Eileen Battersby, a fan, reviews the fifth of the series about the boy-hero of Hogwarts School.
Living the life of a boy-hero is exciting. But it is seldom easy and, as Harry Potter's experience continually suggests, the dangers, the thrill and the envy of one's peers are nothing compared with his emotional insecurity, self-doubt and the weight of uncertainty. Harry, now 15, has all too often paid the price of fame.
Within the wizarding world he has friends and admirers, but there are also begrudgers and serious enemies, most notably the dark master himself. Meanwhile, the summer vacations, endured courtesy of the Dursleys, his mean-minded uncle and aunt, remain miserable.
Locked in his bedroom and ordered not to breathe, Harry knows all about isolation. Hope and a sense of self largely achieved through his friendships with school pals and fellow apprentice wizards, Ron and Hermione, have opened his eyes to the value of trusting his instincts.
Imagination has become important to him; his dreams have become three-dimensional. He has also been able to catch glimpses of his parents who were murdered by Lord Voldemort when Harry was a baby. He moves among teachers and adults who knew James and Lily, both of whom had also studied at Hogwarts School.
Harry, it seems, is never fully alive unless he is at school; it is his lifeline. Not a star pupil, but he is good at quidditch and also tends to survive the most appalling disasters when solving mysteries involving fantastic violence and intrigue.
Fifth year at Hogwarts and volume five of the Potter chronicles, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, begins in the worst possible way for Harry as he has performed an illegal act of under-age magic when threatened by Dementors and is facing a hearing at the Ministry of Magic and possible expulsion. And all before the holidays are even over.
After a three-year pause in the story, J.K. Rowling continues this saga of sagas with its longest instalment to date. The wait has sustained the excitement and enabled both the merchandisers and, more importantly, younger readers to catch up with the four previous volumes and to embark on this with a sound grasp of the many characters and complex range of references and cross-references that make up this world.
Therein lies the secret. Harry, Hogwarts School, the wizardly world itself - all have secrets and a history. It is this that makes the narrative with its many stories-within-stories work. To enjoy it fully you have to read it all. Rowling is a storyteller, and stories require patience, detail, texture and a lot of words.
Long before volume five, as early as the second book, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (1998), the narrative pattern was established, from Muggle suburb to school of magic and back again. While it all began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997, the subsequent volumes, including Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) and this new one, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, have all opened in a similar way. Only the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), broke this pattern, beginning with a Potterless chapter of a dramatic maturity.
Increasingly detailed complications have conferred substance and cohesion on the story in which the wizarding world and that of the Muggles operate as parallel universes.
The new novel begins almost predictably. Yet again Harry is trapped at Number 4 Privet Drive, hoping for summer to end. There are also hints that he is getting older and now bears "the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time". But it would be too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all will remain the same.
Rowling is too clever. True, Harry has been becoming angrier. Eleven when we first met him, he has been developing a sense of personal justice ever since. Throughout this new book, he is very angry. Still, neither his creator nor her readers ever wanted a saint for a hero. One of the fears surrounding this volume was that a teenage Harry might leave his younger readers behind. After all he had previously shown an interest in that pretty Cho Chan - and does again - but magic and intrigue are still greater than soppy romance.
As for which major character would get killed off, I figured that out very early. But it doesn't matter. After all she has killed before. Remember Cedric Diggory? The expected excitement is there because the threats, the fears and the good-versus-evil are all present and delivered.
Change is in the air, and the many doubts readers have had about the Ministry of Magic and Cornelius Fudge are soon justified. Even the Weasleys are taken out of their cosy Burrow and placed in a sinister London setting. Hogwarts undergoes a number of upsets with the arrival of the repulsive Dolores Umbridge, the High Inquisitor. She begins to undermine the school initially by limiting the magical skills of the students and then proceeds to remove the staff.
Umbridge's behaviour and the responses of Dumbledore and his staff certainly counter the charges of cosy middle-Englander levelled at Rowling. In the Dursleys, she sends up class aspirations. In the pure-blood Malfoys, she exposes class snobbery These are subversive books, rich in ambiguity, surprises and rage, and this latest one is by far the most subversive. The best polemic is the most subtle when its story is bigger than its message. This is true of Rowling. Harry's discussion about death with Nearly Headless Nick is one of the strongest moments in the book.
Not the most naturally gifted of writers, her workmanlike, ordinary but always descriptive prose is seldom beautiful - although there is a charming passage on page 526 when a storeroom-like classroom is modified and becomes a forest to suit the needs of Firenze the Centaur when he becomes a teacher. But it serves the story.
J.K Rowling the storyteller never approaches the genius of Tolkien, whose art has a profundity and moral grandeur. Nor does she strive for the literary allusion so vital to Philip Pullman. But for consistent attention to detail, particularly in achieving the dynamics of story and for speaking with, rather than down to, her audience, the Potter books rise above the hype.
Looking at the five to date as a unit they have a cohesion of story and tone that renders them ultimately superior to C.S. Lewis's intellectually condescending Narnia Chronicles. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, combining the formula and the magic, will not disappoint.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling is published by Bloomsbury. (Recommended retail price €24.99)
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times