June 21, was a bright sunny morning and I was among the
first of the customers to pick up my pre-ordered copy of the **Harry Potter and
the Deathly Hallows**.
An avid reader, I have read and re-read all the HP books *(absolute
sucker for HP!)* and had been waiting for the last book in the series with nail
biting, apprehension. How will Rowling wrap it all up was what I kept
wondering- there were just too many loose threads… Amazing storyteller that she
is, Rowling did a brilliant job of winding it all up neatly, perfectly.
I could hardly put down the book- every chapter had
something big happening, details were laid out, older mysteries were revealed,
new sub-plots introduced(the three hallows), characters were made more
dimensional, (Snape’s), relationships were explored etc. Un-putdownable.
Rowling’s characters have always been extremely rounded and
real – the readers feel every emotion the characters go through and can find
themselves very close to each. Harry’s trauma has been ours, his fears we have lived,
and we have suffered his anguish. I had lived through Hermione’s heartache for
Ron and Harry’s for Ginni.
Rowling takes us all there with her books and we are all
transformed into witches and wizards in our own world far away from muggles and
boring non-magic people.
The way she weaves her stories is simply amazing. One cannot
help but be glued to her books.
The last chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sure
is a little too sugary for Rowling’s standards(she’s brutally slaughtered too
many people in her series)- maybe she gave in to the pressure and made the end
suit popular demand. I, for one, would have surely killed her if anything bad
happened to Harry. It took me a long time to forgive her for slaying Dumbledore
and Sirius.(Imagine the kind of power Rowling’s writing holds- we- her readers,
are extremely close to all the fictional characters she’s made up in the last
decade.)
We’d always distrusted Snape and wondered about his ulterior
motives all along and in the second last book in the series, you grow to
actually hate him. In this last book however, thinking of Snape and his
selfless love for Lily made me weep for hours. I actually loved him in it. To
think he did all that for the one single love of his life – I am such a
die-hard romantic that I couldn’t help eulogizing him.
The HP movies aren’t even an iota of what the books are, yet,
they are till date, the highest Box Office grossers ever in the history of
cinema, beating the James Bond and Star Wars series.(And there are still two
more HP movies to go)
If you are a virgin to HP series then I think it would be
unwise to read this book first. Read the previous ones and then I can bet you
will love The Deathly Hallows.
I had scoffed at the HP series at first(a few years back)
calling it over-hyped wizard tales and children’s story book etc when I first
heard about them. But once I got reading Rowling made me eat my words - I
worship her now.