Re-Reading The Half-Blood Prince
02/12/08 18:33 Filed in: Harry Potter
I finally got around to re-reading (I think for only
the second time!) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince, the sixth installment in the celebrated
seven-novel series by English author J.K. Rowling. I
added the exclamation point for the simple reason
that I have read the first, second, third, fourth and
seventh books at least four or five times each. And
the only reason I haven't read the fifth book,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,
as often is because I find it so effectively unhappy
and claustrophobic that I find reading it emotionally
and psychologically difficult.
My reticence with regard to The Half-Blood Prince comes from a different source: I simply didn't like the book the first time I read it. So I didn't go back to it for the longest time.
I read it again this past week. Did I like it better? Maybe. Do I understand why I find it to be somewhat less successful than the other books? I think so. Did reading it again help me appreciate, once again, just how great a writer J.K. Rowling is? Undoubtedly.
I think I find The Half-Blood Prince less compelling than the others simply because it is mostly a launching pad for the bewilderingly good seventh and final book. Rowling packs the sixth book full — too full, I would argue — in order to prepare for the last novel.
The main, suspense plot develops when two more minor plots (Harry's private sessions with Dumbledore and Draco Malfoy's deadly assignment from Voldemort) come together in the final 50 or so pages. Up until that point, however, we are caught up in a spin cycle of minor plots: Dumbledore preparing Harry for his showdown with Voldemort; Harry suspecting Draco of nefarious acts but getting no sympathy from the others; Harry benefiting from hand-scrawled notes in an old Potion text book (once owned by the titular Half-Blood Prince); all of our young heroes struggling with their hormones as they deal with puberty; Harry taking on his first season as Quidditch Captain; the introduction of a new potions master, Professor Slughorn, who holds the key to the puzzle of what makes Voldemort tick; the students facing their Apparition tests; and much more.
To prepare us for the grand finale, Rowling needs us to emerge from the sixth book with an understanding that Voldemort has attempted to render himself immortal by tearing his soul into pieces and hiding the bits in various objects (known as Horcruxes), that it is Harry's job to find and destroy these Horcruxes and then to kill Voldemort himself, and that Dumbledore will not be around so that Harry and his friends face this daunting task alone.
It's a tall order and not one that lends itself to the creation of suspense.
On the other hand, my recent re-reading of The Half-Blood Prince has helped me to appreciate how beautifully written the book is. There is poetry in these pages as Rowling shows that she is as capable a writer for adults as she is for children:
Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about the phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: it was his own grief turned magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows (p. 573).
She also proves herself a virtuoso at presenting gripping scenes of absolute authenticity, leading her reader to read the scene and the characters within it in a certain way, and then turning that understanding inside out at a later date. The scene on the ramparts of the Astronomy tower, where Dumbledore finds himself poisoned and weak, wandless at the hands of his enemies, with Harry, invisible and paralysed, forced to watch, is an epic, heartrending scene.
But somebody else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly.
'Severus...'
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading...
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face. (p. 556)
You read that and you are convinced that Harry has been right all along about Severus Snape, that Dumbledore was wrong in trusting him. It is true and real and authentic and nothing is left out. As readers, we are right to read the scene that way. Just as we are right to read Snape's running battle (of spells and of words) with Harry later in the book as more clear evidence of Snape's hatred of Harry, his treachery toward Dumbledore and his loyalty to Voldemort.
It's spellbinding writing and absolutely right. And yet, as we find out at the end of book seven, our reading of it — which is fully justified every step of the way — is completely wrong. Snape is one of the good guys. Miraculously, when we reread these sections from book six, knowing the truth after reading book seven, we find that Rowling didn't cheat, that not one word is false. Once we know the truth of the situation, her descriptions of the original events ring just as true. We interpreted them in one way because Rowling has very adeptly led us to that interpretation — it is right for that time. But, as we discover when we go back to the scenes after reading the final novel, the truth is there too. We simply allowed her to lead us away from it.
Just like Harry, we distrusted Snape, we doubted Dumbledore. Just like Harry, we found out we were wrong.
And Rowling was right every step of the way.
That makes me think about what Snape would have been going through as he carried out Dumbledore's wishes up there on the tower. To honour the man, he had to killhim. His revulsion and hatred were not focused on Dumbledore as we originally believed but on the act of horror Snape has to carry out in order to live up to his word, to help out his friend.
