Wednesday, August 22, 2007

I finally read the Deathly Hallows

I know, everybody else has finished it weeks ago - and so far, I have only found time for one reading and one quick rereading. But I still wanted to write a short review, without spoilers.
Or, rather, since I seem to be uncapable of a coherent review, a list of remarks.
  • There's so much there about the trouble of growing up, and the specific case of doing so in a boarding school. Very british, all that, including the division in houses.
  • I have staid in a student dorm for years. We didn't have four houses, but a clear cut division science/humanities. I really felt at home at Hogwarts. (I know, this contradicts the above. So sue me).
  • I didn't like very much the writing style. Some parts are just too long, to my taste. Luckily I read really fast.
  • I love the new words she invents. I wish we could hire J.K. Rowling and have her name all new mathematical concepts.
  • I disliked the epilogue. Sorry. Too much information, and at the same time not enough.
  • I am kind of impressed that such a mainstream novel is completely and totally atheistic. In particular the characters face a lot of life-and-death choices in a very moral (or immoral, as the case may be) way without the need to refer to any organized religion. I am wondering in particular whether JKR purposefully wanted to show that life and death can have a sense even without a belief in a life after death. A question that I never found easy.
  • I find the atmosphere of loss of democracy through/followed by ad hoc laws and a control of the media extremely disturbing. Maybe because I see so much media control in reality. Of course in fact she's just giving as a history course, and the worst things she mentions are in our past and (hopefully) not in our future.
  • I want to make a final remark which contains a spoiler. So I am putting it as first comment.

1 comment:

barbara said...

I am very favorably impressed by how good Neville and especially Snape end up being. Especially since she went out of her way to make Snape physically disagreable on the basis of few characteristics: black, thick, oily hair, shallow complexion, ugly nose. Characteristics which he shares with the Jews as depicted in Nazi propaganda; and with me.