It's the 5th day since  the publishing event of 2007 and there are already hundreds of reviews on the web.  As my reading experience seems to have followed the general trend, I shall content myself with naming 5 things that irritated me and 5 things that I particularly enjoyed.



***** Mild Spoilers to follow .  If this bothers you,  read no further *****

5 things that irritated ( in addition to that artwork ....)

1) The middle section.  Too long, too repetitive, too obvious in places; a section in which Rowling and her publishers (through lack of editing) repeat the mistakes made since Goblet of Fire.  Why say something in 20 pages when you can take 200  ......

2) and then commit the cardinal sin of leaving out the really interesting stuff.  Why was Snape's role almost a cameo? Neville's too.  Why miss the golden opportunity of portraying the pain George must have felt, Harry's remorse with regard to Snape.  Obviously JKR made the decision to portray events only through HP's eyes and while this pays off in the final scenes, it forces her to bring news to Harry.  I lost count of the times Kreacher visited or Lupin visited or A N Other visited.  It would have been more exciting to have  read parallel streams showing the action rather than listening to accounts narrated after the event.

3) The predictability of the trio's characterisation.  Ron's stupidity, Harry pigheadedness (why use the V-word?), the fact that clever-clogs Hermione still possesses the only pair of clever clogs for 3/4 of the novel. 

4)  The deaths of not one, not two but of my three favourite characters.

5) That epilogue.  Twee and completely unnecessary (for adults, at least.)

5 things that I enjoyed (in addition to the dedication .....)

1) The excellent tension-building opening scenes - Snape's betrayal and Harry's dramatic escape from the Dursley's

2) Rowling's side-swipe at celebrity biography:  "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbeldore".  The introduction of moral ambiguity and Harry's confusion when it appears that Dumbeldore was maybe not a haloed saint after all!

3) The deviation from the normal HP format - a good move ensuring that the final installment stands out from the others.  The transformation from Harry's year at Hogwarts to Harry's odyssey to Hogwarts places us in the perfect setting for the final battle.

4) Snape's memories - oh, how I cried!

5) The twists introduced by the elder wand - fabulous!

I'd agree that JKR got it right.  Most loose ends are sewn up nicely - surely a requirement for children's literature -  though there are a few that aren't.  A bonus no doubt for fan fiction writing HP addicts - they have something to work with.

1/2

In the overall HP canon I'd place it second - Azkaban remains the superior offering.  It's the point where the story darkens but remains tightly written.  And if memory serves me right, it's the one that turned HP into a phenomenon.

The front book cover proclaims :  "When Death tells a story, you really have to listen".  I found that to be true for in the space of just two days I have devoured all 592 pages.  That alone qualifies this novel as an unputdownable 5-* read.

Not that it started that way.  Death, the narrator, is sardonic and, at times, extremely flippant and it takes a while to get used to his style.  However, once I'd achieved this and was travelling with him through the experiences of Liesel Meminger, a pre-pubescent German girl, caught in the vortex of National Socialism, I found his black humour a welcome release from the horror of reality.

The story starts with Liesel's journey to her new foster parents who live in a small street in Molching, a suburb of Munich, just round the corner from the Dachau concentration camp.   The irony of the name is sweet - Himmelstrasse - Heaven Street.   It is a street which serves as a microcosm of German society of the time, a society which is anything but heavenly, a society in which ordinary working-class Germans hope to remain, if not untouched, then at least undamaged by the monstrous regime which has enveloped them.   

Liesel's thievery begins as she travels to Molching.  Her brother dies on the journey and at his burial  she steals a book she finds lying in the cemetery.  Entitled "The Gravedigger's Handbook" it's not exactly a child's reading material.  But it is all she has.  Her stepfather Hans reads it to her during the nights she is haunted by nightmares and thus teaches her to read.  Her second book is purloined from the remnants of a book-burning.  Thus is the pattern set.  Throughout the Nazi period Liesel continues to steal books for she needs the words to provide stability and sense in a world which descends to madness, as people soak up and follow through on the rhetoric and propaganda of the Nazi regime. 

Death knows the story even if Liesel doesn't and the contrast between Liesel's childish adolescent hope and trust and Death's omniscient narration of events really packs an emotional punch.  It's a world in which Death loses his grim reaper reputation and becomes the compassionate one as he tenderly harvests the souls of the dead; a world in which Death loses his sardonic edge as he struggles to comprehend both the majesty and the barbarity of the human race.

It's not all bleakness though and nor should it be. For there are those who strive to retain an element of humanity and swim against the tide - even if secretly (and futilely).  Nonetheless these people are the commonplace heroes of the tale and their acts of courage and humanity are enough to prevent the novel (and the reader) from succumbing to nihilistic despair.

In Britain the adult edition of the book was published on 1.1.2007.



The YA edition was released 23 days later.






I read the latter for its appeal to my bookaholic nature.  It was the correct decision for this is a YA novel.  There are stylistic quirks  and authorial decisions which I would not accept in an adult work (including the strangest decision to reveal the fate of Himmelstrasse 30 pages from the end).  However, with my teenage hat on, I accept these, can even find them charming and thus, the novel retains its 5-star rating.

This is a tale of obsession, madness and survival and it is a tale told by an author in full control of her material.



The story starts slowly as our semi-deaf and bullied heroine, Sym, tells of a childhood during which she has retreated into a world inhabited only by her bosom buddy, Captain Titus Oates; he who accompanied and died during Scott's fateful trip to the Antarctic. It is an obsession prompted by her genius Uncle Victor who has fed her a diet of Antarcticana for as long as she can remember. Victor has been a benign substitute father since her own died and when she is fourteen he takes her on what she thinks is the trip of a lifetime. Once in Antarctica the pace accelerates into a high-octane adventure, while revelation after revelation strips Sym's reality bare and leaves the reader breathless. For it transpires that Uncle Victor has a cunning plan ......

Antarctica is as much a personality as any of the human characters in this book. Stunningly beautiful, it gradually acquires a life-threatening madness and malevolence paralleling that of Sym's uncle.

Woven throughout the adventure, there is much relating to the geography and the history of the region. There is also a solid foundation course in arctic survival techniques. Yet all this information is so skillfully blended into the narrative, the reader does not notice the educational value of the material.

A fabulous, fabulous novel - one which must surely set the standard for YA fiction.

50bookchallenge:  13 / 50

15000 pages: 3,626 / 15,000