Don Harlow reviews Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

It would be easy to outline the plot, but really it doesn’t develop too much.

Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. 766 p. Bound. ISBN 0-7475-5100-6.

These books just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, which was to be expected because it took three years to bring this book out (compared to one year for each of the previous books in the series). Youthful readers of the series may build up their biceps by taking a break every ten pages and using the book as a dumbbell for exercises. ⁽¹⁾ Chris Columbus is talking about splitting The Goblet of Fire into two two-hour movies, released one month apart, because of the size of the book; this one will probably take three. Or perhaps they’ll simply turn the book over to Steven Spielberg, who will do a two-week TV miniseries a la Taken.

Harry is now 15, obviously going through puberty, full of teen-age angst and anger. After spending a summer virtually incommunicado, and sure that nobody is telling him anything (and indeed they aren’t), he is called up on charges of using magic off the school grounds (he was protecting himself and his unlovely cousin Dudley from a couple of dementors) and finds himself overlooked by the powers-that-be when Ron and Hermione, but not he, are made prefects for Gryffindor.

It would be easy to outline the plot, but really it doesn’t develop too much (we were all ready for the second war against Voldemort at the end of the last book; by the end of this one, a year later, it hasn’t really materialized yet, though most of the pieces are now in place; we spend a year of Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, attempting in every way possible to “make it didn’t happen”). Of more interest are the characters, their development and their interactions. Some of the Good Guys, including Harry’s late father, turn out not to be the paragons we might have expected; some of our favorite Bad Guys (most notably Severus, aka “Snivellus”, Snape) may have some justification for their enduring nastiness. Percy Weasley has turned, if not thoroughly bad, at least thoroughly bureaucratic. There are subplots around Ron Weasley’s attempt to become a keeper on the Gryffindor quidditch team, and around Hagrid’s return from his embassy to the giants. The Weasley twins use this book to turn into entrepreneurs.

My favorite new character (who may or may not reappear later) is Dolores Umbridge, probably the nastiest person to yet appear in the series, bar none; compared to her, IMHO, Lord Voldemort is a wuss. Selected to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, she ends up running the place, and gives the students plenty of reason and — probably not intentionally — latitude for rebellion. Though in the end she withdraws in ignominy, who knows, she could return later.

A few outside characters turn out to have hidden depths. As I guessed at the end of the last book, old Mrs. Figg, the lady with the cats who used to baby-sit Harry for the Dursleys, turns out to be more than she appeared — more than the Dursleys would have appreciated, had they known. And I loved the following passage in chapter 2:

“And what the ruddy hell are Dementors?” [asked Uncle Vernon Dursley]
“They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban,” said Aunt Petunia.

Two seconds of ringing silence followed these words before Aunt Petunia clapped her hand over her mouth as though she had let slip a disgusting swear word.

Aunt Petunia explains her slip, but not, again IMHO, very well, and I suspect that it would pay for us to find out more about Harry’s family background on the distaff side. Mrs. Figg, like Filch at Hogwarts, is a “squib” — slang term for ordinary person born into a wizarding family, if I’m not mistaken; I wonder now if Aunt Petunia might not be the same.

(And, by the way, she is wrong — as Dumbledore anticipated in the previous book, the dementors no longer guard Azkaban, which leads to some pretty severe complications toward the end of this book.)

The one thing that bothered me about the book was the recycling of the usual Hogwarts student attitude toward Harry — far too many of his fellow students tend to look at him askance, only to discover, at the end of the year, that they were wrong. This was the essence of the plot in Chamber of Secrets and it was fundamental to the plot of The Goblet of Fire — and now, here we are again. If I were teaching these kids, I would despair of their ever learning.

It is no secret that one of the “major characters” (I would, in fact, call this person a “secondary” character) dies at the end of the book. I won’t give his or her identity away, however.

This is a fun book, if you overlook Harry’s attacks of youthful choler and his aborted romance with Cho Chang, who — for a Ravenclaw — doesn’t always seem quite bright. ⁽²⁾ I read it more or less in one sitting.

By the way, according to the list of titles in the front of this book enthusiasts may order from the same publisher the Latin and Welsh editions of the first book in the series (Harry Potter et Philosophi Lapis and Harry Potter a Maen yr Athronydd respectively). What a temptation!

⁽¹⁾ The American version, from Scholastic Press, is better for this than the English version that I read, since it is a hundred pages longer as well as being taller and wider, though for some reason not quite as thick. Ah, the wonders of large type!

⁽²⁾ Still, when it comes to romance she’s far from the only one.

Don Harlow, June 25, 2003 09:50 PM

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