Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Inhoud

It is the middle of the summer, but there is an unseasonal mist pressing against the windowpanes. Harry Potter is waiting nervously in his bedroom at the Dursley's house in Privet Drive for a visit from Professor Dumbledore himself. One of the last times he saw the Headmaster was in a fierce one-to-one duel with Lord Voldemort, and Harry can't quite believe that Professor Dumbledore will actually appear at the Dursley's of all places. Why is the Professor coming to visit him now? What is it that cannot wait until Harry returns to Hogwarts in a few weeks' time? Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts has already got off to an unusual start, as the worlds of Muggle and magic start to intertwine...
J.K. Rowling charts Harry Potter's latest adventures in his sixth year at Hogwarts with consummate skill and in breathtaking fashion.

Bespreking

The most unbalanced book of the series

Now that Cornelius Fudge has been forced to resign from the Ministry of Magic it seems that the whole world is finally supporting Harry Potter. But nothing is farther from the truth: the dark forces surrounding the sinister Lord Voldemort are preparing themselves for the big fight and Harry Potter feels this very strongly. Harry never really trusted Draco, son of known Death Eater Lucius Malfoy who finally got captured and put in Azkaban Prison, but when Harry spots him at Borgin and Burkes he knows that Draco is up to no good. Harry is convinced that Draco is actually becoming a Death Eater like his father and will do everything to prove this. But his closest friends Hermione and Ron think that he is seeing ghosts. Even Professor Dumbledore does not buy the warnings that Harry is proclaiming. Again Harry feels that he has to fight this battle on his own.

Finally J.K. Rowling did it: she completely lost the balance between story and exposition. Whereas in the previous books she tended to overdo only slightly these side stories, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince she completely goes beyond. Even the way she weaves the background stories into her narrative is becoming tedious. Again and again the Pensive is used to shed some more light on the main characters. The exclamation “Oh, not again!” truly must have been on the lips of many people that read this sixth episode of the Potters series. Even the extra character of Professor Horace Slughorn pales in comparison to the previous Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers and must succumb to the big monster of exposition. True. For most of the fans this background information is useful and interesting, but the author could also have put this in a separate Harry Potter companion or even an appendix. Many parts of the book suffer from this flagrant imbalance and more often than not I did feel compelled to skip chapters.

Amazingly enough, it turns out that Rowling did somehow realize that she was loosing the attention of the reader and decided to completely turn the rudder in the final chapters. Out of the blue the pace of the story is boosted and suddenly the book becomes quite a thriller. Maybe the final chapters of the Half-Blood Prince are to be listed as some of the best of the series so far. To say more than this would indeed ruin the experience. So my advice: gather (quite) some courage to get through the main part of the book and you will be awarded!