Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final book of Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on July 21, 2007, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This book chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and leads to the long-awaited final confrontation between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.Deathly Hallows is published in the UK by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the USA by Scholastic Press, in Canada by Raincoast Books and in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin. Released globally in ninety-three countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever, selling more than eleven million copies in the first twenty-four hours following its release. The previous record, nine million in its first day, had been held by Half-Blood Prince.
CRITICAL RECEPTION
The Baltimore Sun's critic, Mary Carole McCauley's, praised the entire Harry Potter series as "a classic bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale." She noted that "[b]ook seven... lacks much of the charm and humor that distinguished the earlier novels. Even the writing is more prosaic", but then observed that given the book's darker subject matter, "[h]ow could it be otherwise?"
Reviewer Alice Fordham from The Times writes that "Rowling’s genius is not just her total realisation of a fantasy world, but the quieter skill of creating characters that bounce off the page, real and flawed and brave and lovable." Fordham concludes, "We have been a long way together, and neither [Rowling] nor Harry let us down in the end."
By contrast, Jenny Sawyer of the Christian Science Monitor says that while "There is much to love about the Harry Potter series, from its brilliantly realized magical world to its multilayered narrative," however, "A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow."
Stephen King criticised the reactions of some reviewers to the books, including McCauley, for jumping too quickly to surface conclusions of the work.[62] He felt this was inevitable, because of the extreme secrecy before launch which did not allow reviewers time to read and consider the book, but meant that many early reviews lacked depth. Rather than finding the writing style disappointing he felt it had matured and improved. He acknowledged that the subject matter of the books had become more adult, and that Rowling had clearly been writing with the adult audience firmly in mind since the middle of the series. He compared the works in this respect to Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland which also achieved success and have become established classics, in part by appealing to the adult audience as well as children. Criticisms of the book included a tendency on Rowling's part to spend too much time on some elements, such as the extended period of camping out through the books, and a certain tendency to produce magical solutions out of nowhere in a sticky situation. This is perhaps inevitable, in a world of magic, but King also attributed some of this to Rowling having fun and introducing humour into her work.
The Baltimore Sun's critic, Mary Carole McCauley's, praised the entire Harry Potter series as "a classic bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale." She noted that "[b]ook seven... lacks much of the charm and humor that distinguished the earlier novels. Even the writing is more prosaic", but then observed that given the book's darker subject matter, "[h]ow could it be otherwise?"
Reviewer Alice Fordham from The Times writes that "Rowling’s genius is not just her total realisation of a fantasy world, but the quieter skill of creating characters that bounce off the page, real and flawed and brave and lovable." Fordham concludes, "We have been a long way together, and neither [Rowling] nor Harry let us down in the end."
By contrast, Jenny Sawyer of the Christian Science Monitor says that while "There is much to love about the Harry Potter series, from its brilliantly realized magical world to its multilayered narrative," however, "A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow."
Stephen King criticised the reactions of some reviewers to the books, including McCauley, for jumping too quickly to surface conclusions of the work.[62] He felt this was inevitable, because of the extreme secrecy before launch which did not allow reviewers time to read and consider the book, but meant that many early reviews lacked depth. Rather than finding the writing style disappointing he felt it had matured and improved. He acknowledged that the subject matter of the books had become more adult, and that Rowling had clearly been writing with the adult audience firmly in mind since the middle of the series. He compared the works in this respect to Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland which also achieved success and have become established classics, in part by appealing to the adult audience as well as children. Criticisms of the book included a tendency on Rowling's part to spend too much time on some elements, such as the extended period of camping out through the books, and a certain tendency to produce magical solutions out of nowhere in a sticky situation. This is perhaps inevitable, in a world of magic, but King also attributed some of this to Rowling having fun and introducing humour into her work.
posted by Svala Nocov | 2:25 AM
But there were many more impressive stats in the movie's bag of tricks. HpatOotP passed $100 mil in a mere four days. It scored the summer's fourth-best three-day bow, after Spider-Man 3 ($151.1 mil), Shrek the Third ($121.6 mil), and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($114.7 mil). It earned a very nice A- CinemaScore review from an audience that was almost evenly split between women and men, and older folks and wee ones. It averaged a tremendous $80,512 on 91 IMAX screens, where it made $7.3 mil. And it banked a huge $190.3 mil in 61 overseas markets for a gigantic $330 mil worldwide total over the five-day span. Now that really is amazing! (And it conveniently overshadows the one caveat here: that HpatOotP had, in fact, the weakest three-day debut among all HP flicks, about $11 mil behind Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Then again, to be fair, this is the first one to have opened on a Wednesday.)