So, sure, The Half-Blood Prince is not the most effective of the Harry Potter novels but, my goodness, it offers some magnificent writing.
My reticence with regard to The Half-Blood Prince comes from a different source: I simply didn't like the book the first time I read it. So I didn't go back to it for the longest time.
I read it again this past week. Did I like it better? Maybe. Do I understand why I find it to be somewhat less successful than the other books? I think so. Did reading it again help me appreciate, once again, just how great a writer J.K. Rowling is? Undoubtedly.
I think I find The Half-Blood Prince less compelling than the others simply because it is mostly a launching pad for the bewilderingly good seventh and final book. Rowling packs the sixth book full — too full, I would argue — in order to prepare for the last novel.
The main, suspense plot develops when two more minor plots (Harry's private sessions with Dumbledore and Draco Malfoy's deadly assignment from Voldemort) come together in the final 50 or so pages. Up until that point, however, we are caught up in a spin cycle of minor plots: Dumbledore preparing Harry for his showdown with Voldemort; Harry suspecting Draco of nefarious acts but getting no sympathy from the others; Harry benefiting from hand-scrawled notes in an old Potion text book (once owned by the titular Half-Blood Prince); all of our young heroes struggling with their hormones as they deal with puberty; Harry taking on his first season as Quidditch Captain; the introduction of a new potions master, Professor Slughorn, who holds the key to the puzzle of what makes Voldemort tick; the students facing their Apparition tests; and much more.
To prepare us for the grand finale, Rowling needs us to emerge from the sixth book with an understanding that Voldemort has attempted to render himself immortal by tearing his soul into pieces and hiding the bits in various objects (known as Horcruxes), that it is Harry's job to find and destroy these Horcruxes and then to kill Voldemort himself, and that Dumbledore will not be around so that Harry and his friends face this daunting task alone.
It's a tall order and not one that lends itself to the creation of suspense.
On the other hand, my recent re-reading of The Half-Blood Prince has helped me to appreciate how beautifully written the book is. There is poetry in these pages as Rowling shows that she is as capable a writer for adults as she is for children:
Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about the phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: it was his own grief turned magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows (p. 573).
She also proves herself a virtuoso at presenting gripping scenes of absolute authenticity, leading her reader to read the scene and the characters within it in a certain way, and then turning that understanding inside out at a later date. The scene on the ramparts of the Astronomy tower, where Dumbledore finds himself poisoned and weak, wandless at the hands of his enemies, with Harry, invisible and paralysed, forced to watch, is an epic, heartrending scene.
But somebody else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly.
'Severus...'
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading...
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face. (p. 556)
You read that and you are convinced that Harry has been right all along about Severus Snape, that Dumbledore was wrong in trusting him. It is true and real and authentic and nothing is left out. As readers, we are right to read the scene that way. Just as we are right to read Snape's running battle (of spells and of words) with Harry later in the book as more clear evidence of Snape's hatred of Harry, his treachery toward Dumbledore and his loyalty to Voldemort.
It's spellbinding writing and absolutely right. And yet, as we find out at the end of book seven, our reading of it — which is fully justified every step of the way — is completely wrong. Snape is one of the good guys. Miraculously, when we reread these sections from book six, knowing the truth after reading book seven, we find that Rowling didn't cheat, that not one word is false. Once we know the truth of the situation, her descriptions of the original events ring just as true. We interpreted them in one way because Rowling has very adeptly led us to that interpretation — it is right for that time. But, as we discover when we go back to the scenes after reading the final novel, the truth is there too. We simply allowed her to lead us away from it.
Just like Harry, we distrusted Snape, we doubted Dumbledore. Just like Harry, we found out we were wrong.
And Rowling was right every step of the way.
That makes me think about what Snape would have been going through as he carried out Dumbledore's wishes up there on the tower. To honour the man, he had to killhim. His revulsion and hatred were not focused on Dumbledore as we originally believed but on the act of horror Snape has to carry out in order to live up to his word, to help out his friend.
So, sure, The Half-Blood Prince is not the most effective of the Harry Potter novels but, my goodness, it offers some magnificent writing.