SPOILERS
After I finished the last Harry Potter book, I was overtaken by a kind of euphoria. Initially I opened up my laptop, thinking I'd check in with the world; then I decided the smarter thing to do would be to go bouncing outside into the sunshine, enjoy my giddiness, and be content with my own opinions about the book before letting them get (inevitably) molded by other people's.
My opinion? It was wonderful. This review sums it up well, as does this one, from Salon. Laura Miller's review points out many of the parallels between Rowling's story and the great fantasies of English literature. She misses one thing: the similarity, in some respects, between a Patronus and a daemon in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Both creatures stem from the same idea, namely that a person's essence can be personified as well as summed up by an animal.
I even found this installment pretty well-written, and the writing has always been my least favorite part of the HP saga. Rowling seemed to be a better teller-of-stories than composer-of-sentences (although her dialogue has always been spot on). In this book, that's less clear. I'm in such awe of her ability to put the whole narrative together and pace it well and keep me in such suspense and make me laugh and then put down the book for a few minutes to cry and then laugh again.
I wish it were possible to call the woman up and thank her. Not only have I been enraptured by this crazy world she's conjured up for eight years, I've been able to feel connected to mainstream America for that long too. It's so nice to have one's tastes validated.
My opinion? It was wonderful. This review sums it up well, as does this one, from Salon. Laura Miller's review points out many of the parallels between Rowling's story and the great fantasies of English literature. She misses one thing: the similarity, in some respects, between a Patronus and a daemon in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Both creatures stem from the same idea, namely that a person's essence can be personified as well as summed up by an animal.
I even found this installment pretty well-written, and the writing has always been my least favorite part of the HP saga. Rowling seemed to be a better teller-of-stories than composer-of-sentences (although her dialogue has always been spot on). In this book, that's less clear. I'm in such awe of her ability to put the whole narrative together and pace it well and keep me in such suspense and make me laugh and then put down the book for a few minutes to cry and then laugh again.
I wish it were possible to call the woman up and thank her. Not only have I been enraptured by this crazy world she's conjured up for eight years, I've been able to feel connected to mainstream America for that long too. It's so nice to have one's tastes validated.