Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
In many ways, “Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
The certainty of that confrontation, and the uncertainty of what will result, hangs heavily over “The Half-Blood Prince.” Harry’s sixth school year is full of preparations for the confrontation. The wizarding world is on high alert, the Death Eaters are murdering those who will not side with them, Harry’s rival Draco Malfoy is up to something and Headmaster Dumbledore is preparing Harry with the information he’ll need to face Voldemort in the prophesized final battle.
An air of tragedy and tension thus overlay the normal interests of 16 year olds, including the opposite sex, sports and the opposite sex. Romance fully blossoms at Hogwarts at last, but it’s love during wartime, given less time to bloom than it would in more peaceful times.
In many ways, this is J. K. Rowling’s “The Empire Strikes Back”: There are no real conclusions here — even the much-hyped death is so wrapped up in mystery that it will inevitably be the focus of much of the final novel — but merely setting things up for that final conclusion. And as it’s always darkest before the dawn, Rowling makes things very, very dark indeed. Any notion that she would be dumbing down this story, or the depiction of evil, for a children’s audience is finally ground to dust. Death and other evils are treated in a mature fashion, especially the ramifications for the survivors.
Along the way is a great deal of evidence that Rowling has grown up as a writer along with Harry. The structure of the early books is almost entirely gone, and all indications are that the final book will have only a passing resemblance to previous books in terms of structure. Quidditch is here, but it receives its smallest focus to date. Time spent in class is likewise not the focus of the novel, nor is a great deal of time spent with Harry’s non-wizarding relatives, the Dursleys. At this point, Rowling rightly assumes anyone reading her novel is aware of the setting and history, and just jumps right into the story itself.
But this is ultimately a hard novel to judge, as it really forms the first half of the final novel of the series. Indeed, it looks likely that the first chapter of that book will take place hours, at most, after the final page of “The Half-Blood Prince.” It’s going to be a heck of a ride, with confrontations with numerous antagonists likely to be going down in surprising ways, if the twists in this novel are any indication.
On its own, this isn’t the best novel in the series — that’s still “Prisoner of Azkhaban,” for my money — but it’s definitely among the best installments to date.
Now to climb the walls for two more years waiting for the conclusion of this series …
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