This is a tough one - it's my favorite book of the bunch. But after seeing the movie adaption I'm kinda in love with the next one, which is a funny thing to say because the books are not the movies, but whatever y'all!
I love this book the most because it's the book when I feel Harry comes of age. Let me explain - Harry, at 15, was a total pain in the butt, as most 15 year-olds are. He deserves to be annoying. But then he experiences the death of the closest thing he has to a parent, and feels guilty of his death, and reaches a point where Dumbledore is ready to trust him more. And so, he calms down and becomes the guy that attempts to think things through and to help right away instead of sulk. He is, in fact, becoming the savior the boy who lived needs to become in order to beat Voldermort.
Of course, when people talk of this book they go crazy over the romance - Harry and Ginny, Ron and Lavender, Ron and Hermione! I just like that the book is obviously the little breather before the awesome epic finale, that Harry gets to be happy and we get to see it - too often, that piece of joy gets saved for the last paragraph of the series/books. I did have to finally accept the Harry and Ginny romance, although I'll admit that there's still that tiny bit of me that wants Harry and Hermione together.
The big question in Half Blood Prince is of course, Snape and Dumbledore. Dumbledore's death, after I finished reading the book, felt very unnecessary, and that it had been Snape, whom I secretly always liked, was tough. Rowling did a great work at always making Harry and Snape hate each other - but did a great job at including little clues to let us know there was something going on under that curtain of black hair. Oh, Snape.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix
I can't believe months have passed since I last posted. May and June flew by, for sure, and here I am in the wee hours of July 3rd, not able to sleep. Since I just lent my niece Abigail my copy of The Half Blood Prince, I figured I might as well come here and talk about its predecessor, Order of the Phoenix.
A lot of people don't like that book. I love it, because it's exactly what Harry at 15 should be - an unlikeable little git. He's moody, thinks he knows it all, yells at people for no reason, is impulsive and severely unhappy when things don't go his way. He also has his eyes opened to the fact that there's more to life than just Hogwarts, and it enters the book into new territory.
This book is humongous, which is hella nice, as it lets you really submerge yourself in the Potter world. Also, since a lot of the book is just being in Harry's feelings and thoughts, it reads slower, but I like and enjoy that part. I like the ominous feeling all throughout the book that danger is coming, that it is imminent, that things will happen that will hurt Harry's world.
I was thinking a lot about this book today I guess mostly because I spent a lot of today remembering what it was like to be 15. How funny it is that a lot of the little things that I know I've left behind can resurface quickly, but also, to realize that something that I cared about so much then (God) still has such a presence in my life. I kept wondering about Harry himself and how in his selfishness and self-centered he was able to learn to be the calm and more likable Harry from the next books. I was amazed to realize during today's Sermon that I would not be the person that I am today if I hadn't been the little Jesus Freak I was at 15. I hope that I am giving, and loving, and accepting of others - something I learned to be during those years at that Church. And although by the end of the Sermon I was also arguing in my head (it was the "The Lord loved you so much, lost lamb, that He left behind 99 lambs to go get you, and the angels rejoice more over that found lost lamb than over the 99 that do not need finding" Sermon. I get it, God loves the lambs, but I always wonder about the 99 well behaved one's that are left without someone taking care of them,) I was also aware of how present He is in my life, how entrenched this is in my family. It's like part of our culture, almost, in a way even a family tradition. I've written poems about this, but never have been able to properly portray how... hurt I can be, when explaining this to friends and their eyes glaze over, because I'm talking God and Family, and all they're thinking is hate-mongering religion, and don't realize that this is as much a part of my personal culture as listening to Merengue and speaking Spanish is.
But I've veered off. I meant to talk about how Harry's belief system is developed in Book 5, how he slowly becomes the man that will only have himself (and Ron and Hermione) to depend on, because he's been stripped away of those that are authority figures for him. And most importantly, this book, starts the race to the end.
A lot of people don't like that book. I love it, because it's exactly what Harry at 15 should be - an unlikeable little git. He's moody, thinks he knows it all, yells at people for no reason, is impulsive and severely unhappy when things don't go his way. He also has his eyes opened to the fact that there's more to life than just Hogwarts, and it enters the book into new territory.
This book is humongous, which is hella nice, as it lets you really submerge yourself in the Potter world. Also, since a lot of the book is just being in Harry's feelings and thoughts, it reads slower, but I like and enjoy that part. I like the ominous feeling all throughout the book that danger is coming, that it is imminent, that things will happen that will hurt Harry's world.
I was thinking a lot about this book today I guess mostly because I spent a lot of today remembering what it was like to be 15. How funny it is that a lot of the little things that I know I've left behind can resurface quickly, but also, to realize that something that I cared about so much then (God) still has such a presence in my life. I kept wondering about Harry himself and how in his selfishness and self-centered he was able to learn to be the calm and more likable Harry from the next books. I was amazed to realize during today's Sermon that I would not be the person that I am today if I hadn't been the little Jesus Freak I was at 15. I hope that I am giving, and loving, and accepting of others - something I learned to be during those years at that Church. And although by the end of the Sermon I was also arguing in my head (it was the "The Lord loved you so much, lost lamb, that He left behind 99 lambs to go get you, and the angels rejoice more over that found lost lamb than over the 99 that do not need finding" Sermon. I get it, God loves the lambs, but I always wonder about the 99 well behaved one's that are left without someone taking care of them,) I was also aware of how present He is in my life, how entrenched this is in my family. It's like part of our culture, almost, in a way even a family tradition. I've written poems about this, but never have been able to properly portray how... hurt I can be, when explaining this to friends and their eyes glaze over, because I'm talking God and Family, and all they're thinking is hate-mongering religion, and don't realize that this is as much a part of my personal culture as listening to Merengue and speaking Spanish is.
But I've veered off. I meant to talk about how Harry's belief system is developed in Book 5, how he slowly becomes the man that will only have himself (and Ron and Hermione) to depend on, because he's been stripped away of those that are authority figures for him. And most importantly, this book, starts the race to the end.
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