Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a heavy book. And its not just size that I am talking about.
And it is dark.
I suppose after killing of Cedric in ’’Goblet of Fire’’, Rowling has crossed the Rubicon, in a way. However, the death of a loved character here is not completely explainable. He could have lived you know. Nor was there any need for the murky darkness of adolescence, so well characterized by number 12Grimmauld Place. But then teenage is like that.
Harry is growing up. No longer is he the mild, meek underfed ’’strange’’ child who makes his entrance in ’’The philosophers stone’’. Its all there: the first crush, the first rebuff, the coming to terms with that bugaboo called Destiny.
And the heaviness of the book is not off set by any ’’action’’ in the real sense. But then anything after the resurrection of the Dark Lord is somewhat of an anticlimax. And maybe Harry’s Destiny while momentous to him, is not so entirely unknown.
Clearly something more gripping is required.
Do we wait for ’’Harry Potter and the half blood prince’’ for that?