Here comes Harry

With the next Harry Potter book already available on the streets of Manhatten (Today's Times has a non-review which reveals some information, but no spoilers) the time has come for me to make a series of random and unrelated pronouncements about the series. Brace yourselves.

1 - I don't think I'll ever read the first two books again. They sucked, mebayit u'meechutz. I'm quite sure that if the first Harry Potter book I picked up was either of those I'd have never continued with the series. (However, there's a lesson here for other slow-starters.)

2 - I'm still mad at JK for the first chapter of Book 6. In it, the Minister of Magic meets with the human prime minister, and reveals that Voldermort and his followers are wrecking havoc, while dementers roam the earth breeding and spreading gloom and depression. Sounds spooky, no? Sounds like foreshadowing, right? Except that nothing comes of it. The big, boring book ends without showing us a single dementers, and not one further word is said about anything Voldy and his friends might be doing in the Muggle world. JK just dropped the thread.

3 - I hate the word "Muggle." The books pontificates about tolerance and equality within the Magical world and between magical people yet the magical people view humankind with a mix of pity and disdain.

4 - Why is Arthur Weasly such an idiot? He's the director of a ministry office that specializes in "Muggle Artifacts" yet can't seem to grasp the concept of electricity, or to correctly pronouce words like "telephone." This is rather like the head of the State Department's Israel desk being ignorant of Yom Kippur or kashrus.

5 - The third book in the series was best, and the scene at the lake when Harry draws on the memory of his father to conjure a Patronos stands out as JK's finest creation. Some people sit through one horrible performance at the opera after another (or one uninspiring davening after another) waiting for a flash of inspiration similar to what they may have once experienced. I keep going back to the Potter series hoping that JK has another Patronus moment up her sleeve.

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