The Deathly Hallows

Since I don't want to ruin anybody's enjoyment of the book who hasn't finished yet, I am going to have to be very vague about some things here...

I didn't know what to expect when Book 7 arrived yesterday, wrapped neatly in its decorative cardboard sheath from amazon.com. I got everything I had to do done as early as I could, made myself some supper, and retired to my favorite chair for reading for the rest of the evening. I didn't intend to read the whole thing last night, but I did. I couldn't sleep not knowing how it ended.

I didn't join the Harry Potter craze when it first started. I am very leery of all things the media makes ultra-popular. Generally, I believe that old Mark Twain quote about doing the opposite of what the masses are doing. I was in my first year of graduate school in Indiana when I guess it was Book 3 came out, and I picked up a paperback copy of the first book because a friend of mine whom I trust had so highly recommended the series. I was hooked from the first reading, and quickly moved from one who waits for the paperbacks to one who preorders the hardbacks. I took them to Japan with me, reread them often, and always get the same sense of pleasure from their reading.

Book 7 is a worthy final chapter for a series that has, in my opinion, been getting better, more lasting and literary, with each succeeding installment. Questions are answered, and as in life, the answers are not always as simple or as easy to live with as one might expect. There are losses, and some of them are so sudden that it's hard for the reader to believe they've really happened. In that, Rowling has put us emotionally right into the story with Harry and the others. I cried in several places.

I have to say that while the book provides a beautiful sense of closure for characters we've known and loved for a long time, there's very much a sense that the story of the Wizarding world and Hogwarts might not be over. Whether Rowling moves on to fulfill that hint of a promise or whether she leaves everybody as they were in the end, I can only say that The Deathly Hallows is the final transformation for Harry and the others from the world of children to the world of the adult, and the transformation was handled beautifully.