Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (HP6)

I am about a week late, but then better than never. So here goes. When I described HP as a wannabee TLOTR, a friend modified my descriptoin as a wannabee TLOTR meets Enid Blyton! That is perhaps the best characterization of HP6. The book describes HP6 in yet another fight against He who must not be be named! One of the reasons that Superman, Batman, etc survived is because the villains kept changing. It is not much fun if the hero doesn’t manage to finish off the villain, is there?! The saving grace is humour., There is enough of it, provided predictably by the Weasley twins with their UknowPoo and other practical jokes, several comic romantic encounters, what with this being the coming of age of HP himself. Rowling is not exactly blessed with fantastic prose and lame puns like “… really…” to a secretary named Verity do little to salvage her reputation.

HP6 also features several romances at Hogwarts. The title itself provides a much needed source of intrigue while you plough through 600+ pages of fiction, in addition to the now well marketed theme of “Who will die in HP6?” I figured out a little late in the day that there is going to be another book in the HP series precisely because Hogwarts is a 7 year course.

One can figure out the way the novel is shaping up due to reading countless other similar novels. The novel is really poor in terms of creativity and it shows. There is none of the stage setting that was around even in HP4. In fact the Quidditch matches with the underlying romance dominating the novel reminds one of Erich Segal more than HP. Overall the book is not worth the $15+ that a friend’s friend paid. But then if you need to keep up with the times, do read it.