The Goblet of Fire is a very enigmatic book, in some ways. Most notably, in my opinion it marks either the beginning of a much higher level of literary quality in the series, or the beginning of the collapse of the series. Maybe both.

For those who haven’t read the first books in the series, the subject is Harry Potter. Harry’s parents were killed by the evil wizard Voldemort when he was only a year old, but he somehow survived, with only a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead (and an occasional bad dream) to show for the experience; Voldemort came out in worse shape, and had to retire to the wilds of Albania. Harry was sent to the <sarcasm>loving care</sarcasm> of his maternal aunt and her family, the Dursleys. At age eleven he was informed of his magical background and introduced to the fact that in our world there are really two societies living side-by-side, a magical one and a mundane or “Muggle” one; the first is by-and-large disinterested in the second, and the second is by-and-large unaware of the first. Harry is sent off to a magical prep school, Hogwarts, somewhere in the wilds of magical England, and there has various adventures, most of which seem to have to do with the struggles of the disempowered and evil Voldemort to regain his powers and a dominant position in the magical society — something that will be good neither for the witches and wizards on the one side nor for the Muggles on the other.

The plan of the series is such that each book covers one year of Harry’s seven-year tour at Hogwarts; in this, the fourth book, he is entering his fourth year, a fact which you can also determine from the book’s spine, which carefully informs the passerby that this is “Year 4.” This year’s big event is the Triwizard Tournament (which doesn’t involve Quidditch, the magical supersoccer game at which Harry is so good), in which Harry finds himself enrolled despite the fact that he is too young and did not volunteer to participate.

There are differences from the earlier books, though. Harry is no longer a callow pre-teener, nor are his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger; he has grown, along with them, into a teenager, and the book reflects this. There is toilet humor (as on p. 201 where Ron Weasley cries out, in Divination class, when Lavender Brown finds an unaspected planet on the chart she is drawing: “Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?”). There is darkness; the book starts with a murder and ends after an even more painful one. There is political correctness (Hermione’s campaign to free the school’s house-elves). Harry even suffers the pangs of unrequited love (for Chang Cho, the fifth-year Ravenclaw Quidditch player who made her first appearance in the third book). ⁽¹⁾ And there is even more darkness, not just in this story but quite obviously a lot more to come in the future: Voldemort is really back, this time, and many of his former minions are returning to his service, including several that we’ve met in the past. The next few years promise to be very painful indeed. Frankly, this is not a book I would care to recommend to small children. In fact, at more than 700 pages, many of them couldn’t even pick it up, or at least hold it for long.

A minor kvetch: the Dursleys, Harry’s Muggle relatives, were very well developed in the first book, but have been terribly underused since. I would hope that Rowling has plans for them. Preferably, as they say, something lingering, perhaps with a touch of molten lead or boiling oil.

From my point of view, this is a much better book than any of the earlier ones. But ultimately, like the others in this children’s series, it’s a book for grownups — far more so than its predecessors.

⁽¹⁾ This is, of course, what we grown-ups patronizingly call “puppy love,” but I vaguely and uncomfortably remember that it can be just as painful as the more mature kind. I think that Rowling understands this, as well.

Hi, again, Don. Have you finished Order of the Phoenix, and / or Half-Blood Prince, yet? Things definitely get darker - teen angst in Phoenix evolves into adult angst. I won’t put any spoilers in this, but the series is definitely worth continuing. I think that the kids who grew up with it will be able to face their own teen and adult issues more rationally for having seen Harry succeed, and fail, and succeed.

I note especially how the students and teachers of Hogwarts manage when bureaucracy goes wrong. Some of the stuff reminds me of the McCarthy era.

Amike,
Koto