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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling |
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Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Terror I did not attend one of the bookstore
events to pick up a copy of Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at midnight on July 16, but I was
curious to see what happened to Harry and friends at Hogwarts, and started
reading on July 18 and was finished within a few days. Chances are one of the
millions of copies of this book is handy for your retrieval and reading, so
you may as well get to it. Half-Blood
Prince is a darker book than the earlier ones, and as Harry matures, he
deals with more complicated emotions and problems, and his relationships are
more interesting as a result. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning
of Chapter Four, “Horace Slughorn,” pp. 57-65: Despite the fact that he
had spent every waking moment of the past few days hoping desperately that
Dumbledore would indeed come to fetch him, Harry felt distinctly awkward as
they set off down Dumbledore, however,
seemed completely relaxed. “Keep your wand at the
ready, Harry,” he said brightly. “But I thought I’m not
allowed to use magic outside school, sir?” “If there is an attack,”
said Dumbledore, “I give you permission to use any counterjinx
or curse that might occur to you. However, I do not think you need worry
about being attacked tonight.” “Why not, sir?” “You are with me,” said
Dumbledore simply. “This will do, Harry.” He came to an abrupt halt
at the end of “You have not, of course,
passed your Apparition Test,” he said. “No,” said Harry. “I
thought you had to be seventeen?” “You do,” said
Dumbledore. “So you will need to hold on to my arm very tightly. My left, if
you don’t mind — as you have noticed, my wand arm is a little fragile at the moment.” Harry gripped
Dumbledore’s proffered forearm. “Very good,” said
Dumbledore. “Well, here we go.” Harry felt Dumbledore’s
arm twist away from him and redoubled his grip; the next thing he knew,
everything went black; he was being pressed very hard from all directions; he
could not breathe, there were iron bands tightening around his chest; his eyeballs
were being forced back into his head; his eardrums were being pushed deeper
into his skull and then — He
gulped great lungfuls of cold night air and opened
his streaming eyes. He felt as though he had just been forced through a very
tight rubber tube. It was a few seconds before he realized that “Are you all right?”
asked Dumbledore, looking down at him solicitously. “The sensation does take
some getting used to.” “I’m fine,” said Harry,
rubbing his ears, which felt as though they had left Dumbledore smiled, drew his traveling
cloak a little more tightly around his neck, and said, “This way.” He set off at a brisk pace, past an
empty inn and a few houses. According to a clock on a nearby church, it was
almost midnight. “So tell me, Harry,” said Dumbledore.
“Your scar. . . has
it been hurting at all?” Harry raised a hand unconsciously to
his forehead and rubbed the lightning-shaped mark. “No,” he said, “and I’ve been wondering
about that. I thought it would be burning all the time now Voldemort’s getting so powerful again.” He glanced up at Dumbledore and saw
that he was wearing a satisfied expression. “I, on the other hand, thought
otherwise,” said Dumbledore. “Lord Voldemort has
finally realized the dangerous access to his thoughts and feelings you have
been enjoying. It appears that he is now employing Occlumency
against you.” “Well, I’m not complaining,” said
Harry, who missed neither the disturbing dreams nor the startling flashes of
insight into Voldemort’s mind. They turned a corner, passing a
telephone box and a bus shelter. Harry looked sideways at Dumbledore again.
“Professor?” Harry? “Er — where exactly are we?” “This, Harry, is the charming “And what are we doing here?” “Ah yes, of course, I
haven’t told you,” said Dumbledore. “Well, I have lost count of the number of
times I have said this in recent years, but we are, once again, one member of
staff short. We are here to persuade an old colleague of mine to come out of
retirement and return to Hogwarts.” “How can I help with
that, sir?” “Oh, I think we’ll find a
use for you,” said Dumbledore vaguely. “Left here, Harry.” They proceeded up a
steep, narrow street lined with houses. All the windows were dark. The odd
chill that had lain over “Professor, why couldn’t
we just Apparate directly into your old colleague’s
house?” “Because it would be
quite as rude as kicking down the front door,” said Dumbledore. “Courtesy
dictates that we offer fellow wizards the opportunity of denying us entry. In
any case, most Wizarding dwellings are magically
protected from unwanted Apparators. At Hogwarts,
for instance —“ “—
you can’t Apparate
anywhere inside the buildings or grounds,” said Harry quickly. “Hermione
Granger told me.” “And she is quite right.
