Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Breach In The Wall
Written: Jun 21 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Worth the three-year wait, if only just.
Cons: The book is far too long.
The Bottom Line: Delightful fun for fans of the series, but simply doesn't measure up to previous efforts. Overlong and tedious in spots.
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| CurtisEdmonds's Full Review: J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the ... |
The first thing that you need to know is that the new Harry Potter book is long. How long is it? If it were any longer, it would be a Tom Clancy boxed set. Seriously. This is a stunningly long book. It's overseas-flight length, padded through and through with extra exposition. Holding the book for the hours it takes to read it should result in an outbreak of adolescent carpal tunnel syndrome. If the book were any thicker, it would have voted for Pat Buchanan in Palm Beach County.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the book where J.K. Rowling finally succumbs to the great curse of science fiction and fantasy authors; having created a brave new world of myth and legends, she is forced to return to it again and again until the story is drained of vitality and excitement. Anyone who has tried to bull their way through the Silmarillion or the Dune sequels or the new Orson Scott Card book will realize the symptoms.
The only great mystery is why it hasn't happened before now, really.
Only a few things have happened to make Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix fall a step behind its predecessors, but they are decisive. The first element is not the book's length -- although it is, as I think I have mentioned, very long -- it is the near-fatal lack of editing. What has happened here is obvious; Rowling has not been served well by her editor, if any such being exists. There is simply too much detail, too much exposition, too much stuff everywhere, huge swatches of which could have been excised without loss. The hand-wringing from the students about their advanced-placement tests, for one thing, is a bit overwhelming, and nobody needs Hermione Granger reminding them to do homework on every other page. (She says this enough times that I felt guilty about not starting my new law review article, almost.)
What has been added is not necessarily the point, unfortunately. (True fans of the series -- including your humble obedient servant hereabouts -- will read and enjoy, no matter the length of the book, which as I believe I said, is very long indeed.) What has been taken out, though, is even more sorely missed. Rowling has stated that the fifth book in the series is to be "darker" than the others, which is quite true, but what has been lost almost entirely is the rare and -- if I may say so -- magical sense of humor and whimsy that so animated the previous books. There simply aren't any fun classes, no clever riddles to solve, no mischievious misadventures. And the Quidditch isn't that great, either.
All of this sounds like one complaint after another. Which, so far, is exactly what it is. The problem, of course, is that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix simply has to be judged by the overwhelming excellence of its predecessors. By that high and lofty standard, it falls a little short, just within the area where complaints can begin to accrue. Each of the books, so far, has been slightly better than the one before; this one breaks that pattern. If Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is weaker than its predecessors, that only detracts slightly from its glory, only makes it slightly less readable. The book is still -- just -- worth the three-year wait, still full of danger and intrigue and magic, still worth your while and the while of the younger ones around you.
But it is, as I have said, very very long.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix begins in the classic style, with Harry Potter in Privet Drive, smothering under the baleful influence of the Dursley tribe. He is seeking any news at all of the coming war between the wizards loyal to the side of goodness and the Death Eaters of You-Know-Who. The reappearance of Lord Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has opened, Rowling tells us, a "breach in the wall" between the magical world and the mundane Muggle world. It is the recurrent theme of the book; walls are being breached everywhere, causing all sorts of unlikely splits and alliances.
The first breach never truly comes to pass; You-Know-Who and his followers do not start going on wild anti-Muggle rampages or anything like that (despite the curious appearance of two dementors on Harry's suburban street). They are instead biding their time (and considering the length of the book, a very long time indeed) until a secret deep within the Ministry of Magic can be revealed.
The second major breach is between Harry and the adult world. After the standard row with the Dursleys, Harry is taken into the keeping of the Order of the Phoenix, the revitalized band of witches and wizards, headed by Albus Dumbledore, sworn to oppose the rising of the Dark Order. Harry is, to a limited extent, in on the concerns of the adult fighters. But although the wall is breached, it still stands tall, and Harry is constantly frustrated by the refusal of Dumbledore and Sirius Black to take him into their counsel, to explain why his life at Hogwarts has been so threatened so often, and what, if anything, can be done about it.
The third major breach is the one that erupted between Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic (which we get to visit for the first time). The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is one Dolores Umbridge, a vain, meddling bureaucrat, who seems to be determined that no one ever learn anything of any importance. (What humor there is in the book is at her expense, and although she richly deserves it, there are other targets out there.) Umbridge takes more and more power away for herself in terms of teacher evaluation and grading; it's a nasty satire on educational politics but oddly out of place.
Another major breach is one that is always there, but more deeply than others; the breach between Harry and his classmates. Harry is once again the target of a whispering campaign, which manages to alienate some enemies further and even drive friends apart. The more he insists that You-Know-Who is back, the more separated he is from all but his most loyal friends. (And of those friends, loyalty is their one identifying trait much anymore.) The breach is even widening between Harry and Cho Chang, who can't seem to get past the memory of Cedric Diggory to form a romantic relationship.
But the final breach, and the most deadly, is in Harry's mind. His bizarre connection to Lord Voldemort through the curse that failed continues, and grows stronger, to the point where Harry is having to do most of his battles against evil in his dreams.
Given all these breaches, what is important is Harry find some way around them, figure out some way to overcome the problems he faces. Unfortunately, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has no sense of mission; we're kept in the dark so long about so many things that there is never one single narrative thread (the hunt for the Sorceror's Stone, the defeat of the basilisk, the identity of Sirius Black, the Triwizard Tournament) to keep things moving and focused. There are simply too many things to keep track of, simply too much going on, for there to be any real focus. And even though some of the extraneous threads (Hagrid's mission, the new Divination teacher, the ongoing activities of the House Elf Liberation Front) help tie things together at the end, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is still, overall, something of a sprawling, undisciplined mess.
Having said that, and having come up with a litany of complaints, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is still outstanding children's literature. Rowling has done nothing to alienate her fans; she has not lost her ear for dialogue or her narrative gifts. One would wish, though, that there was a little more self-discipline, a little more ruthless pruning of the branches of the story, a little more editorial courage, and a little less of the things that make the book slightly -- but substantially -- less enjoyable than its predecessors.
There is more to say, of course, on the positive side, but that would give too much away. And like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix itself, this review is already far, far, too long.
Recommended:
Yes
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CurtisEdmonds
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Member: Curtis Edmonds
Location: Trenton, New Jersey
Reviews written: 88
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