Harry Potter and the Redundant Exposition

Before I get into this, a couple of qualifiers: Firstly, I realise that I am not the target demographic for this series, and haven't been for a little over two decades; and secondly, I acknowledge these books were designed to be read with about a year between each, rather than hammering through the entire series in a couple of months.

However, them's the circumstances, so the best I can do is make you aware of that from the off.

And them's being the circumstances, my quick caption review of the original Harry Potter saga is...*pausefordramaticeffect*... It's alright.

In brief:

1. Philosopher's Stone is good, but the ending sucks
2. Chamber of Secrets is better, but only by merit of being Philosopher's Stone with a better ending
3. Prisoner of Azkaban is the same again with a smattering of character development
4. Goblet of Fire is the same again, only now stretched out to twice the length and with some forced character conflict.  Though it does have some awesome bits
5. Order of the Phoenix is where we're finally given something kinda new within the same old setting, but it is still just the same old setting, and things are really becoming a slog
6. Half Blood Prince is, again, far too long, but it does feel like the over-arching plot is finally going somewhere, and the climax is fantastic
7. Deathly Hallows wastes the awesome climax of Half Blood Prince by turning into a tedious camping trip for over half of its excessive length, but eventually turns the former's ending up to 11...irritatingly broken up with acres of exposition, then dying a death with a rubbish epilogue

A big issue I have with this entire series is the repetitiveness.  While the over-arching plots in each book are different - and actually very interesting in their own right - their connective tissue is exactly the same for the first four volumes: Harry's having a shitty time with the Dursleys until he goes to Hogwarts; Malfoy's a stereotypical cartoon bully; Snape's a petty prick; Dumbledore's unnecessarily ambiguous; there's a bit of quidditch, some holiday celebrations, someone says Expelliarmus, Harry faces down a big bad, and everyone goes home for the summer.

Even Order of the Phoenix, despite the introduction of Delores Umbridge, can't help settling into the same old beats once she's established.

Each book reminds me of an American TV show: intriguing plots marred by tedious and repetitive sub-plots there purely for the sake of dragging out proceedings.  In the first four books especially, there is maybe enough plot for two.

The characters are also problematic, mostly there to fill specific roles and enjoying zero development throughout the series.  The elder Dursleys are a perfect example of this: introduced from the off as reluctant and abusive guardians, they fulfil exactly the same role in exactly the same way throughout the entire series.  Dudley is the only one to enjoy any kind of development, but he gets so little page time, and is ejected from the story so abruptly, it's rendered moot.

Not all characters require development - McGonagall, for example, never wavers from her role as austere matriarch, but we're given enough glimpses of her underlying personality (especially during exchanges with Umbridge) that keep her interesting - but there are key characters throughout who supposedly have a huge impact on proceedings, but remain paper-thin.

Take James Potter: school bully, turned hero of The Order of the Phoenix.  Why the personality shift?  'He grew out of it'.  How'd he win over Lily?  'She saw something in him'.  What did he do that was so heroic?  'Stuff'.

For those who do get a spot of fleshing out, any 'development' or back-story is generally withheld for Dumbledore's annual exposition dump in the final act, when we're asked to retroactively sympathise with and/or be horrified by a character's behaviour.

I feel none suffer this more than Snape.  It's no spoiler at this point to say he risks life, limb and sanity in the course of spying on Voldemort for Dumbledore, attempting to atone for the guilt he feels over Lily Potter's death.  Noble as that may be, it doesn't change the fact that he's a prick.  For all his supposed love for Lily, it's evidently nothing compared to his loathing for her husband; a loathing so deep he projects it onto Harry, grudgingly protecting him when he has to, but otherwise going out of his way to make Lily's orphaned child's life a misery for six years.

That's not to say the character's necessarily bad - in fact he's quite entertaining, in a pantomime villain sort of way - I just struggle to reconcile the sympathy we're supposed to feel for him with the wilful arseholeishness he consistently demonstrates.  Heroic as he may ultimately prove to be, for the most part he's a petty, prissy and vindictive man-child.

Though when it comes to unsympathetic characters, few hold a candle to Harry himself.  Though he starts out wide-eyed and innocent, and his consistent mistakes can easily be put down to child-like naivety, by the time of Goblet of Fire it becomes apparent that he is immune to learning from his mistakes, and come Order of the Phoenix, it's difficult to see him as anything more than a thin-skinned, belligerent twat.  And this is no way helped by the praise constantly being heaped upon him by half the Order, insisting he's intuitive, intelligent and brave, while he's acting like a prickly, ignorant, highly-strung dipshit.  It might make for an accurate representation of a hormonal teenager, but a likeable protagonist he is not.

