But what do Ron and Harry do? They steal the flying car Ron’s father had illegally tricked out and follow the train to Hogwarts in the air. And I realize when you’re 12 years old desperation can feel a lot less reasonable than when you’re an adult. Except for some reason the barrier seals itself early (Dobby is really up to no good) and they find themselves trapped on the wrong side. Then through an amazing coincidence of plotting, Ron and Harry are the very last two people to need to get through the entrance to Platform 9 3/4 to get the train to Hogwarts. Because let’s face it, how could the Ministry of Magic be fooled that Dobby’s magic levitation spell was performed by Harry Potter? We’re led to believe that the mere fact that magic was performed in the Dursley house was what tipped them off, but what if Harry didn’t live with Muggles? What if, like Ron, he lived in a house with wizard parents? If acts of magic within a household are the only criteria, why aren’t the Weasley children getting written warnings right and left? Are we seriously meant to believe that a Ministry that can tell when and where magic was performed can’t tell that a House Elf, and not an underage student, was the culprit? But the whole set-up where Dobby attempts to warn Harry Potter not to return to school? Does not compute now that I’m older and less willing to just go with the flow. Yes, they follow the same structure as the first book, which I gave a pass for being mostly a children’s book and for doing a lot of the world-building. The first hundred pages are also problematic. Instead we get a bunch of petrified students and one petrified cat–plus one petrified ghost, despite the fact that even Rowling never attempts to explain how a ghost came to be petrified (the only possible reason is he fell into a gaping plot hole that allowed a student to be petrified by the basilisk’s gaze instead of killed, then the ghost had to be taken out of the plot somehow so no one would know that a basilisk was behind all the attacks until Harry put two and two together before the grand finale). The plot basically contorts and twists to the point of ludicrousness in order to not kill any of the students at Hogwarts because having a death toll at this early stage would cancel any credibility as a children’s series. The problem? We’re still skewing too young to let that darkness loose. It becomes quite clear that the world Harry Potter lives in isn’t all wizard candy and quidditch this is a world that is crackling with danger. But once the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, Rowling begins to considerably darken things up and focus. The answer is that it both had and hadn’t.įor the first hundred pages Chamber is about as plotless as Sorcerer’s Stone was, and the plot makes about as little sense. Revisiting the book for the first time in several years, I was curious to see if my memory of the film adaptation (which I consider to be very shoddy) had colored my memory of the book. So while Sorcerer’s Stone was the first full Harry Potter book I read, my journey actually began here, in the Chamber of Secrets. I had to force myself to put the book down to rejoin the group, and the first opportunity I had I ran to a book store and purchased the three Harry Potter books that were available then ( Goblet of Fire was five or six months away from publication at the time). I got so engrossed that I was a hundred pages in before I realized everyone else had long since woken up and been bumping about the kitchen. Lo! and behold, there was a copy of Chamber of Secrets on the night table. Too timid to wander the house on my own, I looked around the room for something to kill time until everyone else woke up. Everyone spent the night at the friend’s house and in the morning I woke up first. Fifteen years ago I was 18 years old and attended a birthday party for one of my older sister’s college friends. Although it’s the second book in the series, Chamber of Secrets was actually my first experience reading Harry Potter.
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