BOOKS: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Here is a joke I wrote about the new Harry Potter book in my other blog:

"The sex scenes are more gratuitous than ever, but man, are they hot."

Nobody thought it was funny. You probably don't, either. Because Harry Potter is serious. It is serious goddam business. And don't you forget it.*

J.K. Rowling certainly doesn't forget it this time out. There's a lot less fun to be had in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince than in previous installments, which is a shame. There are moments of lightness -- primarily involving the romantic entanglements of Harry, Ron, and Hermione (which, I have to admit, are tremendously entertaining) -- but mostly it's dead serious, alternating between Harry's suspicions of Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape, and Harry's private lessons about the life of Lord Voldemort, given by Headmaster Dumbledore, who has been horribly injured in between this book and the last.

The story moves forward quickly, which doesn't leave much time for tangents, fanciful excursions, or most of the gigantic cast outside the central half-dozen or so. Or for any kind of exposition, apparently: I grew rapidly and increasingly frustrated with the vast number of people, places, things, and events which were peppered throughout without a word of explanation. Rowling seems to assume that every reader of her series is a devotee of the highest order, with the texts of the previous five volumes memorized, or at least re-read immediately before beginning this one. Which leaves someone like me, who hasn't given a thought to Harry Potter since The Order of the Phoenix was released two years ago, all too often floundering and bewildered.

So it's a quick read (or it was once I allowed myself time to get into it), but a gripping, thrilling one; the last couple hundred pages or so tear past like a speeding bullet. The school year seems to fly by, racing into darkness, as the burden of impending adulthood weighs ever heavier on Harry, and Dumbledore directs Harry farther down the dark and lonely path to what will be his ultimate destination, a fight to the death with Voldemort. Strangely, outside of Harry, it's Voldemort who seems to get the most character development in this book, by way of Dumbledore's lessons; perpetual Potter-hater Draco Malfoy also gains an extra dimension or two as things progress.

Rowling's writing is streamlined, but sharp; she even gets in a couple of digs at the expense of America's "War on Terror" (or "Struggle Against Extremism," as it has recently been rebranded), especially our policy of detaining uncharged suspects indefinitely. The revelation of the titular Half-Blood Prince is too abrupt, and unsatisfying, but the rest of the story more than makes up for it. Maybe not the best of the series, but a worthy entry for sure, priming readers for the seventh and (allegedly) final volume a couple years down the line.

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*Alternate possible reason why nobody thought it was funny: because I'm not funny.