Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)
By J.K. Rowling (Bloomsbury)

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

This much anticipated addition to the Harry Potter series joins an army of fantasy books that have an annoying habit of ending with cliffhangers that lead into the next instalment. Although I was one of the first members of the public to touch a copy of the book (I was a volunteer on the Gleebooks 'Gleewarts' train on the release day) I hadn't a chance to read it until recently. And although I knew of the 'surprises' - Dumbledore dies, Snape is the half-blood Prince, Harry and Ginny get together, as do Ron and Hermione - I still found this sixth book a page-turner.

While the first three books in the series can be read on their own, each as a complete story, it is harder to understand 'Half-Blood Prince' without at least reading 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' (book five) because much of what occurs in 'Half-Blood Prince' relates to five's events, including the death of Harry's godfather Sirius Black.

Fans will already know of Harry Potter's arch enemy, Lord Voldemort, whose power is a growing threat to the wizarding community. Voldemort has ordered Draco Malfoy, Harry's school enemy, to kill Dumbledore to alleviate his displeasure with Draco's father Lucius. Severus Snape, former Potions master now Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, plays the double agent by retaining Dumbledore's trust while acting for the dark side ('Deatheaters'). He undertakes an oath to kill Dumbledore if Malfoy is unable to do so.

Harry returns to Hogwarts where a borrowed potions textbook with helpful amendments by the 'Half-Blood Prince' sees Harry excel at Potions, also helped by the fact that genial, social-climber Professor Slughorn replaces snarling Snape as Potions teacher. Though Hermione warns him to be cautious about using the book, Harry ignores her.

He also learns more about Tom Riddle, the man who was to become Voldemort, his family, his orphan upbringing and his tutelage at Hogwarts. Harry and Dumbledore endeavour to recover Voldemort's horcrux, an artefact containing a seventh of Voldemort's soul, in one of the more tense passages of the book only for Snape to kill Dumbledore when Malfoy hesitates upon Dumbledore's return to the school from the mission. Harry discovers that another wizard has already found the horcrux, replacing it with a fake.

In between all this, Rowling fills the pages with teen angst, adolescent romance and a dash of schoolyard rivalry including aforementioned coupling of main characters.

Got it so far? I don't usually give such extensive synopses in book reviews but needed to give a brief outline of the plot in order to share my experience of the book. While it's a killer plot and a page-turning read, I think Rowling has lost her grip on her characters. My ex-editor-in-chief once told me that the role of a writer was to invent characters that could live their own lives; 'Half-Blood Prince' reads too much like Rowling is forcing her characters to do or say things that she thinks conform to the "character" she wants them to be, rather than the ones we read and understand them as. Most obvious is Harry's insolence, which used to be justified assertion. While I don't expect him to be a paragon of exemplary behaviour, some of his retorts seemed contrived, like Rowling was forcing his behaviour to be worse than it probably is, maybe to emphasise the teen angst that partly underpins the novel.

The hormonal charge is not as obvious as negative publicity made it out to be. In fact, while there's some snogging going on there's really nothing more explicit than the crush that Harry realises he has on Ginny. Essentially most of the character development relates to Harry's growing loneliness. In the first few books he worked in a team with Ron and/or Hermione and with the Order of the Phoenix in the fifth book. Now, even though his friends are still by his side, his quest is to destroy Voldemort, a task he regards as his own in Dumbledore's absence. I can't predict where Rowling is going with this but I hope she isn't going to abandon some of the main characters in favour of somehow glorifying Harry's individual achievement even while acknowledging others' contributions. Harry isn't a particularly interesting character but as part of an ensemble he becomes more believable, more real.

Despite its size (607 pages in hardback) the book is well paced with Rowling showing an aptitude for tension and release, as throughout the school year Harry is plagued by two things - finding out what Malfoy is up to and gathering more information about Voldemort's past. Then there's the author's clumsy use of unconvincing reasoning such as Harry's repeated claims that Malfoy and Snape are up to no good (and the Order of the Phoenix's reasoning that he can't prove malevolence in Malfoy's deeds and that Snape is a double agent working for their side). The 'Harry claims, someone denies' situation gets a bit repetitive and you'd think that by now, after five previous books of Harry being right, that someone would listen to the boy.

All right, so I'm annoyed that I don't get to find out more about Voldemort's horcruxes and that the book ends on such a cliffhanger. Still worth a read if you've picked up the others, not that I'd need to tell you that - it's almost like preaching to the converted.

*** 1/2 - addictive plot handled competently but without absolute conviction