hallo, death!

[freckles_and_doubt]

I know I spend a lot of time fulminating about JK Rowling and her more or less dodgy writing abilities, but the fact remains, I've spent the last 24 hours bouncing about in happy expectation of the last Potter novel, largely unashamed to be acting like a fifteen-year-old girl. En route to Deathly Hallows collection at 8am this morning, I had that joyous anticipatory stomach-fluttering that you get when you wake up on your tenth birthday. (Or when you're about to head out for a hot date, an analogy I'd be happier to use if my copy had had the adult cover. However, since apparently the adult cover shipment to SA was inexplicably delayed, they're not yet available. Strange but true). I've now spent all morning on the sofa, forcing myself to read at a more or less seemly speed. All this points to the inevitable truth: Rowling may not craft the world's most deathless prose, but her world damned well pulls you in whether you like it or not.

I realise that many of you may not yet have acquired or read the book, and, with strawberryfrog's dire warning resounding in my ears, I shall cunningly conceal heavy spoilers behind the cut. Suffice it to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the book: it makes a far more coherent and logical thing out of the disparate elements of the series than I would have thought possible. It unleashes moments both of genuine pathos (tricky, when everyone's braced for multiple deaths) and neat plot twists, a phrase I'd never have thought I'd apply to Rowling.

• I just tried to explain the plot to my mother, and it's bloody complicated, what with all the mutual charm absorption, wand resonance and what have you. There's good stuff here, though, despite a tendency to over-elaborateness which precludes true elegance of plot at several points.
• Vindicated! most of my predictions came up - four out of five ain't bad - which suggests that Rowling is working within the rules without resorting to flashy, unlikely surprises. This was a good balance of predictable narrative payback with enough twists to be interesting, which is, I suppose, pretty much a working definition of successful formula fiction.
• The Deathly Hallows themselves seem to be a bit of a trademark Rowling introduced-at-the-last-moment McGuffin, although in typical style the device relies on long-embedded ideas, the Invisibility Cloak in particular almost from the word go. Generally speaking, the pleasure in having these motifs click into place - and Snape's motivations are particularly good example here - is a bit compromised by sneaking wish they'd been worked out over a longer time from earlier books.
• Harry's identity as the final Horcrux, however, is deeply satisfying and explanatory, and I enjoy the way in which Rowling plays with expectations of Harry's death. I always hoped she'd use Dumbledore's deliberate dying as another protective charm, it's pleasing to see her allow Harry to reproduce it. I have to say, though, I knew damned well he'd not be properly dead. The genre simply doesn't allow for it.
• I'm happy to see Snape get some narrative love, I knew he was loyal but doomed, and I always had my suspicions about his feelings for Lily. It's a particularly elegant explanation for his behaviour throughout.
• Redemptions all round! Not just Snape: I enjoyed Percy's return to the fold, and the faint humanisation of Dudley Dursley.
• Deaths which upset me: Dobby (it was sad!), Remus (I've always liked him), Tonks, Fred a bit, but I was more or less expecting a twin to buy it, and the careless sadism of the Weasley twins really needed some kind of slapdown. Interesting that so many of the important people who die - Remus, Snape, Moody, even Dumbledore - are also damaged and slightly tragic. Death here is always ameliorated: even the twin makes sense, there's a spare.
• Neville survived! I know I thought he'd die, but death, sudden heroism, same thing, really... *shuffles feet*
• Very happy to see Kreacher redeemed, the casual racism of the wizarding world has always bugged me.
• Loved the Ron/Hermione stuff, and the epic final battle at Hogwarts. Almost every fan fiction version of the final battle entails an epic clash at Hogwarts. It's narratively inevitable and very pleasing, and while I was reading I kept on thinking what fun the special effects people are going to have with it in the film.
• On a similar note, is it just me or does she keep on bloody well removing Harry's clothes? In icy streams, in post-death dreamworlds... Nothing like pandering to rampant naked-Radcliff-mania.
• I hated, loathed, despised and generally spit upon the epilogue. Trite, tired, obvious, unnecessary, twee. Bleah. And tending to suggest that, if she does write more books, they'll focus on the next generation, which would annoy the hell out of me. I want to see her version of Harry in Auror training, if only because I darkly suspect that it won't match up to an awful lot of fanfic.

So, there we have it. That was Harry Potter, that was. I am fascinated to see what Teh Internets, not to mention the academic community, are going to make of the thing as a whole. The more interesting question, though, is whether kids twenty years down the line are going to go all round-eyed at the thought that we were actually there for the book releases, or if they'll be all "Harry who?" My suspicions are towards the latter. I think the books aren't really interesting as literature so much as their identity as momentary iconage of the zeitgeist. They don't say as much about the Boy Who Lived as they do about the lives of his readers.