So, this is the final Harry Potter book. Because of this, many emotions ran through all of our minds...and hearts...as we first got our copy, read the opening flap, read each chapter, and finally, and hesitantly, closed the book. After reading the book twice, and being in the middle of my third read, I feel more confident and "qualified," if you will, to make an analysis/discussion about each of the chapters...and some other things...and please feel free to add your own!!
----------------------------------------------------------
Time I received Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 1:32 AM on July 21st, 2007.
Location I received Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Barnes and Nobles; Livonia, MI, USA
How much I paid for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: As a member: $18.99.
Time I began to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 1:38 AM
Location I began to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: In the passenger's seat of my friend's car on the way to her home. I finished the first chapter in the car...read it out loud...and continued inside at 2:00 AM exactly.
Time I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 12:15 PM on July 21, 2007.
Time it took to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 10 hours and 37 minutes.
1:31 AM, July 21, 2007 at Barnes and Nobles in Livonia, MI, USA:
I handed the man my Barnes and Nobles gift card and, in exchange, the man handed me a green
Barnes and Nobles plastic bag. I waited for my friend to receive her bag. We sprinted, literally, to the car, dodging other vehicles as we went, and hurried to open our doors to the car. I climbed into my seat on the passenger's side as my friend did so to my left. I shut my door. She copied me. Taking deep breaths, I stuck my hand within the depths of the plastic bag and I felt the hard cover of a thick book.
Hands literally shaking, I closed my fingers around the book's spine and pulled it out. It was clean, perfect, and sent off one of MY favorite smells that would DEFINITELY be what I would smell in Amortentia: New Book Smell! I ran my finger tenderly up and down the cover, taking in the words and the illustration of the book:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows across the top, a reaching Harry in the middle, and, in bold scarlet letters,
J.K. Rowling on the bottom. I felt my eyes burn...the significance of this moment, this day, weighing in on me with a mixture of triumphant excitement and depressing sadness. My vision was blurry, hot, wet tears slid down on my cheeks uncomfortably. I sniffed back the wetness of my nose, but couldn't bring myself to wipe away the tickling tears on my face.
My friend stuck her keys into the ignition of the car, and the engine roared, bringing me back to the present. She told me to turn on the light above my head and asked me to read the first chapter out loud. I obeyed, my finger pressing hard until I heard a 'click' and a cascade of yellow light shone down onto my lap. There was a gentle lurch as the car began to move forward and out of the parking lot. Quickly, I threw my seatbelt over my shoulder and into the buckle. Taking numerous deep breaths, feeling a somewhat nausea in my stomach and my heart pounding achingly against my chest, I finally opened the cover.
My eyes fell on the orange inside flap...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inside Jacket/Flap:
We now present the seventh and final installment in the epic tale of Harry Potter.
If I was crying when I first laid hands on this book/treasure, I realized that it would surely get worse and worse as I read. As my eyes scanned those words, I began twelve steady hours of constant sobbing. It hit me.
This is the end. The next twelve hours of reading would be concluding a decade of my life: my childhood, my adolescence, and the beginning of my adulthood.
I'm an original fan. For me, it began in 1997 as an 8 year-old 3rd grader. I went to my school's book fair and picked up
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone off the 'New Releases' shelf. My teacher recommended it, and it had a nice cover, so I read it. (Plus, I was...and still remain...a ravenous reader and wanted to read anything and everything.) Since that first page, I've been hooked ever since. I had waited for every single copy after that...
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and my first and last 12:00 AM release to get
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I've read them all in one day starting with
Goblet of Fire. I was old enough to have that stamina to finish it in one go. I set a personal record with this last book...but it is more that I literally CANNOT put them down more than anything!
These books have been an escape. I have had many interesting and unfortunate things in my life, and reading has always been a way to escape the desolate and death of life. In this way, Harry Potter's escape was so different. It didn't take me away from my problems. Sure, I was thrown into a fantasy world...it isn't real. It is pretend. But the morals and the themes are set in reality...a reality that took hold of most of my life. Instead of letting me run from my fears and trials, these books (with their themes of death and forgivenes and acceptance) made me face them with a new idea about them. I was able, like Harry is, to accept the mortality of all humans. I have to live each day as if it were the last day. If anything, these books have given me an outlook on that.
