Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
NOTE: This is a spoiler-free review.The bar of expectation has been set phenomenally high for the last book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Released only a short while after Book 5's movie was released, the last 3 novels are much more dark and mature than the first book, where Harry Potter was but a young boy learning of his magical heritage. Where books 1 and 2 were fine fodder for young children, these later stories are definitely written with teenagers and up in mind.
The themes being examined here are quite mature - how government can have mixed motives and can twist the truth, how newspapers can become the voice of the government and feed mis-information for political reasons, how adults that you trust and look up to may have dark pasts and not-so-pure motives. We're past the "simple" issues of revenge and love and into far more complex agendas.
Many children's books have clear morals and well defined heroes and enemies - the wicked stepmother, the beautiful fairy. Harry Potter's final tome is far more grey than that. This can be very confusing (and unsettling) for younger children who still need to feel secure in a world where grown-ups can be trusted. For more mature readers, this is a beautiful example of peeling back the layers of the onion to see the underside of life. We began with a very innocent, simple view of the world, naturally coming from the young view of Harry Potter. As he aged and matured, so did our ability to see what was going on around us in the Harry Potter universe - to understand the reason for the actions of his teachers, his friends' parents, and other characters in this multi-leveled universe.
With Deathly Hallows, Harry is now an adult. He has turned 17, the coming of age time for wizards. He is no longer safe with his aunt and uncle as a result. He is no longer required to go to school, and can take control of his own actions and path in life. As adult readers know, this is hardly the freedom or release that teenagers often think it will be. With that freedom to rule your own life also comes great responsibility. You are now responsible for how your actions will affect those around you that you care for. Harry's choices are going to have a huge impact on Hermoine and Ron, who valiantly want to stand by their friend.
In one sense, Harry has been set on a path by Dumbledore, and you could claim that all that happens is Dumbledore's fault. On the other hand, Harry has free will, and Dumbledore's instructions have always been vague at best. Harry has quite a lot of range of choice in what he does and does not do - and some of those choices are difficult at best.
There are meditations here on the meaning of death and life, on the value of sacrifice. Every character has known pain and has made decisions for selfish reasons. There are celebrations of new beginnings, and yes, there are some endings as well. Not to be overly hokey, but there's a reason the "circle of life" cliche shows up so often in fine literature. This imagery has been around since mankind began civilization and it is an integral part of how our society works.
People looking for the non-stop comic action of high school hijinx and game competitions will be disappointed. This final novel is nothing like that. In fact, there are long stretches where the characters feel stymied, where it feels like no progress is being made. The book forces you to slow down, to really think about what is going on, to feel the strain and pressure of achieving an extremely difficult goal. Yes, there are action sequences and well described battles - but those are the exception, not the rule. Deathly Hallows is about internal struggles and emotional challenges.
The vocabulary reflects this as well. This book is written at a high school level and was not meant to be skimmed or jumped through. The wording and the sentence structure encourage you to go slowly, to contemplate, to think about what is being said. While Harry spends weeks contemplating issues and trying to figure out how he feels about an issue, you, the reader, are encouraged to do the same. It's an avenue of self exploration.
At the risk of offending the Harry Potter fanatics, I do want to mention just a few things. I'll do this without spoilers on Amazon and be more clear on my website - on a separate page - for those who have read the book. First, a few sequences in this book felt very much deus ex machina. Yes, explanations are provided later in the book, but the same things could have been arranged in a much more probable manner. The way certain sequences run, it's almost as if she had Chapter X and Chapter Y and then had to figure out some way to connect them. Next, certain key character's personalities change in leaps without that development being shown. We have developed such a connection with those characters over the years that it would have been wonderful to see that maturation, but instead it just seems to "happen".
Still, as I mentioned at the beginning, the bar was set exceedingly high for this book. It was expected to be exactly perfect, a stunning work of literature appropriate for every age group. It was expected to satisfy both those who wanted a Hollywood Ending as well as those who feel realism requires death, destruction and bleak despair. While it is not going to achieve all of those goals - really, can any single book do that? - it is an extremely good read which has exposed millions of people to questions and issues they might not have otherwise encountered. It encourages those people to think - critically - about the world they live in. And really, you cannot ask any book to do much more than that.
Highly recommended.
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