We’re done — Prairie finished her copy mere minutes before I finished mine.
In brief — we approve. Highly.
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July 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 am
I would have too, if it hadn’t been for the risible epilogue. It seems lasting happiness can only be achieved as part of a heterosexual married couple with children. A real shame after the rest of the book was such a great return to form.
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:08 am
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the epilogue. Personally, I found it a sweet and very fitting way to wrap up the story and see our heroes off.
I think you’re over politicizing things, but if it’s just the epilogue that disappoints you, feel free to pull it out of your copy and write your own — there’s plenty of blank pages there for you to use to ‘ship’ whoever you like (perhaps Harry and Draco finally confess their hidden love, adopt an orphaned wizarding child and move to San Francisco?). Myself, I’m sticking with what Rowling saw fit to give us.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:11 am
Michael, I’m in full agreement with you! I will admit I struggled a bit with the book toward the middle, but I’ll blame that on my excitement to get to the end and find out what happened. When everything unfolded the way it did, I was astounded and so pleased with everything. What a fabulous read!
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 am
Yay! I am so glad that someone I know finished the book. I thought the 7th book was brilliant! I admit that the middle part began to try my nerves, however, the spectacular ending was worth it. I think the most touching part of the book (and there were many) was Snape. I always liked that character, regardless of what decisions and actions he made. From the way she wrote it, I have a feeling that Rowling felt close to him too, like an old friend. What a horrible and yet honorble way to say goodbye to him. Can’t wait to hear what others think once they catch up with us.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Sarcastically, Andy said, “It seems lasting happiness can only be achieved as part of a heterosexual married couple with children.”
I think most of Michael’s readers (including myself) will agree that there are in reality many ways to achieve happiness. In the situation of Harry Potter though, let’s think about the character’s life and the things he values before we judge J.K Rowling’s decision to have him marry and have children. He’s a boy who was orphaned before he got to know his own parents, who was raised by a family of people who didn’t love him and treat him as their own. He grew up wishing he could have these things. When he forms a relationship with Ron at Hogwarts, one of the things he really envies is Ron’s large, close family. We also learn during the Hogwarts years that he is straight, so it would have been quite a switch for him to end up with a man in the end.
The character of Ginny is raised in a large family, to whom she is very close, so it makes sense to me that she would want to get married and have a large family herself. Given the values of the Weasley family (note that Fleur and Bill choose to get married in spite of how “cool” Bill is with his long hair and earring, that the Weasley parents have been married for years, and that in all houses where Ron, Hermione, and Harry stay on their quest the young people are separated by gender when they go to bed), it makes sense that Ginny and Harry would choose to marry instead of living together.
Oh—and let’s not forget that the target market for these books is still children, however many adults such as ourselves might read them too. J.K. Rowling couldn’t exactly end it with “Harry and Ginny shacked up together, had lots of sex, and smoked some wizard pot,” could she? And given that people like to know “what happened next,” no matter where a writer chooses to end the story, I think J.K. Rowling was being pretty nice by giving us a glimpse into the future to reassure us that Harry is finally happy, and to let us know that he has the family he always wanted to have.
Now, on to something else: I completely agree with Jill that one of the most touching parts of the book is Snape’s story. I maintained throughout the series, even after he killed Dumbledore, that Snape was not a bad guy. Snape’s final chapter was one of the places I cried the most as I was reading Deathly Hollows.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Wow, Prairie’s response sounds like an English Literature whiz!! While my hair was being worked on yesterday I talked to Amanda about you two getting your own copies of books and reading them simultaneously when the last book came out. Little did I know it was READING day — not having been on-line for a week. Think of us tomorrow night. (I’m borrowing Dad’s email account.) Mom
August 1st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I can report that there are more books for the fans to read - if they can read Chinese.
“Chinese writers and their fans are not having it with the idea that the seventh installment is the last word in the best-selling series, either. No one can say with any certainty what the full tally is, but there are easily a dozen fake Harry Potters on the market here already, and that is counting only bound versions of the mystery/adventure stories that are sold on street corners and can even be found in school libraries. Still more versions exist online.
“Although they may bear her name, the proliferation of Harry Potter books here has nothing in common with the originator of the series, the British author J.K. Rowling, save for the appropriation of her famous characters’ names….
“Wang Lili, editor of the China Braille Publishing House, which published ‘Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll’ in 2002, one of the numerous knockoffs here, said: ‘We published the book out of a very common incentive. Harry Potter was so popular that we wanted to enjoy the fruits of its widely accepted publicity in China.’
“The attitude reflected in Wang’s comment goes a long way toward explaining not only the explosion of unauthorized Harry Potter literature in China, but also the much larger problem of rampant piracy in China, where travelers can find six different knockoffs of Viagra - without prescription - on display at airport drugstores, and where fake DVDs, fake Picassos, fake bottled water, fake cellphones and even near-identical copies of automobile models are widely available.”