bit to this world record and what the media calls the unprecedented Potter Mania.
Unlike the others in the Harry Potter series which have predictably had their opening scenes at number four, Privet drive where Harry is holed up for his summer vacation with the Dursley’s, this one opens with unconventional scenes with lesser known and some unrelated characters and plots who later find mention in the chapters to come.
With all that rumour about an important character dying in the ‘Half blood Prince’, it is impossible to avoid guesswork, while flipping through the initial chapters before the storyline manages to grip you with the plot.
I am under a magical spell which keeps me from revealing the plot of the story.
Not that there is much to a plot.
The Sixth of the Harry Potter series is longer that the others.
After all each of them have been longer than the previous one .
The longer they get, the less gripping they have been … or may be it it’s the predictability that makes one feels like skipping a few pages here and there.
Harry is sixteen now and will come of age next summer when he turns seventeen, says Dumbledore in the opening chapters.
It is with some discomfort that the Potter fans may take the coming of age of Harry, Ron and Hermione. For millions of Potter fans from all over the world irrespective of their age the trio held a fascination because they represented childhood ,the innocence and the adventures associated with it.
Harry’s found his girlfriend in this book. And by the time Harry has discovered romance, Ron has broken up with a girlfriend. Hermione is still the studious single girl who knows everything.
The half blood prince, may be due to the hype that it has been subjected to, fails to kindle that now –what –next sensation as you flip through the pages.
There are new spells, bigger dangers lurking Harry, Ron , Hermione and all at Hogwarts.
But this time, the trio of Ron Hermione and Harry have not done things together except that Harry shares all his secrets with Ron and Hermione as always whne they meet ithe common room. This time around, it is Harry Potter all the way. There is a lot of flashback taking us back to the days of Harry’s parents and Lord Voldermort and their days at Hogwarts .
On the whole it is a long drawn book, but fails to evoke the kind of ‘unputdownable’ grip that the other five have evoked in the past. Blame it on the excessive hype and commercialization that the ‘Half blood prince’ has been subjected to.
Is J K Rowling exhausted ?
Is this the last of the Harry Potter?
By the time you complete the ‘Half blood Prince’ you get this feeling that even if the Harry Potter series may not end with this book, this is the last of the Hogwarts express departing from platform nine-three fourths departing from King’s Cross.
Will Harry be back to Hogwarts next year ?
If not Rowling, atleast her publishers would know the answer.
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