[HPforGrownups] The Unpopular Second Book

[yellows at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 60816

In a message dated 6/16/2003 9:12:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, Michael writes:

> The opinion of most Potheads (my brother's name for HP fans)is that 
> the Chamber of Secrets is the worst of the series (so far). 
> Why is 
> this. 

There are a number of inconsistencies in CoS, though I don't think it's by any means a *bad* book. It does worry me quite a bit, though, to hear reports that it's JKR's favorite. I think it points to a possible weakness in her writing that she is completely unaware of. I hope this is not the case. In fact, I tend to think it *isn't* the case, because her writing is frequently so wonderful.

The big let-down of CoS, I find, is the "cheat" at the end, with Tom Riddle ending up to be Voldemort. Throughout CoS, to the best of my memory (still have the first three loaned out), we work with just the name Tom Riddle. We never get the middle name. Now, no matter how many ways you arrange the letters in T-O-M-R-I-D-D-L-E, you'll never, ever, ever get Lord Voldemort. 

When you're writing a mystery or planting a mystery into your fantasy novel, you're signing a contract with your reader that the all the necessary clues are given. Your reader *won't* figure out the answer by the end if you disguise the clues well enough, but you've given your reader at least the opportunity. 

This is how I see it: JKR wanted to change the letters in Lord Voldemort to come up with a common name. She saw Tom in there and decided to go with that. She wanted Riddle for obvious reasons and realized she couldn't get that with what she had to work with. Then she had to add a middle name.

All of this would have been fine *if* the reader had known the middle name all along. But when Harry's in the final scene and Tom Riddle reveals the mystery to him, we look at the page with our eyebrows screwed up and say, "Marvolo? Where in the world did *that* name come from?"

Many readers feel cheated by what seems like a deliberatly hidden clue, and it significantly lessens the enthusiasm in the book as a whole.

Brief Chronicles