roger covers ears with hands and goes "la la la la la" ad nauseum or
at least until this Harry thingie person goes away. Which, given his
over-exposure, must be any day soon.
On 7/18/05, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
>
--
http://www.badstep.net
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