Harry Potter and the End of Enchantment
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Book Review
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
By J.K. Rowling
Arthur A. Levine Books, 759 pages, $34.99
Nowadays, the story of the boy and his author is as familiar as the Nativity. Harry Potter, the unloved orphan with the weird-ass scar, turns out to be not just a wizard but—for reasons he can barely recall—one of the most famous wizards in the whole wide wizarding world. And thanks to hundreds of millions of books bought, read and loved, J.K. Rowling, once dowdy and grouchy and broke, is now as prettily patrician as a Redgrave sister, and richer than the royals.
Another chapter of gospel, before we anti-climax into the series’ seventh and final volume, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is busy selling out of every store: None of the adjectives that spring immediately to mind—bold, ballsy, plain nuts—quite do justice to the single mum with the £1,500 advance who declared from the outset that she would write seven volumes, no more, no less. Especially considering that the first two books—despite introducing us to all sorts of little miracles and various soon-to-be old friends—were really just Roald Dahl for dumb kids.
But for her next couple of tricks, she produced The Prisoner of Azkaban, which is nearly perfect, and then The Goblet of Fire, logging in at 733 self-indulgent, delightful, distressing pages. Fans lamented that 79 of those were wasted at the Quidditch World Cup, dozens on a elf rewrite of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and another 30 or so on who-snogged-who gossip from the Yule Ball, but there were throughout many things to cry or laugh about, not least of all Macbeth’s Weird Sisters, who show up here as a band.
Nobody, for the record, really believes that mountaineering accidents are due, more often than not, to the malice of giants; that a more accurate weather report would take into account wizarding politics; that the right brick pressed on a pub’s back wall will yield the magic equivalent of an outdoor mall and that the right address properly memorized will cause an entire brownstone to bloom up in the crevice between two others. Not one of us is under the illusion that Newton’s laws or Einstein’s relativities can be subverted by 11-year-olds wielding shitty Latin and wooden sticks.
Nonetheless, we need an explanation more convincing than “entertainment value” for the many drinking-age-to-midlife-crisis readers cradling their copies of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows against the lurch of the subway. Their numbers prove that we never outgrow our desire to believe, or at least to have our disbeliefs suspended. Of course we don’t. Otherwise, adolescent artisans would have carved the stones at Angkor Wat, and the papacy would pass from preteen to preteen, like membership in Menudo. The Crusades would have all been Children’s. Which, in the Potter books, they always are.
But whether Jesus or any bodhisattvas were magician enough to merit their very own Chocolate Frog Witch and Wizard trading cards, Ms. Rowling has never thought to mention. Don’t let the absence here of a sorcerer’s theology or C.S. Lewis-style allegory throw you off. Even the most secular-seeming fantasy is religious in its methods if not its message—every rabbit hole a conversion experience, every golden ticket a kind of Rapture, every Yellow Brick Road a Pilgrim’s Progress. This is why fantasy can be administered to children at night like sedatives: Readers are flattered and assured that they alone will be saved, carried away to the world they were meant for and into a life as special as they feel. Promises are made that we will grow up magical instead of regular, boring old Muggles.
Good vs. evil, even accompanied by supernatural adventure and thrills, holds our attention less well than you might think. We were really in it for the embarrassment of funny, superior, domestic details—of which any list of mine would be a small start, but to begin with: the possibility of getting mail via owl post rather than the USPS, of commuting via fireplace rather than the MTA, of de-gnoming Mom’s garden instead of raking the leaves, of taking potions classes instead of precalculus. Harry and his gang will take meetings with ghosts and giant talking spiders and cold ethical centaurs, and count among their best friends wizards and witches who are revealed to be heroes or lycanthropes, instead of just liberal-arts layabouts who turn out one day to be law-school students. The Potter books offer a better banality.
But not this final installment. The Deathly Hallows fails, when it does, because it deviates from the Rowling formula. Whereas the previous six novels were structured like syllabi—their grace notes were class assignment, exams questions, semester breaks—the seventh has Harry dropping out of Hogwarts to wander aimlessly among exposition scenes and action sequences. It’s the conventional Grail quest and Hollywood through-line Ms. Rowling always spared us from—and I, for one, felt as nostalgic for their school days as I sometimes am for my own. Of course, it’s not quite so simple as all that.
