Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

What page are you on? David and I have been asking each other this question for a couple of days now. We picked up a copy of “Half Blood Prince” on a trip to Costco the other day, and have trading back and forth reading at leisure since then. Unfortunately, we’ve been losing each others’ places in the book.

I was about halfway through it by yesterday, and when TiVo locked up on the latest TAR1 rerun (arrrrgh!) I gave up on televised fantasy and re-entered the familiar world of Hogwarts instead. I just thought I’d read a few chapters and go to bed.

Right.

The previous book had a lot of scary action, but it was depressing and dragged quite a bit in the first half. It took much longer than usual to read – yes, it was a longer book too, but it was a slog that I waded through dutifully. Unusually for me (also for David) that’s the one book in the series we haven’t reread multiple times. The loss of Harry’s beloved Sirius at the end of that one was almost too much to bear.

However, all that is in the past. The Half-Blood Prince delivers action, adventure, humor, romance, terror, regret, grief and even a sense of gritty resolve. It’s almost a return to the “normal” school life of previous books, but the shadow of war and terror hangs over everyone.

I read each chapter with a sense of urgency. As each one ended, I wondered “What happens next? I need to know.” Well, I kept right on through to the end.

I was completely bamboozled by some of the red herrings (for example, the identity of the Half-Blood Prince) and some of the plot turns took me by surprise. It turns out that seven is a mystically powerful number, and we’ve always known that there would be seven books and probably lots of other things that come in sevens. I was shocked, mystified, and enlightened by turns.

So I read right through until the very last page, until I was reading once again that the book is set in Garamond type and other trivia of interest to bibliophiles. I kept losing David’s place – he’s just a few chapters into it – and I won’t be able to discuss it with him until he finishes it.

As I was engrossed in all the fantastic detail of a world I that I wish actually existed alongside ours, I was struck by the contrast between the “real” world and its problems – war, terror, poverty, famine and the “fantasy” world. And I was also struck by the similarities. As a commentary on modern life, the Harry Potter books make it possible to talk about frightening subjects like fear, loss, death, war, and tyranny with children, and for children to discuss them amongst themselves. Then of course, the opening often has people traveling from King’s Cross station, which will forever be linked with the London bombings in addition to being the place where tourists try to find Platform 9 3/4. And in this book, it starts at No. 10, Downing Street, with the PM reading a memo. How odd was that in light of recent news? Just a coincidence, but a weird one.

I kept shaking my head and saying “naww, it’s a kid’s fantasy. It’s not about dealing with your fears in the real world, and coping with loss.” But now I’m not so sure.

This morning when I woke up, it was from a typical post-Potter dream -the books have a way of insinuating themselves into your dream life very easily, especially after the first reading of a new one. In the dream, it seemed to be someone reading from the Daily Prophet newspaper about the battles that have been taking place throughout the latest book, with mentions of casualties and so on. Then as I awakened, it was to the latest news from Iraq on NPR, along with the carnage of yesterday’s car bombs there, followed by the radio obituary of yet another fine young military man killed in that increasingly senseless war. And it seemed to me that the fantasy war and the real wars (the one on terror, and the one that’s supposed to be on terror but is really about oil) weren’t all that different.

For example, Harry’s asked by the Ministry of Magic to show his public support for the Ministry’s handling of the war with Voldemort and the Death-Eaters, (terrorists who use magic instead of backpack bombs and IEDs). Meanwhile, it seems that the best weapons against terror are courage and resolve (not to mention instant communication).

The Ministry arrests people for the wrong reasons and holds them indefinitely, so that the wizarding community will be reassured that at least they’re doing something. Meanwhile, the Ministry wastes time, lives, and resources while dithering about what to do. They make the real governments of the world look really good by comparison (with the exception of Ron Weasley’s dad and a few others in the lower ranks – all the higher ups lack leadership skills).

Yes, at the end of the book there is a death, as has been widely reported. But as sad and troubling as it will be for anyone not yet at the last page, it serves a purpose, and it puts the seemingly senseless death of Sirius Black at the end of the previous book in a new light. There are reasons for everything in these books, as avid readers already know.

And the people who out of misguided faith will never crack them open at Page 1 will never understand just how moral and uplifting these “fantasy” books can be. Allegory is always so difficult for literalists; they insist on taking it literally.

It’s a shame that we’ll never all be on the same page.