The end of Harry Potter
Do you want to know who dies?” my friend from the
“Tell, and I’ll let my dog pee on your jeans,” I retorted. He had sent his jeans over because he wanted to have a pair custom-made.
With the seventh book out, the world of Harry Potter has come to an end, and for the excited reader, it’s impossible not to come across someone who would like to spoil it for you. One thus can’t help think of the most outrageous ways to keep Harry Potter party poopers at bay: J.K. Rowling didn’t make the books thick for nothing, after all.
Count me as among the throng who have the last installment, and part of the majority who have finished reading it. I didn’t reserve a copy months before its release since we Pinoys are not exactly Harry Potter and Rowling extremists. I felt there was no need to camp out outside the bookstore.
And my hunch was right. Stacks and stacks of the new Harry Potter were everywhere. There were neither queues, nor people dressed up in long robes wearing nerdy glasses, just ordinary Muggles holding the book nonchalantly, and walking away from the counter.
Holding the last book and opening its first page, I was suddenly shut out from reality (as had happened with the first six), only coming back to my senses when someone borrowed it for a while and read the last two chapters, while I was still on chapter two. That person then gave the book back with a devilish, “I-know-who-dies” grin.
Rowling definitely has a knack for making non-bookworms read, and one reason is that she writes with such clarity. I can get allergic to books; I tried reading this series about this vampire being interviewed and a book about a Japanese martial artist who committed hara-kiri, and I dozed off, just on the first page.
Rowling definitely gave her all in Deathly Hallows. Her fast-paced, rhythmic narrative style is another reason why millions don’t care if it’s
But it is not just the storytelling that is spellbinding. As Hank Green wrote in the New York Times, “We love Harry Potter because Harry’s universe is filled with the heavy, strong and close relationships that we genetically crave, but find it quite difficult to actually participate in these days. Those relationships appeal to children, of course — free from parents, undermining authority, earning the respect of their peers. But I don’t think many people suspected how much adults long for these simple, unquestioned, ‘childish’ relationships. There are no boarding schools for adults, nowhere for us to go and just be a part of something.”
I finished the book in a week. The ending was definitely something — though I won’t dare elaborate on further.
Harry Potter may not be everybody’s cup of tea but I have to say that it may be some time again before I come across a book again that will keep me up in the wee hours, identifying with its characters so much that you get depressed for days after one dies. And, of course, nothing beats the sight of your dog looking at you in a weird way as you laugh like a nitwit reading a book.
So I was able to finish the book, having successfully dodged a slew of Potter-poopers, and avoiding incidents of flying books hitting someone and sparing a friend’s jeans from being soaked in dog’s pee.
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E-mail the author at ketsupluis@yahoo.com.
