The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Dust over Harry Potter settles a bit

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 27, 2007
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Karnataka - Bangalore

Dust over Harry Potter settles a bit

Staff Reporter

There have been mixed opinions about J.K. Rowling’s last book in the series

PHOTO: N. SRIDHARAN

Mixed bag: A file photo of a fan reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. —

Bangalore: It has been barely a week since fans finally laid their hands on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after months of nervous anticipation. They wrung their hands and bit their fingernails over the boy wizard’s fat e, and about the possibility that some party-pooper will ruin the end for them.

But has the Harry Potter frenzy fizzled out already? Alas, many fans believe so.

“I think that the book has been a big disappointment. I now feel the whole craze was just a fabulously tailored promotional event aimed at wooing customers,” Madhulika T., a second year B.A. student, says. But then again, she confesses she is not a diehard fan of the series and her cynicism about Potter mania might stem from some bias.

So what of the faithful? Are they equally disappointed? Isha P., a school student, has read every book in the series many times over and has followed every event of Potter’s life as if her own depended on it. She seems to have undergone a conversion. “The last book has been a wet blanket,” she says. “I thought it was cheesy.”

Many others also believe that Rowling lost her charm in the seventh book. “Though I was eager find out who dies, the ending was like the usual Hindi movie. Unlike the previous six books, this one played very safe,” pronounces Liya, a student of Bishop Cottons Women’s College.

But she adds that she thinks it is “incredible that each of the characters has been dealt with thoroughly, and that she leaves no loose ends”.

Bookworm and blogger Raghav P., who claims to have an opinion on every topic under the sun, concludes that he felt that “the latter half of the book was written by a committee, and the prologue felt like it had been written by someone else altogether”.

But Radha S.,(27), found the book “racy and fast-paced” and enjoyed the fact that it was action-packed without romance to dilute it. And as for 12-year-old Neeraj A., the book surpassed his expectations.

That the book generated a lot of familial rivalry too, can perhaps vouch for its popularity. Squabbles, verbal combats and fistfights shook many homes as siblings battled it out over who would get to read the book first.

“I had a huge fight with my brother as both of us wanted to read it first. But my parents decided that it was only fair that he read it first as I got to read the sixth book first,” says Namita, still smarting.

Some fans said that the e-book was actually a good idea because it solved the problem of sibling rivalry, as one of them could read the book online while the other hogged the hard copy.

While the book has drawn divided opinions, everyone agrees about one thing: the biggest downer is the fact that the journey ends here.

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