The 7th Book (no spoilers)

[ Mood: Cool ]
When I picked up my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Saturday, I thought about blogging a chapter-by-chapter reaction to the story. However, this is grading season for me–lots of essays on Melville and Thoreau and Black Superheroes to read and mark. So no time, and anyway, it would’ve taken me a lot longer to read the book that way. On top of that, one of our esteemed writers, Robert E. Howard scholar Mark Finn, is working on something similar. I’m not sure how similar, because I don’t want to read his piece before I finish the book, but it’ll be up on the RevSF front page soon.

I’m still a few chapters before the end–I almost decided to just finish it at the breakfast table this morning, but I must be responsible to my students. I’ll get it done before I go to sleep tonight, I’m sure. Anyway, I’m quite impressed. I believe I mentioned in one of our "Harry Potter Sucks/Rocks" segments that Rowling is becoming a better writer with every book, and that goes double for this one. I’m a bit of an amateur writer myself, and man, if I had written a light, fun kids’ fantasy that had turned into an enormous hit and made me the richest author in the world, I have to admit I’d probably just try to follow it up with formulaic book after formulaic book and not really try anything new. That’s what most writers do, after all.

But not Rowling. OK, she did for the first three books, but come on. Since Book 4, you can see (if you look for it) that she’s pushing herself, learning her craft, and becoming a damn good writer. She’s taking a lot of risks, too. The vast majority of her fans fell in love with the first book–why risk turning them off by making the stories darker, more realistic, more political, more complex? Why mess with success?

Because she’s a dedicated writer, that’s why. It’s easy to make fun of Harry Potter as mere light entertainment, but in the later books, especially this final one, that’s not really true. She’s not quite at, say, Ursula K. LeGuin’s level, but she’s become a real pro of a writer, in plotting, characterization, description, prose style, what have you. I’d say she’s become the equal of Philip Pullman now.

And it’s easy to make fun of Rowling for getting rich, but while I don’t think financial success has more than a superficial connection to talent and skill (as a scholar, I specialize in an author who made a pittance in his whole life from writing, and who’s now considered America’s Shakespeare), I think a lot of anti-Rowling grumbling is just jealousy. I bet she can reach LeGuin’s level. I hope she really does leave Harry behind and do something totally new, the way LeGuin did with the Earthsea books (I know, she wrote other books before Earthsea).

Right, enough blogging–must grade.

superdave