Harry Potter and the Unexpected Apathy

I’m half way through Deathly Hallows – the Godric’s Hollow scene, for anyone who knows what that means – and I’m astonished to find ... I'm not that interested.

This is unprecedented. I’ll be the first to admit Harry Potter has never been great literature, but one thing it has always been good at is keeping the interest. After the first chapter of the first book – and I read this long before the hype with absolutely no idea what was to come – I couldn’t put it down. I broke a lifelong rule with Goblet of Fire and bought the hardback edition, as this was the first one where we all knew in advance someone was going to die and I guessed that if I waited for the paperback then I would have learnt who. (Once I did learn I felt distinctly let down.)

But for this one, I’ve suddenly got to the point of not really caring.

Could it be that the series has just banged on for too long? It could certainly have been over more quickly. Rowling chose to write a novel for every year of Harry’s secondary education – which just happens to match Muggle secondary education in the UK, i.e. there has to be seven books - but she could have done it in less. The fun thing about creating your own world is you make up your own rules.

Even if the series couldn’t have been got through more quickly, the books certainly could, and this might also be the reason. The first two books were short, concise and gripping. Thereafter a distinct lack of editing started to show. Rowling of course was under huge pressure just to get them written and her publishers were under ever more pressure to publish, and it shows. I’m sure she put as much professional time and effort into the last book as she put into the first, but the fact is, the process has been rushed. I’ll bet good money her later manuscripts didn’t come back with red ink all over them saying “this is long winded. Tighten it up.”

A very handy rule for writing is that you enter each scene as late as possible and leave as soon as you can. Don’t have someone open the door, walk into the room and start talking (unless of course you need it for tension or other purposes) - just have them start talking. Leave as much as possible to the reader’s imagination. A master of this is Dan Brown, which is why The Da Vinci Code was so unputdownable despite being Differently Good in many other respects.

Deathly Hallows, on the other hand, is constructed along the lines of “they did this. Then they did this. Then they did this.” Harry, Hermione and Ron spend a long time wandering aimlessly around the country with no fixed plan. And this is a good thing, in story terms, showing that they’re vulnerable and not superhuman and letting some interesting cracks develop in their relationship. But just because their experiences are long and wandering and aimless, doesn't mean the writing describing it has to be.

Still, there’s hope. The Godric’s Hollow bit had a pleasant twist and maybe things will start happening. I know we’re gearing up for a big battle with a last-scene-of-Hamlet-type casualty list. My prediction is that everyone dies except Dobby.

If I try very hard I can probably remember what I was doing for Christmas 1997 ...