GOF and OOP

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 86467

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, mary santillo
<leetle_beetch at y...> wrote:
> Okay, this is going to sound ridiculous, but when I read the books
(I read them all last summer, when OOP came out) I thought that books
1-3 gracefully connected to one another. 
> 
> But is it me, or did JKR start hopping around after book 3? Because
it just didn't seem like book 4 and 5 connected to the story ( as in
the whole story).
> 
> Mary Santillo.

Carol: 
Maybe it was just the disorienting opening of GoF, where she shifts
the POV to a completely unknown character who ends up dead. If you're
expecting another summer with the Dursleys, that's quite as startling
to you as it was to Harry. I don't know about anyone else, but I found
it a refreshing change. The exposition about Harry being an unusual
boy who happened to have a lightning-shaped scar, etc., etc. was
getting pretty old, I thought. But after that the story returns to the
familiar pattern--his birthday, his friends, his return to Hogwarts.
OoP disrupts the usual pattern in a different way, by introducing 12
Grimmauld Place (and it does spend rather a lot of time there), but
after that the only structural difference is the repeated dream
sequences involving the door, which picks up on the dream motif
established in GoF. 

Is that what you mean? Or is it the difference in tone (darker because
innocent people die) or the changing characters, who after all are
growing up even if they weren't facing dark times and unusual
challenges? Did you feel that there wasn't enough teamwork in GoF,
which was more Harry-focused than the other books, or that there were
too many new characters?

Anyway, I don't feel that the story is hopping around, but it is
becoming more complex, and I only hope that JKR keeps a close eye on
all her plot threads. 

I'd recommend a rereading of the whole series in sequence if you can
find the time; if not, just books 1-3. If not, the FAQs and Lexicon
may be helpful.

Carol