Monthly column on the arts

J.K. Rowling was already richer than the Queen, and her latest paperbrick Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was seriously tipped to outsell the Bible itself.

Bookshops opened at midnight, one shop was rumoured to be buying copies at Woolworth's special discount and selling them full-price to its own customers, and J.K. herself (who seems a very nice lady) turned up unannounced at one launch event and joined in the fun.

Readers will know that I have been a follower of this series since it began, and strictly in the line of duty I devoured the latest volume in two days - all 766 pages and 2.5 inches of it. Couldn't put it down? I could hardly pick it up. So how was young Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

Vitality

The first impression is one of huge vitality. The book starts at a cracking pace and never lets up. The slow opening to the first book and the clumsy three-part structure of the fourth are nowhere to be seen. In fact, I was disappointed by the lack of much of the Hogwarts ambience of leisurely feastings, gothic corridors, and weird magicking. This is a book that drags you along by the scruff of the neck.

Harry is now an adolescent teenager at odds with his destiny and feeling the attractions of the opposite sex in a big way. Rowling maintains the sensitivity (and discretion) with which she described relationships in book four, and describes well his rising discontent with the unfairness of life. At times close to the world of Adrian Mole, this book has an authentic ring.

At the very beginning, Rowling gives a hint of one of the most interesting developments: the changing role of Harry's awful guardians, the Dursleys. Previously cardboard Roald-Dahl-type characters, they now play a new part in Harry's life. Before they were just there to be shrugged off with relief at the start of term. Now, it's implied, the Dursley household has some significance for Harry: he is safe there when all else is danger to him. Which is odd, because the Dursleys have always been horrid to Harry, and still are.

Doctrine of death?

A very moving moment for me involved Nearly Headless Nick, one of the Hogwarts ghosts. The previous books all had a major problem: Rowling invited us to laugh with the ghosts but mourn when students die. Why is one funny and the other sad? In this book, she articulates a doctrine of death that admittedly owes rather more to Terry Pratchett than to the Bible, but does answer the question: the ghosts are those who did not have the courage to go on after death to whatever awaited them. Nearly Headless Nick admits to Harry that his existence as a ghost is a token of spiritual failure.

There is a gallery of new characters, not least the loathsome Professor Umbridge - an Orwellian, freedom-sucking ogre, the latest occupant of the ill-fated Defence Against The Dark Arts teaching post. There are new monsters and new enemies, and moments of wonderful comedy despite the book's pace. Young readers will be enthralled, but will also be usefully stretched. The much-leaked death of a major character, for example, is not easy reading, and we share much of Harry's agonising.

Answers

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix raises some profound questions and delivers on answers, though few of those answers are neat and conclusive. But the book's climax is very impressive. Let me share just one aspect of it with you: the revelation of why the Dursley home is sanctuary to Harry. It is because, Dumbledore explains, Harry's mother shed her blood to save the infant Harry from the evil Voldemort. And Aunt Petunia Dursley is Harry's mother's sister. Therefore she shares her blood; and it is that redeeming blood that marks the awful Dursley home as sanctuary.

Commentators will spill a lot of ink analysing what Rowling's precise message is here, and which side she is ultimately on. All I can say is that this book is going to start millions of children thinking in ways that make me rejoice as a Christian.

What will happen in book six, I have no idea, and what agenda is being worked out I do not know. But let's be thankful for what we have: an exposition of the classic struggle of good versus evil, now given a sharp, focused context in terms of shed blood, redemption - indeed, as you will discover, even election.

And if you think, after all that, that J.K. Rowling has gone all pompous and religious on us, may I mention the telephone number she has allocated to the Ministry of Magic? 6-2-4-4-2. And what do 2 and 4 add up to?

Either the doomsayers are right and J.K. Rowling is out to corrupt a generation, or she has a very naughty sense of humour indeed ...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Vitality

Doctrine of death?

Answers

David Porter

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