Harry Potter 5

The fifth book in the series arrived after a cruel, three-year wait. The previous books all came out a year apart, and many had assumed the rest would follow suit. For eleven-year-olds who took up Harry Potter from the beginning, this was a disappointment, as their lives were now out of sync with Harry’s. For forty-somethings such as myself, I didn’t care.

I’d only just recently begun reading the series. So for me, the fifth book arrived right on time. It was a strange feeling at last buying one of the books when it came out. Kind of like that feeling I had when I received my Hogwarts acceptance letter.

Book Review

The fifth book was the longest in the entire series: over three times the length of the first one. This was good news for paper suppliers but bad news for people who couldn’t lift a book weighing more than twenty pounds.

One of my favorite scenes in the book occurs near the beginning, after Harry and his cousin Dudley are attacked by Dementors. After Harry tells his story, his uncle asks what a Dementor is. To everyone’s surprise, he is answered by Aunt Petunia. After fifteen years of pretending the wizarding world doesn’t exist, suddenly she knows all about Dementors and Azkaban. This would be like me suddenly blurting out Twilight details: an unthinkable surprise.

Anyway, as far as the rest of the book goes, Harry is considered crazy for saying Voldemort’s back. The school is gradually taken over by a government official. And in the end, after thousands of hours of reading, we’re treated to a nice showdown between Voldemort and Aunt Petunia. Er—I mean, between Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Movie Review

Remember that one time I wrote about my favorite part of the book, where Harry’s aunt lets it slip she knows a thing or two about the wizarding world? Yeah, well, that wasn’t in the movie. The Dursleys have been increasingly underplayed and I’m not sure why. It’s not like they wouldn’t be able to keep rabid fans in their seats and extra five minutes per film.

And speaking of that, it’s very interesting that the longest book turned out to be the shortest (at the time) movie. Though I probably shouldn’t complain. There’s only so much Umbridge someone can take.

And speaking of that, Umbridge is always portrayed in the books as a very wide and toad-like creature. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re actress Imelda Staunton) the film portrayal looks nothing like the book description:

The rest of the movie is pretty good. But I’d keep your eye out for this guy: