by J. K. Rowling
The fourth e book in the Harry Potter phenomenon, at 734 pages, is what you name a wallow — one which a few will find extensive-ranging, compellingly written, and soaking up; others, lengthy, rambling, and tortuously fraught with adverbs (“‘What form of objects are Portkeys?’ stated Harry curiously”). Year Four at Hogwarts finds Harry enjoined because the unexpected fourth contestant in the Triwizard Tournament — “a friendly opposition among the three largest European schools of wizardry” — throughout which he bests a dragon, rescues Ron from merpeople, and reveals his manner via a maze that, unbeknownst to Dumbledore and the powers of top, ends in the darkish wizard Voldemort and to the demise of one of the different contestants. Before and in between the e-book’s foremost motion (the match isn't introduced until page 186, and Harry’s involvement no longer till page 271), Rowling explores her main subject matter of suitable vs. Evil and her minor topics of the value of loyalty and moral courage and the evils of yellow journalism, oppression, and bigotry. We discover, as an instance, that Hagrid isn't simply outsized however part-massive, that's taken into consideration a shameful history; we see Hermione being taunted as a “mudblood” for her mixed Muggle-wizard parentage. Rowling’s emphasis right here is a whole lot less on college life (now not a unmarried inter-house Quidditch fit!) and much greater on the wider wizard international and, simultaneously, on Harry’s more narrow, non-public international, as he has his first fight with Ron and asks a lady to his first dance. But on the entire the emotional impact is disappointingly slight. The dying of the Hogwarts pupil reasons nary a boost of the reader’s eyebrow; the complex cause of Voldemort’s infiltration of Hogwarts is reasonably preposterous and impossible to training session from the clues given. The characterization, as properly, appears to be getting thinner, with Dumbledore particularly reduced to a cool animated film of geniality. As a transitional e-book, however, Goblet of Fire does its task — very well if facilely — and raises a few tantalizing questions: Will Snape in reality emerge as one of the excellent men? What’s the connection between Harry’s and Voldemort’s wands, among Harry and Voldemort himself? When Harry tells his tale of Voldemort’s go back, what does the fleeting gleam of triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes signify? Stay tuned, Pottermaniacs, for Year Five.
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