Or rather: The Deathly Hallows is not great, but it's not great in wild complicated ways. It’s a sort of archaeology, with throwaway bits from previous books, like ceramic shards from some Cretan dig, shown to have more intricate and important meanings than we at home had the care and expertise to appreciate. It’s the fantasy novel Faulkner might have dashed off when drunk and hard up for cash, with pivotal, familiar events revisited from new and semi-surprising points of view. It’s also a victory-lap, and a greatest hits compilation. So many already-used back-drops are used again that it sometimes seems as though there wasn't the budget to build any new sets. Shout-outs are given out to almost everyone including the, say, one or two Professor Trelwaney fans in the audience. She shows up near the close, serving crystal balls like tennis balls at Death Eaters’ heads. Next Page >
What did I just read? A fairly meandering, unfocused and pointless review, I thought, if that's what it was...
What, all fantasy is religious because characters overcome obstacles, grow as people, and experience occasional moments of dramatic insight? Might as well say fantasy is religious because it tends to be written with words, on paper, like the Bible.
And did anyone else sense the nutty undercurrent implying that enjoyment of fantasy hinges on one's deep-down desire to /actually/ believe in the absurdly entertaining "promises" on offer? "Our desire to believe, or at least to have our disbeliefs suspended," indeed: For at least one reader, suspension of disbelief apparently takes a back seat to 'I Want To Believe!'
I think someone needs a refresher course on the differences between reality and make-believe, and it's not those who dress up like Harry Potter for a lark :P
I'd have to agree with egotripper; this was a terrible review, nothing more than two pages of avoiding a statement as to whether or not the book was good. If you didn't like the book, fine, but to write this amazing series off as you did does nothing except for take away your credibility.
Wow, Mark Lotto! Are you sure your name is not Anton Ego, the evil food critic in "Ratatouille"? You know, the guy who at some point in the movie admits that critics are folks who mostly exploit other people's creativity, writing "witty" snarky reviews, and taking barely any risk themselves? No, Lotto is no Anton Ego-Anton Ego has much more self-reflexivity. Egotripper hits the nail on the head. This review is almost as intelligent and insightful as those folks who scream that Harry Potter endorses Satanism and undermines morality.
Contributor?
Does that mean that you, like, get money for it and everything?
Or does that mean that you just leave it on the doorstep in a paper bag and then set fire to it?
I am disappointed that TO would publish anything this obtuse, unless of course, you are trying to get some sort of creds with all the folks that really don't believe in anything at all, because they are sooo disappointed that the tooth fairy didn't leave a quarter when their dog lost a tooth.
And their Easter duck died.
You have a good editor here, he was one of the few writers in the country that got The Sopranos finale, maybe you ought to actually read what you are putting in the paper.
Oh, and I got a contribution for you: I just left it in the little room with the porcelain bowl.
"...a siege of Hogwarts significantly shorter but only slightly less violent than that of Leningrad..."
PRICELESS.
You sum up my disappointment in the book perfectly. With so much promise in bringing a refreshing bildungsroman to the whole fantasy genre, Deathly Hallows turns into a Dan Brown-kind of grail thriller, where you just skim the paragraphs to find out what happens. After reading the book, I felt the same way I do after eating the entire package of Oreos- unsatisfied, a little sick to my stomach, and sad that it's gone.
I understand and agree with this editor. Rowling took away what made the book so fantastic and wondrous. She took away it's dynamic. And replaced it with cold, restrictive fact. No longer can we imagine as we once did, the story is closed. Fin, Over, Nothing More. No more new places, no more new adventures. Deathly Hallows was in short, "The sum of all it's parts" and nothing new. And there is nothing for its future. Just a remembered disappointment.
I have to agree and it's hard to give a bad review to a beautiful series. But this last book reads like some mad pastiche of fan fiction- and the epilogue is downright painful.
I'm just hoping JK Rowling is too much of an artist to leave it like this. Maybe in years to come she'll give us the revised final book (or books) that we all deserve, and that we all know it was in her to create.
mark...you such a fucking douche....
If she hadn't ended it, it would have had the same reaction to the end of the Sopranos.
I thought this was a very well written review of a terrible ending to what could have been a really great series. It is sad to find out that it was shallow and predictable in the end.
BURN IN HELL MARK LOTTO...APPREANTLY U DIDNT READ THE OTHER SIX BOOKS TO UNDERSTAND WHY HE IS WANDERING IN THE FOREST...U DUMB ASS CUNT
A great and honest review, the last book was very disappointing.
I was a little disappointed with the book myself, but I think I'm far more disappointed with the time I wasted reading this overblown review. Mark Lotto, maybe instead of trying to impress us with your attempts at wit and good writing, you could've shaped this pile of review garbage into something more palatable and coherent. As it stands, I get a stilted lesson in the draws (or lack thereof) of fantasy novels instead of a proper review of the book. You do a wonderful job of discrediting yourself.
