Aug 12, 2003 11:10 PM
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(Updated Aug 12, 2003 11:19 PM)
Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses. ‘It is time,’ he said, ‘for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything.’
This paragraph has been the mainstay on the back of all editions of Harry Potter V in the market, and on reading it, one would be led to believe that Dumbledore is going to reveal an earth-shattering secret to Harry. No such luck though mayte, the hyped secret turns out to be a dud and its effect fizzles out before you can say ‘fizzle’.
Releasing the fifth part two years after the previous was, is bound to fill up the eager readers with a high sense of excitement and intrigue. Also, the news of her killing a favourite character of many readers only added to the anticipation.
In ‘Goblet of Fire’, Harry fought with Voldemort and lived to tell the tale, much to dismay of the dark lord. So, in ‘The order of the Phoenix’, Harry is kept confined at Pivet Drive, allowed only a miniscule contact with others of his kind, under the premise of his protection. Harry fears the day Voldemort will start his attack in the public, but with others refusing to divulge any information, it only serves to incense him and aggravate his mood further. Later when Harry reaches Hogwarts, he finds that the people of his world are not yet ready to believe that Voldemort is back and Harry finds his one-time friends now turned into foes.
In this book, Rowling depicts Harry, now 15, as an angst ridden, youthful kid. He is afflicted by all the symptoms of his impressionable age. Jealousy, rage, insubordination and even the travails of his hormonal heart are explored by her. Maybe she was trying to write her own ‘A catcher in the rye’, and no, that’s not a far-fetched comparison. Rowling is so anxious to show that Harry has grown up, she goes totally overboard in her attempts. Admitted that the script required this change in him, but how justified is it to remove one constant fixture in the previous four books, his kindness and love for his friends. In ‘The order of the Phoenix’, Harry is constantly angry, snapping and yelling at people. Not for an instant does one, feel sorry or want to empathize with Harry when he lands in any undesirable situation that he’s so famous for getting into.
The longest book so far proves to be Rowling’s undoing. The ‘Quidditch’ game description are nowhere near the ones in ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ or ‘Goblet of Fire’ and no character stays consistent enough for you to relate to. By the time you reach the part where one of our hero’s companion dies, one is so emotionally detached that you really feel like strangling Rowling, not for that he dies, but for the unceremonious way that he does after all the hoo ha. The climax is so predictable that one could successfully guess it half way through the book and neither does if offer that sense of elation and uninhibited happiness that one encountered in the last pages of previous books.
I am not taking anything away from Rowling. She’s a marvellous story-teller and this one isn’t different in that respect, she grabs your attention and doesn’t let it go until the last moment. The witticisms are there to make you laugh and so are new magical items and creatures to stretch your imagination. The thing to notice is that each of the 3 previous books built upon its predecessor but you couldn’t say that about ‘The Order of the Phoenix’. It just seems to be a stop-gap arrangement that Rowling resorted to for satiating a part of her fan’s hunger. Consequently, I wouldn’t ask you not to read it, but only for keeping up with the plot, the new connections that Rowling brings into the fold and the new events that occur in our hero’s life. Without reading the 5th, you just might get lost in the maze of the 6th that Rowling is in the process of contriving. Nevertheless, it’s not the right book if you are reading Harry Potter for the first time or if you aren't a hardcore fan, cause take it from me ‘The order of the Phoenix’ is a dead-brainer.
P.S: There is a fake ‘The Order of Phoenix’ doing the rounds of peer-to-peer networks on the net, albeit, it’s much more interesting, involving and inspiring.
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