A VOTE IN FAVOR OF THE EPILOGUE TO HARRY POTTER (POSSIBLE SPOILER). Annalisa and I have a disagreement about the epilogue to Harry Potter. We agree that the epilogue is remarkably bland. We differ in that I think that a bland ending is appropriate, even one so very bland. (I used the spoiler alert only because it is possible there is some one who doesn’t yet know that the epilogue is bland). The Harry Potter epilogue shows that normal life has resumed, and also features the beginning of the school year at Hogwarts. One of Rowling’s triumphs in the series is to combine monstrous evil with the texture of a story about an English school. I think it is right that the book ends with a quiet return to Hogwarts.
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One of Rowling’s few, but pronounced, failings is that she often uses cliched devices and images, particularly when it’s clear she doesn’t know what else to do. Action scenes are where this becomes most apparent, when her description becomes vague and you are forced to fill in the blanks with images from movies, etc. If I wasn’t so lazy I’d come up with an example of this.
Julia Halberstam commented that the books were being written more and more as if they were screenplays, which covers part of what I’m saying.
Regarding the epilogue, my complaint is not that it is quiet, that normal life has resumed, or that its focus is on Hogwarts and family life. I don’t mind that it’s bland. What bothers me is how it is written blandly. It’s not descriptive, evocative, or mood-evoking at all. I suppose that something that lacks emotion is bland, so maybe I am complaining about the blandness. But still, if there is one single thing I learned in my college fiction classes (and there may only be one thing), it is this: when you write a boring character/event/place you don’t use boring writing.
While in Stratford, I bought the Bloomsbury (British and Canadian) version of Deathly Hallows. (I can’t stand the American version where so many words aren’t spelled properly; where “revising” becomes “studying,” where “jumpers” become “sweaters,” etc.
I thought it was the best of the series. At least the chapter with Snapes memories and Harry’s “after death” scene with Dumbledore were followed by action, not a bland conclusion.
But I agree with Philip that the epilogue was wholly appropriate. After many chapters that were hardly bland, replicating some experiences of the first book through the eyes of people who had done it all before was appropriately bland. Rowling returned to the images and language that 11+ beginners and a slightly older sibling might use.
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