50 in 2011: #5 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Here is my warning about reading on if you haven't read the book or seen its movie adaptation.

Adiou, Cedric Diggory, we hardly knew you.

The HP series finally gets deadly serious in this novel, as the life-threatening Triwizard Tournament comes to Hogwarts and the evil Lord Voldemort claims his first victims since reappearing from his body-less state.

In Goblet, Rowling really starts expanding the wizarding world she's created. From the Quidditch World Cup to the international students of Beauxbatons Academy and Durmstrang Institute, we start getting a taste of politics and cultural differences as they relate to our magical counterparts in Britain. (I'm aching for some information about what magic is like in the USA, but I doubt Rowling's going to touch that. Or has the American way of life tempted even wizards to sit on the couch and watch reality shows? America's Next Top Wizard with Gilderoy Lockhart?)

When reading a book like this one, wherein the author draws on fine details established in prior volumes for great dramatic effect, I often cannot help visualizing the author furiously flipping through the pages of the first few books, looking for characters and spells to bring back. "What did I call that wizard two books ago?"

Handsome Hufflepuff seeker Cedric Diggory was established in prior books, as was the fate of Neville Longbottom's parents that so dramatically changed my view of the character, even in a book that had less than normal amounts of Neville in it.

I really enjoyed this book and the somber subject matter didn't stop it from delivering thrills, especially during the three tasks challenged to the four champions competing in the tournament. The freak-of-week part of the formula is pleasantly familiar, but the later-chapter reveals in Goblet feature a lot of monologuing and "Oh, the cleverness of me."-revelations that are fun and interesting but also only necessary because the author insists they are necessary.

Maybe in the next book, Order of the Phoenix, there'll be some scenes of the awkward getting-to-know-you phase between Harry and the real Mad-Eye Moody, who spent this whole novel trapped in a trunk. If memory serves from the movies, we pretty much have to assume that Pollyjuice Poser Barty Crouch Jr's approximation of Moody was close enough to not warrant an extended amount of relationship-building in the next chapters of the saga.

My pace has dropped off. I'm going to have to pick it up if I'm going to make 50 this year.

Happy Birthday, Alan Rickman!

50 in 2011: #4 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Before the eye-melting 3.5 hr live tweet of the Super Bowl this evening, I polished off the third book in the HP series and my fourth of the year, Azkaban.

This was the first HP movie I saw in theaters and got me immediately hooked. As I have found with the other books in the series, this one is richer and more complex than its respective adaptation. I did, however, notice that some streamlining done by the filmmakers is actually more economical and makes the story more direct. [I am almost always in favor of economizing language, characters and plot devices in books and movies. If you do it in one scene, with two people, do it in one scene with two people, otherwise it becomes about gilding the lily.]

Speaking of plot devices, Rowling enlists the narrative aid of time-travel this go 'round, and should be commended for using it cleanly. She creates a natural reason for this magical element to be introduced in the ambitious Hermione's desire for a major course load. Later, the author conjures a further use for the temporal gimmick that not only explains the mystery set up in earlier chapters of Hermione's double-classes, but also heightens the stakes of the conflict ("Two innocent lives can be saved").

The Quidditch matches work in the novel because they are a natural part of their world and the confines (or lack thereof) of the novel format encourage us to feel time and conflict in a flexible manner, wherein a film, the second Quidditch match might have felt like a lowering of the stakes or distraction from the momentum of the movie towards the mystery of Sirius Black.

I'll withhold judgement until I've finished the series, but the reveals shared within the Shrieking Shack and the Prongs Patronum are my top two moments in HP-dom.