OoP: First Impressions--Harry and Angst

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 61695

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I found the book totally engaging. I couldn't put it down.  So now, 
several cups of Earl Grey and a few scones since I first opened it, 
I have several observations I am itching to share:

This latest episode of everyone's favorite boy wizard IMO is much 
more tightly plotted and well-written than Goblet of Fire, but also 
much, much darker and infinitely more emotionally engaging.  I 
alternately laughed and cried and gasped `oh, no' several times when 
I thought a favorite character had been killed.  JKR, in a number of 
instances, took her readers to the brink of emotional tension then 
relieved it somewhat with a bit of well-placed humor.  I've never 
read anything so compelling.

 The theme of this book seems to be not so much about `choosing 
what's right over what's easy,' as I first believed after reading 
all the interviews (although that is a very important secondary 
theme), but about dispelling misconceptions—about perceptions vs. 
realities.  We are given a careful look a large number of false 
perceptions:  Harry's perceptions about himself, about his parents, 
about Sirius, about the Dursleys, about the Ministry, even about 
Dumbledore. These revelations wouldn't have been half as intriguing 
if we had not been given all the lead up from the first four 
novels.   JKR's concept, of course, is brilliant—allow your reading 
audience to become familiar with this magical world, to live in it 
so to speak, then begin to uncover its realities, bit by bit as 
Harry discovers them. The emotional effect is very powerful indeed.  

With all this disillusionment naturally comes a ponderous amount of 
angst.  And, even though this book is supposed to begin only two 
months after the events of Goblet of Fire the mood is so startlingly 
different that I feel it creates a certain discontinuity in both 
style and character development from Goblet.   Harry did not grow up 
knowing a mother's touch from which he might learn constructive ways 
of expressing hurt and frustration and anxiety.  So, throughout most 
of the book, we see a young man whose only emotional outlet is 
anger.   It is very telling that Harry perceives Dumbledore's 
beautifully emotional confession at the end of the book as weakness. 
Some of the early posters have said his petulance is tiresome and 
that he's a prat,(and truly he is) But, if you look at his situation 
objectively, and with the knowledge that he is first of all a 
teenager (read naturally self-centered) and has never learned to 
deal with emotions, it all makes perfect sense and gives Harry even 
more of reality than he had before. And I feel I also must add that 
it is Harry's anger and various frustrations that so wonderfully 
drive this plot and energize the tense no-holds-barred climax.  I 
think it is a testament to JKR's genius that she could show us a 
Harry who so abominably disregards his friends and his mentors and 
yet still make him a likeable, sympathetic and heroic character. 
This was utterly brilliant!

Judy