To those who believe that Book 7 was a disappointment, you should really reexamine what you think of literary merit. Rowling does a fantastic job of reinventing the style of the series while keeping you compelled to read. The story had a direction and she took it, with everything tying together in the end. Characters with whom we created an affinity or hatred throughout the series were boldly killed off, and the twists and turns were gut-wrenching at times.
There is reason to dislike the epilogue, but I enjoyed it. It was really unnecessary, as one could have guessed its contents, but the point of it was to bring the story full circle.
Mark,I think I'm in love. Never before have I heard a bigger queef. You have captivated everybody with your beautiful sense of writing. You are impressing everyone with your holy grail & jesus mentions, your political presentation of going off on some bullshit that was not even related to what you were doing. I'm going to divorce my future wife, seek your ass, and make sweet sweet faggoty love with you....
Love Dedalus
P.S Climb back in your mother's pussy, you weren't born for this world
I have to agree, I did read the books because i wanted to believe in a happy, magical land where people had exciting futures, one far removed from my actual existence...
i really did feel the sense of hopelessness harry had, wandering in the middle of nowhere for hundreds of pages, doing nearly nothing the entire time... it was awful...
the books single saving grace is the twist at the end, but besides that there are no interesting revelations.
the final battle at hogwarts plays out like a soap opera... the verbal battle between voldemort and harry is hilariously bad... "guess what voldemort, i /pwnd you"
really, it's quite sad.
ultimately, i felt like i trudged through this entire book, easily the worst in the series for 3 minutes of revelations.
yea, and i could have done without all the needless cameos too.
After college, many peole are lost as to what to do with themselves, and find themselves wandering, with only the slimest idea of what they are looking for.
If you were not as bent on trying to be diferent, and run off on a relenless diatribe; you may have relized that perhaps Rowling was trying to include a sence of reality into the novel. Harry was seventeen, new to the adult world, and lookuing for seven objects that could be anywhere.
f*** u mark lotto,f** u...
I can't believe I read these two pages of reviews... which was nothing short of drivelling garbage - if you tried to understand what this reviewer ewas saying, dont; youre only wasting yor time, and enough of your life. I don't care whether or not the review was negative towards the book - just that it appears Mr. Lotto is trying to make a longer review, seemingly, to impress with all his fancifal, "Oh, I'm in Harvard and I write things that sound all fancy and are hard to understand so that only my peers know what the hell I'm talking about, and I'm better than the rest of you, since I'm sooo brilliant" type of logic. I say in reply, just so that Lotto can undersand, your review is quintessentially substantially nothing sans of the flatus generated by one corpulent pachyderm meandering through some canyon, just barely. (Your review is nothing less than one comparable to a giant fart produced by a fat-ass elephant who could barely fit through the crevasse in some canyon) There, I said it.
I agree with the sentiments contained... somewhere... in this review, but it's not very well written.
of course this book was all fact. How the hell can you end a series with more questions. its the last book and the best yet. Who paid you to do this review????
\They should shoot themselves and you
Sadly, I have to agree with this review. Deathly Hallows seems to lack the magical wonders that the first books has. It's quite a disappointing end for such a wonderful series
I agree with this review completely - though I would be harsher :D Having read and loved the first six books, I'll never get why Harry was pointlessly meandering around the forest - it accomplishes nothing, and anything he does manage to do is a) sheer luck (like Bellatrix slipping up and TELLING him where one of the horcruxes is - Voldemort telling him where one is just by thinking to himself - THAT is priceless) b) when Hermione does it for him. Why this book should have been called Hermione Granger and the passive-Boy-who-tried-to-die-and-failed-at-that-too...
There is no consistency and no logic in most of the pivotal points, and in the end, Harry uses Unforgiveables, and instead of defeating Voldemort with the Power-Dark-Lord-Knew-Not he defeats the greatest wizard of all time on a technicality.
There is no character growth. There is, however, character assasination and transplants, where familiar people, for no reason that one can see, suddenly behave differently. And making a book 'adult' does not constitute any great skill on her part - you can almost see her mentally tick off a list: Book 1 - keep childish; Book 2 - introduce racism; Book 3 - murder and betrayal! Book 4 - hormones and slavery; Book 5 - mind control; Book 6 - ultimate evil posing as horcruxes; Book 7 - random deaths of random characters.
The book hit a soft point with me,
The soft point being that no matter how hard she tried,
Rowling would not have been able to accomplish the goal of
a closure that could please everyone