J.K. Rowling - "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

     What has young Mr. Potter gotten himself into this time?   It is now Harry's 5th year at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, and so far it's one of the most stressful yet as his O.W.L. exams are fast approaching.  The story begins as usual with him trying to survive life with his miserable muggle family, the Dursleys.  Summer is coming to a close and all the while his two best friends, Hermione and Ron are totally incommunicado, and there has been no word whatsoever about the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named despite the fact that Harry saw Voldemort return to his own body with his very own eyes.  Just as Harry is at his lowest, a pair of dementors from the wizard prison, Azkaban, approach him and his terrible cousin, Dudley, right there on bland ole' Privet Drive!  Harry casts a charm to defend himself and Dudley, and comes to find out from his crazy neighbor, Mrs. Figg (a person from a wizarding family that isn't able to do magic), that the man assigned to protect him had fallen down on the job and Dumbledore would not be pleased to hear about it. 

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

     It's at this point that Harry finds himself being rescued from his locked bedroom at the Dursley's house by a motley crew of witches and wizards who scuttle him off to the headquarters of the order of the phoenix.  This "order of the phoenix" Harry discovers is a secret society of magical folk dedicated to raising up an army against the newly arisen Voldemort.  This group includes the Weasley family, Mad-Eye Moody, Sirius Black (Harry's godfather), Professor Snape, Dumbledore, and a number of other characters.  Just as the Order is beginning to from a resistance to the Dark Lord, the Ministy of Magic is taking it's own strides to deal with the recent turn of events.  One of these ways is to discredit Harry and those who believe his talk of Voldemort's return, as well as to attempt to meddle in the education of the Hogwart's students.  This is where Hogwart's newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Deloris Umbridge comes into the picture. 

     We have seen in previous books that Harry has a fairly active dream life, but it is even more so in this episode.  Harry has a reoccurring dream throughout this book that involves a long dark hallway with many doors, and usually some kind of strong emotion.  It's very interesting to see how this function plays a significant role in the telling of this tale.  One other prominent storyline involves the beautiful Cho Chang.  In the last book she had caught Harry's eye, but at the time she was dating the now deceased  Cedric Diggory.  Just as in the last story, Harry finds himself attracted to her, but he actually begins to find himself wanting to impress her and to get closer to her, but is at a loss of how to go about doing so.

     This is almost a 900 page book so there are NUMEROUS different threads of storyline wafting throughout it's copious pages, and this is a poor attempt to sum up quite so many pages.  As usual, I recommend reading the book to get a  taste of what's going on in Mr. Potter's life.  Also, as I've said in previous blogs that the overarching story matures with it's readership, and this is especially true in this novel as Harry begins to explore the world of girls, and is having to begin to think about his future after his education is finished at Hogwarts.  I would say these are characteristics that most 15-year old's deal with; I would also say that in this book, Harry is especially "angsty" and anxious just as most kids are at that age.  It makes me think that Ms. Rowling has had some pretty in-depth experience with teenagers.  Of all of the book in this series that I've read so far, this one is probably my favorite because it really feels like there were a lot of questions answered, and there were MANY events that take place that make the story feel like it's really starting to progress quickly.  This book, more so than it's predecessors, begins to paint a picture of what is to come as the series draws to a close.  ("The Goblet of Fire" (book 4), in my mind, gives this one a run for it's money for the title of "favorite so far" just because that one was so imaginative and generally fun to read.)  It was a little tough to read this one as poor Harry was pretty "riled up" most of the time, but I think that is just something that goes with the territory of being a teenager...

     What does the future hold for Harry James Potter?  I guess we'll find out soon...