Rowling shocks Potter veterans
2005-07-20 10:46
New York - Madelyne Heyman began reading the new Harry Potter book last Saturday morning and needed just a day to read all 672 pages. Getting over the ending may take a little longer.
"I was so depressed," said Heyman, 13, a resident of St Paul, Minnesota, who purchased the book on a family trip to Berkeley, California. "I felt like I was going to cry."
JK Rowling had been warning all along that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth of her world-conquering fantasy series, would include the death of a major character.
Her promise was fulfilled, although it didn't make her fans, no matter the age, any more prepared when they learned for themselves.
"The awful betrayal!" said Katie Oxman, 13, of New Canaan, Connecticut, just minutes after reading the climax. It was so shocking, she said, she screamed out to her father. They had become attached to the characters over the years, worrying and rooting for them during difficult times.
"I loved the book. I hated the ending," said 39-year-old Shelly Blackmore of Centerville, Ohio. "There is a death. I sobbed. It was horrible."
With last weekend's midnight release of Half-Blood Prince, Pottermania shifted from long lines and costume parties to the quiet, solitary adventure of taking in the new story.
'Everything fit in'
"I really liked it," Heyman said on Tuesday, noting that the book was shorter than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the two previous releases.
"It didn't seem to drone on and on," she said. "There was a lot of stuff in the fourth book that could have been cut out, and the fifth book was really long. In the sixth book, everything fit in."
Fifteen-year-old Greg Coppolo of Cincinnati, Ohio, is another Potter veteran and speed reader, needing just 10 hours to polish off Half-Blood Prince. He's been reading Potter since he was 11 and believes Rowling has adopted a more adult tone to appeal to fans, such as himself, who are growing up with the series.
Chloe Kaczvinsky, 10, picked up her copy at a midnight bookstore pyjama party in Monroe, Louisiana, and finished it the following afternoon. "It was very dark. And mysterious," she said. But the darkness didn't make it hard to read, and didn't make her cry.
But George Gelzer, 10, of Wallingford, Connecticut, was "freaked out" by the ending. He likened the death in Half-Blood Prince to losing a Jedi knight in the Star Wars saga. "It's not going to be the same," he said.
Potter fans, of course, face a far darker prospect than the departure of a single character. The series itself must end - Rowling expects to start working on the seventh Potter book at the end of the year.
"I'm kind of afraid to read that book because I know that JK Rowling will have no pity for the readers about killing off characters we like," said Heyman.
- SAPA