We turn left again.” The church clock chimed
midnight behind them. Harry wondered why Dumbledore did not consider it rude
to call on his old colleague so late, but now that conversation had been established,
he had more pressing questions to ask. “Sir, I saw in the Daily
Prophet that Fudge has been sacked. . . “Correct,” said
Dumbledore, now turning up a steep side street. “He has been replaced, as I
am sure you also saw, by Rufus Scrimgeour, who used
to be Head of the Auror office.” “Is he. . . Do you think he’s good?” asked Harry. “An interesting question,” said
Dumbledore. “He is able, certainly. A more decisive and forceful personality
than Cornelius.” “Yes, but I meant —“ “I know what you meant. Rufus is a man
of action and, having fought Dark wizards for most of his working life, does
not underestimate Lord Voldemort.” Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not
say anything about the disagreement with Scrimgeour
that the Daily Prophet had reported, and he did not have the nerve to
pursue the subject, so he changed it. “And. . . sir. . . I
saw about Madam Bones.” “Yes,” said Dumbledore quietly. “A
terrible loss. She was a great witch. Just up here, I think — ouch.” He had pointed with his injured hand. “Professor, what happened to your — ?“ “I have no time to explain now,” said
Dumbledore. “It is a thrilling tale, I wish to do it
justice.” He smiled at Harry, who understood that
he was not being snubbed, and that he had permission to keep asking questions. “Sir — I got a Ministry of Magic leaflet by
owl, about security measures we should all take against the Death Eaters. . . “Yes, I received one myself,” said
Dumbledore, still smiling. “Did you find it useful?” “Not really.” “No, I thought not. You have not asked
me, for instance, what is my favorite flavor of jam, to check that I am
indeed Professor Dumbledore and not an impostor.” “I didn’t.. .“ Harry began, not
entirely sure whether he was being reprimanded or not. “For future reference, Harry, it is raspberry. . . although
of course, if I were a Death Eater, I would have been sure to research my own
jam preferences before impersonating myself.” “Er . . . right,” said Harry. “Well, on that
leaflet, it said something about Inferi. What
exactly are they? The leaflet wasn’t very clear.” “They are corpses,” said Dumbledore
calmly. “Dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a Dark wizard’s bidding. Inferi have not been seen for a long time, however, not
since Voldemort was last powerful. . . . He killed enough people to make an army
of them, of course. This is the place, Harry, just here. . . They were nearing a small, neat stone
house set in its own garden. Harry was too busy digesting the horrible idea
of Inferi to have much attention left for anything else,
but as they reached the front gate, Dumbledore stopped dead and Harry walked
into him. “Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear.” Harry followed his gaze up the
carefully tended front path and felt his heart sink. The front door was
hanging off its hinges. Dumbledore glanced up and down the
street. It seemed quite deserted. “Wand out and follow me, Harry,” he
said quietly. He opened the gate and walked swiftly
and silently up the garden path, Harry at his heels, then pushed the front
door very slowly, his wand raised and at the ready. “Lumos.” Dumbledore’s wand tip ignited, casting
its light up a narrow hallway. To the left, another door stood open. Holding
his illuminated wand aloft, Dumbledore walked into the sitting room with
Harry right behind him. A scene of total
devastation met their eyes. A grandfather clock lay splintered at their feet,
its face cracked, its pendulum lying a little
farther away like a dropped sword. A piano was on its side, its keys strewn
across the floor. The wreckage of a fallen chandelier glittered nearby.
Cushions lay deflated, feathers oozing from slashes in their sides; fragments
of glass and china lay like powder over everything. Dumbledore raised his
wand even higher, so that its light was thrown upon the walls, where something
darkly red and glutinous was spattered over the wallpaper. Harry’s small
intake of breath made Dumbledore look around. “Not pretty, is it?” he
said heavily. “Yes, something horrible has happened here.” Dumbledore moved
carefully into the middle of the room, scrutinizing the wreckage at his
feet. Harry followed, gazing around, half-scared of what he might see hidden
behind the wreck of the piano or the overturned sofa, but there was no sign
of a body. “Maybe there was a fight
and — and they dragged
him off, Professor?” Harry suggested, trying not to imagine how badly
wounded a man would have to be to leave those stains spattered halfway up the
walls. “I don’t think so,” said
Dumbledore quietly, peering behind an overstuffed armchair lying on its side. You mean he’s —? “Still here somewhere?
Yes.” And without warning,
Dumbledore swooped, plunging the tip of his wand into the seat of the
overstuffed armchair, which yelled, “Ouch!” “Good evening, Horace,” said
Dumbledore, straightening up again. Harry’s jaw dropped. Where a split
second before there had been an armchair, there now crouched an enormously
fat, bald, old man who was massaging his lower belly and squinting up at
Dumbledore with an aggrieved and watery eye. “There was no need to stick the wand in
that hard,” he said gruffly, clambering to his feet. “It hurt.” The wandlight
sparkled on his shiny pate, his prominent eyes, his enormous, silver, walruslike mustache, and the highly polished buttons on
the maroon velvet jacket he was wearing over a pair of lilac silk pajamas.
The top of his head barely reached Dumbledore’s chin. “What gave it away?” he grunted as he
staggered to his feet, still rubbing his lower belly. He seemed remarkably
unabashed for a man who had just been discovered pretending to be an
armchair. “My dear Horace,” said Dumbledore,
looking amused, “if the Death Eaters really had come to call, the Dark Mark
would have been set over the house.” The wizard clapped a pudgy hand to his
vast forehead. “The Dark Mark,” he muttered. “Knew there was something ah
well. Wouldn’t have had time anyway, I’d only just put the finishing touches
to my upholstery when you entered the room.” He heaved a great sigh that made the
ends of his mustache flutter. “Would you like my assistance clearing
up?” asked Dumbledore politely. “Please,” said the other. They stood back to back,
the tall thin wizard and the short round one, and waved their wands in one
identical sweeping motion. The furniture flew back
to its original places; ornaments reformed in midair, feathers zoomed into
their cushions; torn books repaired themselves as they landed upon their
shelves; oil lanterns soared onto side tables and reignited; a vast
collection of splintered silver picture frames flew glittering across the
room and alighted, whole and untarnished, upon a desk; rips, cracks, and
holes healed everywhere, and the walls wiped themselves clean. As the excerpt shows, Harry’s
relationship with Dumbledore matures in The
Half-Blood Prince. There’s terror throughout the wizarding
world, thanks to Voldemort’s evil, and Harry faces
that evil and learns again that things don’t always turn out well. Steve Hopkins,
July 25, 2005 |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the August 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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