They have given me a way for me to become more intelligent. I have always been a bookworm, devouring anything and everything I could read. I craved good literature, even from an early age. I have always excelled in my English and literature classes, and because of that, I have always loved to analyze and discuss books. This particular series has presented me with the mother load of literary excellence and symbolism. It made me thirst for deeper meaning and discussion. It made me expand my mind...and morals.
These novels have such a moral core. As a Catholic, who has attended Catholic school my entire life, I find that even I had to find some hope when I was low on faith. These have only strengthened my beliefs. I am now more sure than ever of my faith. If anything, I have become someone who looks for the best in people and who truly believes that our choices determine who we are.
But it was mostly my childhood. It was like what Stephen King said in his farewell to Harry Potter in
Entertainment Weekly magazine:
Quote:
Think how it must be for all the kids who were 8 when Harry debuted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, with its cartoon jacket and modest (500 copies) first edition. Those kids are now 18, and when they close the final book, they will be in some measure closing the book on their own childhoods — magic summers spent in the porch swing, or reading under the covers at camp with flashlights in hand...
That is my life. That is the definition of my life. I did those tihngs. It wasn't just at camp. Every night at like 2:00 AM, I'd be up with the flashlight, my mother yelling at me to go to bed. I had to finish the chapter...then the next...and the next. And it happened mostly on my second or third readings. After 10 years, the total are:
Sorceror's Stone: Read 44 times.
Chamber of Secrets: Read 20 times.
Prisoner of Azkaban: Read 46 times.
Goblet of Fire: Read 33 times.
Order of the Phoenix: Read 31 times.
Half-Blood Prince: Read 35 times. We'll see how many more times I will revisit all of these...including
Deathly Hallows. (YES, I am obsessive.)
Now, at 18, I am an adult. I'm going off to college, and, indeed, I must grow up some time. *sulk*
Anyway...reading this flap was a bittersweet moment. The moment--both triumphant and desperately sad--was here, and while I will reread and revisit this novel time and time again, over and over the rest of my life (and my children's too when the time comes), the first reading is the one that counts. Believe me. I will never forget 1:38 AM on July 21, 2007 in the passenger's seat of my friend's car when I began the event that would ultimately force me to bid my childhood farewell.
--------------------------------------------------------
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Quote:
The dedication of this book is split seven ways: To Neil, to Jessica, to David, to Kenzie, to Di, to Anne, and to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.
That we, the readers, get a dedication with her immediate family is an honor. That I can say that I had been there since the beginning in 1997 and would, indeed, stick with Harry (and Jo, herself) until the very end...without peeking ahead...is something of which I am immensely proud. That single dedication was very meaningful and emotional for me, and rightly so, it was given in the shape of that lightning bolt scar.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aecluylus from "The Libation Bearers"
Oh, the tormet bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein, the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.
But there is a curse in the house,
and not outside it, no,
not from others but from them
their bloody strife. We sing to you,
dark gods beneath the earth.
Now hear, you blissful powers underground--
answer the call, send help.
Bless the children, give them triumph now.
Now, I am not going presume or pretend that I understand this fully. Nor am I going to preach. I am simply going to state what I, as a reader, obtained from this passage...
Verse 1: I felt that it expresses that death is very painful and a shock no matter how old the person was or how expected the death was. The grief seems absolutely neverending and unbearable, indeed, a "hemorrhage" that just can't be stemed. No one denies that pain. No one denies the shock. However...
Verse 2: The "cure," I think, comes from the deceased's memory as we remember him/her, and that though we mourn and cry for them, we can, ultimately, stop the bleeding. The "cure" is the living's ability to honor and pass on the dead's legacy.
I'm still chewing thoughtfully on Verse 3. I leave it open...I just love the very last line. I am determined to link it to Harry...Please, Jo, "Bless [Harry, Ron, and Hermione], give them triumph now."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by William Penn from "More Fruits of Solitude"
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
I absolutely LOVE this quote. I think it's very straightforward, actually. To me, it means that Death is not the end. Almost exactly as Dumbledore says: "Death is but the next great adventure." Death isn't something to be feared or avoided at all costs. It is natural. It is inevitable, and must be accepted...welcomed when the time comes. If you have loved the deceased, that person will always be with you. Friendship and love between two individuals are immortal and omnipresent even in the finality of Death. Life, I believe, only continues after Death. Like the vastness of the oceans, Death seems endless, but if you have loved, Death is nothing more than a measurement.