<I>“Crime Master Gogo” stood outside the bookstore (one of the many at Indooropilly) on a hot summer day, twiddling his huge thumbs and shifting his (elephantine) weight from one leg to another alternatively…waiting for something important. No, it wasn’t for an earthquake (though its probability wasn’t remote considering his fidgety movements and impatient foot stomping)!</I>
That was my train of thoughts on June 21, 2003, the day “Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix” was officially released. Fortunately, the bookstore opened shortly thereafter and Gogo got a copy of his coveted “Bible”. He was doubly fortunate that he could bite, nibble and gulp the entire book within a short span of 8 hours though the REAL post-mortem results oh his chewing exercise are still eagerly awaited.
On the other side of the globe, Cheeky was unfortunate because he didn’t get a copy of the book till a good 2 weeks had passed and when he finally did, he bit, spat, nibbled and ultimately puked it all out. The effects were so life-threatening that Cheeky took an entire month to recover and present this post-mortem report.
The first thing that struck me on completing the book was that had JK Rowling become such a larger-than-life writer that her publishers (Bloombury) were terminally scared of offending her by asking her to cut down the book by a good 100 pages or so? She had done a terrific job of the series thus far, be it in terms of character development or plot enhancement. All those ingredients that she put into the earlier 4 books which made them so endearing have been clearly tossed out of the window.
<b>The Story</b>
“The Goblet of Fire” ends on an engaging note which heralds the return of Voldemort to all his former glory. Whatever hopes I had harboured of this book to continue the terrific flow of story were dashed against the most craggy tors and smashed into smithereens.
The story (once again) begins off at Privet Drive with Hari Puttar impatiently waiting for the latest news bulletin on Voldemort. As expected, none comes his way and he’s soon forced to commit magic in Muggle land that lands him in front of a full Congressional Committee sitting of the “Ministry of Magic” to explain his (mis)deeds.
Meanwhile, Cornelius Fudge (the minister of magic) refuses to believe either Prof. Deshpande (Dumbledore) or Hari that Vishwavinashak (Voldemort) is back so that JKR can write a 700-odd page epic and make tons of money on it. An inevitable split happens and Dumbledore, Prof. Lupin, Sirius Black, Prof. Snape and Mad Eye Moody set up the “Order of the Phoenix” to combat against Voldemort and his horde of dementors.
Back at school, the students are terrified of the repercussions of Voldemort’s return. Its Hari’s 5th year at school where he has to appear for his OWLs (roughly akin to 10th class board exams) and the pressures of being the central hero who woos a heroine, plays Quidditch, teaches magic on the sly (all this when he’s not getting mad at those around him) begin to affect him adversely.
Reams and reams later, the final confrontation happens but the obvious doesn’t happen because there are still 2 books to be written in this series. So there’s no point in finishing off the story here.
<b>Thus Spake Cheeky</b>
Plot - At the end of the last book, the story was halted at a very delicate point and held a lot of promise. There were also indications that our young “Mandrake” was becoming more mature. A lot of eerie occurrences were brought to light and the loose ends were being tied up. With all the previous episodes being concluded, the re-emergence of Voldemort and the possibility of a grand finale between the good and evil was on the cards, or that’s what I thought.
Sadly, the pace of the story here is slower than that of an arthritic snail. I had a feeling of often plodding my way through inconsequential characters and events, which, in more cases than not, only add to the bulk of the book but not the story.
Characters - JKR does a good job of developing the characters of Neville Longbottom, Ron and the Weasley twins, Ginny and Luna Lovegood (new character). Unfortunately, the old characters like Hermione, Hagrid (he first appeared when I was yawning for the 1217th time) Sirius Black, Snape, Lupin, Moody, etc are not even touched. The wonderful bond built up between Hari and Sirius “Kaala” in the last 2 books simply dissipates. That enigmatic aura around Sirius turns into a disgusting sense of irritation. Hari, on the other hand, continues to show his indefatigable ability of not maturing and snaps at anyone and everyone on every other page.
Objectivity – The earlier books had decent storylines, were developed well and always culminated in a finale that was spell-binding. For a major portion of this book, Hari doesn’t know what’s going on outside “Hogwash”. Clearly, both Dumbledore and JKR had no time to spare. When he finally gets to meet Dumbledore, he gets mad and shouts at him (don’t they teach good manners at “Hogwash”?). Had I got a chance to meet JKR, I would have done exactly the same thing.
The basic problem with this book is all the marketing hype it got. I think JKR must have decided on a few elementary surprises even before she got down to writing the book. The most shocking aspect is the death of one main character. Just as I thought that that particular character had a lot of scope and coverage in the forthcoming books, he/she is bumped off and the manner in which it happens is totally devoid of any imagination or common sense.
On careful scrutiny, JKR shows a tendency to repeat profusely in this book. It clearly shows in the language, description of places and events, dialogues between various characters and the humour which has been hashed and rehashed a hundred thousand times in the 5 books so far. One thing I enjoyed in previous books was the Q&A session between Dumbledore and Hari towards the end of the book. This time, there’s nothing to offer and D’dore explains for the nth time why Hari is safe from Voldemort in muggle land but it’s a pretty confusing and unconvincing reply and pray, if 2 dementors can be sent there to take out Hari, what stops Voldemort from doing the same himself?
Phew! The longest book I had read prior to this was “Gone with the Wind” and it has more than a 1000 pages. Though JKR is not nearly as intellectually engaging as Margaret Mitchell was, each copy of “Order of the..” takes up a shocking 780 or so pages for which so many trees must have been slaughtered. By the time JKR is through with the final book in this series, am sure all those unicorns, spiders and other poor creatures that live in the “Enchanted Forest” will be rendered homeless.
This is the worst book of the series…even worse than the second book. What say, Crime Master Gogo? I’d recommend it for hardcore aficionados..just to keep up with the tempo of the series...definitely not on a stand-alone basis.