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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
by J.K. Rowling
Scholastic, 2005. 652 pages
Reviewed by Christy Risser-Milne
WARNING: It is impossible to do justice to a review of this book without giving away some small plot spoilers (don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you who dies or who the Half-Blood Prince actually is). So be warned, and if you want every single element of this new book to be a surprise, go read it. Then come back and see if you agree with my review.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth of a seven-book series by J. K. Rowling. The, forgive me, almost magical success of this series can cause one to wonder if Rowling isn’t just recording the events of an obscure sub-group within British society, rather than creating fiction. Now wealthier than the Queen herself, Rowling began writing this series more than a decade ago while riding on a train.
Harry Potter is now a 16-year-old wizard; he has faced down the evil wizard, Voldemort, in each of the preceding five books. Unfortunately for the wizarding world, Voldemort (who had been a mere shadow of a human being for the first three books) came back fully to incarnate life to wreak havoc two books ago. And in The Half-Blood Prince, Harry is now very nearly a man, and a gifted wizard to boot, and knows that his destiny is directly tied to the survival or demise of Voldemort.
This episode is much darker than the first five. Though not nearly as long as the last book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), Rowling has managed to adeptly create a plot filled with information and intrigue. It is also the first book that requires knowing the stories of the first five in order to really make sense of the plot. Rowling has thankfully abandoned the somewhat annoying habit of reiterating half of the previous book’s plot in the opening chapters here.
Though we’ve known all along that the Minister of Magic has discourse with Britain’s Muggle Prime Minister, we actually see the interaction in the opening chapter. Of course, the reason for the visit to the Prime Minister is to explain the unexplainable collapse of a bridge, a random hurricane in England, and several odd murders. The downside for the unnamed Prime Minister is that he cannot possibly tell anyone the real reasons for these happenings, and must instead take the heat for them himself in the Muggle world.
There are celebrations mentioned in the book: Harry spending most of the summer at his friend Ron Weasley’s house (the Dursleys get almost no page time in this volume), Christmas, Quidditch, and the like, but they are mentioned merely in passing. By contrast, the wizarding world is at war, and this book feels like it.
Fear pervades every household, even Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Security measures abound, and of course the Hogwarts caretaker, Filch, has found a new Secrecy Sensor to poke and prod students as they enter and exit the castle. (Oh, and Filch has also tried to ban anything purchased at the joke shop, Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, owned by Ron’s twin brothers, Fred and George. Of course, Filch fails at this quite miserably.)
In terms of action that gets your pulse racing, this book is markedly light on that front. Rowling’s writing style, however, has matured to the point that you don’t mind one bit. Her story is engaging, surprising, and very difficult to put down in order to take care of the necessities of life—like sleeping. In some ways, this book is simply a bridge book to the seventh, and final, book. This does not mean, however, that the book is useless; this is no second part to the Back to the Future trilogy.
Honestly, the whole “Half-Blood Prince” bit of the title is largely a brilliant ruse on Rowling’s part. Yes, some will be surprised when they discover who the “Prince” is, but it really is a minor plot point in the scope of the story.
Rowling gives readers enough important clues to why things are the way they are, and what might happen in the future as a result, to make this book perhaps the most important in the series since The Chamber of Secrets (which she herself has said has the most important information in it if you want to sort out what might happen in book seven).
Although Rowling has protested against spiritual interpretations of the Harry Potter series, readers cannot help but see a belief system emerge through the pages of this book. Dumbledore tells Harry that the one thing he has that Voldemort does not have is the ability to love. In spite of the horrors Harry has experienced in his short time in the world, he has not given in to the temptation to reject love. And Dumbledore believes that love is the strongest, most immutable magical force in the universe; stronger than anything Voldemort and his followers could ever devise.
Yes, there is another important death in this book. In some ways, more important to Harry than was Sirius’s death in the last book. I will admit that I didn’t quite see it coming, particularly the manner of the death, but in hindsight it was quite clever of Rowling to set things up as she did.
There is also love in The Half-Blood Prince. All three of our favorite protagonists—Harry, Ron, and Hermione—find love of the best sort somewhere in the story. I’ll clue you in that Ron’s first attempt at such is really quite immature and results in something of an “ick” factor if you’re not a fan of public displays of affection. His second attempt, however, is much better.
In the end, Rowling has given her fans—young and old alike— an excellent addition to this series. While I am not one to think that this will be a “series for the ages,” I do think that the Harry Potter series has reopened the universe of the written word to millions of people who had abandoned it in favor of television and computer games. For this, Rowling should have the eternal thanks of bibliophiles the world over.
And now we must wait another two years for the final book. Thankfully, there are enough plot details to puzzle over in trying to anticipate Rowling’s next moves, to keep everyone busy in this time of waiting.
Christy Risser-Milne was a fan of Harry Potter long before he became cool.
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