It would justify Snape's attitude towards him if Snape wasn't so petty in his attacks.

Fortunately. there are some strong characters amidst the weak.  Ron and Hermione are a good double act, and despite what Rowling has said on the matter, I thought their relationship developed well.  Ginny enjoys a solid arch from mute, love-struck ten year-old to boisterous, self-assured young woman with an adventurous and mischievous streak.  Even Fred & George - the perennial pranksters - grow from childish japery, to savvy business men.

None, however, see quite the development of Neville Longbottom.  From simpering mouse, to sword-wielding badass.  From frightened little flower with a love of botany, to laughing off torture and attacking people with man-eating off-cuts.  One second he's screaming in fiery anguish, and the next he's decapitating a giant snake.

"You think I've got time to stop and recover from all-consuming agony when there are still bitches to be spanked like an E.L. James heroine?  What do I look like, some kind of girly-girl?  I'm Neville Fucking Longbottom!  I came here to chew bubblegum and to kick ass.  And since I'm all out of bubblegum, the still beating hearts of my fallen enemies will have to do!"

Overall, I find myself frustrated with the series: The over-arching story isn't exactly original, but it is solidly handled in an at-the-time somewhat unique setting; and the plots of each novel are strong, and entertaining, when Rowling finally gets around to them.  Unfortunately, there is far too much chaff to wade through to get properly invested in the stories, the strongest characters are sidelined in favour of unlikable gits, there's far too big a reliance on exposition to fill the gaping holes in the plot, and I haven't seen so slack and unsatisfactory an ending since Bioware's first swing at Mass Effect 3.

A Somewhat Late-In-The-Day Review

Way back when, in a bygone age, when kids were doing normal kids' stuff, like playing Playstation and Gameboy, and trading Pokémon, a brand new craze was sweeping the nation in the form of these clumps of pocket-sized paper, bound in cardboard and full of words, that made sentences, that made paragraphs, pages, chapters and, when taken in their entirety, whole stories!

Many, including myself, saw it as a bit of a fad, but one of these clumps in particular caused it to catch on.  It was about a scrawny little orphan with bad hair, living with his aunt and uncle, who finds out he's destined to be a great magician, and with the help of a doddery old man and a pair of companions - a stuck-up little princess a little more gung-ho than she seems, and a pragmatic boy just out for the easy life (though hiding a brave, loyal heart) - he takes on a powerful dark lord and ultimately triumphs through a mixture of ingenuity, luck and trusting in himself.

And that story was called Star Wars: A New Hope.

Or, at least, the remastered, cinematic release was: the papery version was titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (I assume for copyright reasons).

Two decades, a few more books, an entire film franchise, a theme park and now a stage production later (as well as a pound or two flooding the bank account of its author), and the thing is such a British institution, I figured it was about time I saw what all the fuss was about.

This isn't the first time I've picked up a Harry Potter.  I did give it a try back when it was just becoming a thing, but I failed to get beyond the first two pages.  When I was the target age for Potter, I was reading Roald Dahl, and I found Rowling's writing to be a bit too amateurish and patronising in comparison, but I was still a precocious, pretentious, high-strung teenager at the time, so what did I know?

Now that I'm a precocious, pretentious, high-strung adult, I find it easier to detach myself from those earlier misgivings and (paradoxically) appreciate her style for the audience it's aimed at.  In that, I find myself wishing Rowling had picked up her pen ten years earlier, though I also question whether her, frankly, higher-brow stories would have distracted me from the whimsical ease of The Witches, The BFG, George's Marvellous Medicine and The Twits.

The big problem with reviewing this now, of course, is it is such a part of our social identity, it's impossible to view it through the eyes of someone introduced to this world for the first time.  The Hogwarts Express left me at the station, with my nose in a copy of The Hobbit, long ago, and I've only ever been aware of it on the periphery; observing its growing popularity, cultural integration, and critical and public acclaim as one would the impact of the Tomb Raider franchise from the perspective of someone who believes entertainment peeked around the time of E.T., and even I was well aware of what 'Muggle', 'Golden Snitch' and 'The Boy Who Lived' meant.

Still, outside of someone twice my age, who thinks fantasy's for five year-olds, I'm about as detached and objective as it gets, so here goes...

It's rather good.

