The latest Harry Potter is more tightly plotted than its predecessor,
and manages to sustain its central intrigue all the way to the end.
Even Snape's most decisively villainous act does not resolve the
question of what his motivations are, or where his loyalties lie.
We find out a great deal more about He Who Must Not Be Named, who
increasingly resembles one of Pratchett's villains in his background
and psychology. Pratchett tends to decide that his baddies are
psychically mutilated beyond redemption, and in need of a good heroic
finishing-off (by a hero who just *hates* violence, but does what he
has to do). Voldemort I think has a different fate coming.
There is a nicely handled sub-plot about who's snogging who that
captures the emotional grubbiness of teenage sexual intrigue - hurtful
things are said and done, largely for stupid and selfish reasons -
without losing sympathy for any of the characters involved. The
various clinches and collisions are described with an appropriate
indelicacy, without committing anything unfilmable to print.
In fact, the author seems confidently in control of her material
throughout. There is some strong, and decidedly filmable, dialogue:
deathly insults, snappy rejoinders. The satire of the grown-up world
is witty, pertinent and not heavily laboured; the focus is, as before,
on adult self-seeking and self-deception, as well as its victims
(notably an unjustly imprisoned death-eater suspect). There is a plot
device pinched from Red Dwarf; but it's a good one, and used in
surprising ways. For all the occasional heaviness of tone - and the
plot arcs inexorably towards terrible disaster - the book feels like
it was fun to write. I look forward to my own children being old
enough to read it.
Dominic
--
"The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas,
obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity.
With a little practice, writing can be an
intimidating and impenetrable fog!" - Calvin
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