Harry Potter: A Few Words About Thousands of Them
By Breanne Boland July 17, 2003 Issue

Harry Potter fans have been wondering when J.K. Rowling would allow their favorite boy wizard to grow up. She’s said the next book will be more hormonal, but we’re not left high and dry for now. Harry is indeed growing up, but before we get to see him getting jiggy with Hermione, we get the first stage of adolescence: anger.

This book could have been called Harry Potter vs. The Man, because he spends the entire book being persecuted by the wizard world that has, until recently, championed him as The Boy Who Lived. But now, the Ministry of Magic (including Percy Weasley!) is against him, the media vilifies him as an unstable and dangerous character, and even the sanctuary that was Hogwarts has turned into a trial.

Complicating things is the Order of the Phoenix, an organization of wizards and witches united to protect Harry and defeat Lord Voldemort. Unfortunately for Harry, they keep him, and the reader, almost entirely in the dark until the last battle, blinking and reaching for something solid in the meantime. All this, and schoolwork too: the fifth year of Hogwarts is when magic wielders-in-training traditionally take the tests that determine the direction of the rest of their lives.

On one hand, it’s an effective device for really making you feel the 15-year-old Harry’s frustrations. On the other, by the time the book goes through most of its nearly 900 pages and reaches the Chapter that Explains Everything (in the grand tradition carried through the previous four books), we’re ready to yell right along with Harry that he deserves to know what’s going on, because he’s old enough to handle it, and he doesn’t appreciate being lied to.

That’s the other drawback about the book: the red herrings. Unfortunately, the publishers felt the need to add extra hype to a guaranteed bestseller by leaking that a main character dies. Rowling has great fun with this, making us gasp with each injury and morsel of peril that comes within a 50-page radius of the characters. Watch out for that stun spell, Hermione! Ron, careful on that broom! No, Dumbledore, don’t—!

Rowling delivers rollicking adventure, as always, and as Harry ages, the stakes are higher. Dementors visit Privet Drive. Dumbledore goes missing in action. And the headmaster who takes his place has very interesting ideas about what constitutes detention. When the supports of wizard society are removed, Harry has to struggle constantly, grip at every ally, and he often comes up short. Each page reveals more of what looks like the descent to the final confrontation between Harry and Lord Voldemort, and in that sense, it’s hypnotic. When the last page is turned and school lets out for the summer, you might feel a slight letdown, but while reading, you’ll be enthralled to see just what else year five at Hogwarts has in store for Harry and company.

Should you buy the book? Well, is a house elf scared of socks? If you answered yes, then by all means go out and get this long-awaited installment of an immensely enjoyable series. If you said no, or blinked at a sudden Lord of the Rings reference in a review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, then this book is probably not for you. Start at the beginning, or find the nearest lightning-bolt-bedecked 10-year-old to fill you in. However, if Rowling’s had you since Sorcerer’s Stone, go ahead and buy it. You won’t be sorry—at least, not until you turn the last page and realize you probably have another three year wait ahead of you to see what happens next. (Top)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 870 pp, Scholastic, available at local book retailers and libraries.

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