I'm not going to bother regurgitating the plot as those who don't already know are either too young to be reading this (go to bed!), too old to care or haven't yet evolved far enough up the ladder to understand the concept of language; suffice to say, these days at least, it isn't particularly original.  However, it is worth noting that, back in 1997, the concept of a child of destiny taken from his mundane, everyday existence to learn about his true power at a school for other gifted youngsters was a tad rare (lest it was run by a bald, crippled mind-reader with severe split-personality issues).

The writing itself is breezy and whimsical, though while clearly aimed mainly at 8-12 year-olds, there's enough colour, depth and darkness to engage older readers.  It moves at a good pace, has enough twists to keep the narrative involving, and is set in a well-constructed universe just close enough to reality to be relatable, while still incorporating every fantasy trope under the sun.  In fact, one of the biggest strengths of the novel is how many of these tropes are effortlessly subverted by their mere presence in this particular world; whether it be giants getting tipsy with goblins in their favourite local, or the arrival of ancient, mystical centaurs getting on a character's nerves because they're too distracted by the state of the planets to answer a simple question.

What I found most surprising was how well the ending worked.  It has been many years since I watched the film, and I wasn't particularly engaged with it when I did, but I do remember the ending encompassing all of my worst fears about the franchise.

*SPOILER ALERT* (for the ancient cave dwellers among you who might not know)
After going through a bunch of trials to reach the final confrontation, Harry looks in a mirror, finds he actually has the plot's MacGuffin in his pocket, and the bad-guy dissolves on contact with our 'hero' because of his love for his parents.

Blech!

I found it so sickeningly saccharine and toothless, any vague interest that may have lingered to see how this thing played itself out was wiped clean from my mind.

I can't say whether my reaction was due to my already dismissive attitude and fleeting interest at the time, or simply poor film-making (I'd have to re-watch it to find out), but I found that same ending as played out in the book far more satisfying.  As far as I recall, the final confrontation in the book is far more drawn-out and graphic than it was in the film, ramping up the excitement, as well as giving a stronger sense of catharsis when it was all over.  And Dumbledore's explanation for why everything played out as it did seemed to make more sense, and didn't feel at all (or as much) like a Dues Ex Machina ending, as the film's did.

My one concern about the series going forward is the length of each subsequent novel.  Philosopher's Stone was a good length; packed with plenty of goings on, without feeling bloated or outstaying its welcome.  Before the series reaches its conclusion, the individual novels grow to Lord of the Rings scale, and I struggle to imagine these characters engaging me for so long a stretch in a single story.

Still, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed book 1, so I now head into the rest of the series with an open mind.

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of Joy

I had never heard of Jonas Jonasson until a friend happened to mention how much she'd enjoyed The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

Frankly, with a title like that, she could have said the thing was awful, unreadable, Twilight-esque trash, and I'd still have been compelled to read it.  As it turned out, it was a stunning, hilarious, life-affirming, decade and continent-spanning dual adventure that had me grinning from ear-to-ear from page-to-page.

That was followed by The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden: another decade and continent-spanning romp, though not quite as extensive in either regard as its predecessor.

Though the two stories were very different, they did have two very important things in common: exceptional, breezy writing, and fascinating central and supporting characters it was a joy to spend four-hundred-ish pages with.

So now we get Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All.

As testament to Jonasson's breezy style, the opening chapter gives us the full life-story (including family history) of our first protagonist; a receptionist lumbered through circumstance with the somewhat silly name of Per Persson - "...not that it's impossible to be named Per Persson or, for that matter, Jonas Jonasson, but some might find it monotonous" - and a brief summary of the life and misfortunes of our titular Hitman, Johan Andersson.  As double biographies go, they're concise, to say the least.

Chapter two brings us protagonist three in the form of Johanna Kjellander, a disgruntled former parish priest, and the unlikely criminal mastermind behind the group's underhanded endeavours.  Conniving, imaginative, quick-witted and vindictive, the priest is easily the most fascinating and enjoyable of the trio - with the Hitman a simple foil, and the receptionist an out-of-his-depth sidekick for the bulk of the story - but this is nevertheless an ensemble piece: the very traits that make the priest the stand-out, and most proactive character of the group are also what make her incapable of coping on her own.

For me, it is the weakest of the three, owing mostly to a third act that grinds the action to a halt, before rushing somewhat unexpectedly to its ending.  But overall, as with Jonasson's previous novels, Hitman... is a briskly-paced, occasionally bizarre, often hilarious story, with unusually intelligent, though morally questionable protagonists, somewhat less intelligent, bungling antagonists, death, mayhem, oblivious authorities, lashings of karma, and an oddly recurring theme of a briefcase (or two) full of cash.

Most importantly, it kept me smiling throughout.