Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Audiobook read by Jim Dale

2001 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

20h 37m

The same, but darker.

Trying to make sense of so many questions…

I’ve read the Harry Potter series twice now and I always enjoy them as fun, familiar, and not very challenging.  Preparing to read it in the context of all of the really great SF/F titles that have earned the Hugo, I was a little perplexed and to be honest, earnestly dreading this read (is it possible to dread earnestly?  Because I was very intent in my dread).  I would never admit to this, but there may have even been a moment in time when I sort of chose to listen to the audiobook so that I could only half pay attention and just be done with it with minimal effort.  And I was even less excited about writing this review.  Now, I’m glad I’ve taken some time to stew over it, because I’ve developed a slightly different perspective.

Initially, I was concerned that the pendulum swing of voter fickleness (is that a word?) had swung from the very hard SF choices of the 90’s to what appeared to be little more than a popularity contest in the 2000’s (Vinge, Gaiman, Bujold, and Rowling, all with large fan bases, account for half of the Hugo’s).  But really, that’s a silly comparison; after all, people like Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and LeGuin have been getting repeat wins since the beginning.

My fear that Rowling’s win would only evidence the number of fans rather than the quality of the book was probably unwarranted as popularity has always influenced Hugo Award voting.  But my concerns about the book went beyond popularity too.  I joked that this was the same Harry Potter only darker.  I’ll get to the darker part in a minute, but Rowling really does lean heavily on the safe and predictable at times.  I wondered for a long time why this book won, if none of the others (which are written very similarly) had even been nominated?

I have also been seriously delaying this review (earnestly delaying it), then writing and rewriting major portions of it for the last month or so, trying to decide what to defend (I think there’s plenty worth defending) and what to criticize (probably even more).  But just now, I don’t think I’ll go there except to remember that if any book signaled Rowling’s attempt to transform this series to something darker, it was this one.  There’s a lot that feels rote-Harry-Potter about this book, but even amidst really awful moments like the entire World Cup Quidditch Cup, Rowling was able to introduce a sense of pervading and seemingly permanent doom.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire shed quite a lot of the happy-go-lucky, even-if-something-bad-happens-it-will-turn-out-alright-in-the-end feeling of the first three books.  Rowling’s fourth installment had some real weight (physically too), and even a sliver of emotional depth.  In all fairness, it’s not entirely undeserving (just mostly).

So I guess, while it might seem that I could get behind arguments in favor of- or in opposition to- this win, I think I still lean toward being opposed to this win.  At the same time, I’m of the opinion that the question of whether this or any of the Harry Potter books are deserving of the Hugo is irrelevant.  That Harry Potter won the Hugo seems to say more about the award process to me than the worthiness of the book.

The Hugo Award, at least for best novel, is only marginally about the crowning of this year’s best SF/F work.  It’s a fan process.  It’s a thing anyone can do (if you can pay).  It’s a popularity vote.  And yet, we also know that people are supposed to be voting for the “best” of the year.  I don’t think any of that is bad necessarily, but I think it’s probably necessary to remember before starting to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the context of quite a few really distinguished SF/F novels.  It might be a little more fraught with questions of legitimacy (rightfully IMHO), but it is still fun, immersive and sometimes a little gross.

Recommendation

If you’re trying to finish off the Hugo list like me and, like I was, regretting this one, just know that despite being a little miffed about this Hugo, I still think there’s plenty to enjoy.  Overall, I enjoyed the book.  Not my favorite HP, definitely not my favorite Hugo, but still worth the time.

If you’ve already gone through the print books and you think you want to read them again, I recommend giving the audiobooks a shot.  Jim Dale is always great, and he has such a Harry Potter-y voice that he’s doubly good here.

HEP SCORE

Universe 5/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 2/5

Scientific Wonders 4/5

Characters 3/5

Overall 18/25

Hey! In case you didn’t notice, I actually finished the Hugo’s just a few hours before Redshirts was announced this weekend.  I considered that a challenge completed, though I have already started reading Redshirts, and I’m sure I’ll end up reviewing it here later.

The Graveyard Book

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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

2009 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

Audiobook read by the author

7h 45m

The only surviving member of his murdered family, Nobody Owens was raised by ghosts.  As you can imagine, Nobody eventually wishes to leave the graveyard and explore the big world, only to find that in the real world, there’s no place as friendly as your neighborhood graveyard.

My library has The Graveyard Book in just about every format to be found and I tried to sample them all.  In the end, I decided to try out these Playaway thingies.  My Mom has told me about them at her library, but I’d never actually seen one before now.  I liked that there was an option to speed-up or slow-down the audio, and that it was read by the author, so I decided to give it a shot while also making note of the many other formats in existence (the illustrations by Dave McKean looked fantastic).

I’m glad I chose the Playaway device (a counterintuitive use of an mp3 player) because although the faster speed setting wasn’t to my taste, just hearing Gaiman read “flibbertigibbet” at what was descriptively labeled “speed ++”, was well worth the price of admission.

Titular-ly suggestive

Going into this book, I knew next to nothing about it.  Since completing it, I’ve seen The Graveyard Book oft praised for inspiring a sense of wonder.

Well, it certainly starts out promising.  The title alone is about as ominous as the Hugo’s come (maybe right behind Doomsday book).  We are immediately introduced to a toddler who has only narrowly escaped the clutches of “The Man Jack” (another threatening title), who murdered his family for an undisclosed reason.  The first chapter ends when the boy is rescued, at the behest of his recently dead mother, by a graveyard full of very unthreatening ghosts.  The rest of the book cobbles together an uninspiring hero’s journey, never managing to live up to the possibilities suggested by the title and first chapter.  Gaiman notes that it began as a re-telling of The Jungle Book, but I just didn’t find it to be much of an improvement.

This is a book with an orphaned protagonist, ghosts, ghouls, and a murderous evil dude, from the 2000’s and it’s not Harry Potter.  The fact that it is still well-known and well-loved is impressive.  However, beyond the neat concept, the story lacks any robust development and it never mattered to me whether Bod would ever see Scarlett again, whether he’d get out of the graveyard permanently, or whether anything in particular would happen at all.  The graveyard ghosts fell flat for me and Nobody Owens was one the most flat characters of all the Hugos.   I might have cared about The Man Jack for a minute…but then I stopped at the uninspired “Jacks of All Trades”.

The Harry Potter series, for all its faults, had readers invested in not only Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but in the Hogwarts Castle, secondary characters and the compendium of magical beasts and intricacies of the previously unknown magical world.  Compared, The Graveyard Book is just the most beautifully wrapped and enticing gift under your Christmas tree that upon unwrapping turns out to just be a second pair of boring pajamas.

The good wreck

Gaiman has a very recognizable voice.  I’ve only read The Graveyard Book, Coraline, and I’ve heard him read a handful of things on the Youtube, but even this small sample has demonstrated an instantly recognizable author’s voice.  He tells The Graveyard Book in much the same way that he addresses a graduating class.  I happen to like that he approaches all of these with the same level of care for the construction and tone, so it’s fair to say that despite a fairly strong disconnection from the characters and events in The Graveyard Book, the vehicle in which it was told was truly pleasing.

But that’s not the voice I mean to talk about.  I mean to say that his voice – his speaking voice – is just wonderful.  If I were a contestant on one of those old dating shows where the bachelors are screened from view and they answer inane questions and whatnot and Neil Gaiman were one of the bachelors, his voice would totally be my pick.

He has the sort of voice that can perfectly convey the sense of wonder (I’ll admit there is a little more than none), of silliness, but also of the grave things that only a children’s story might contain all at once.  The combination of his distinctive brand of storytelling and a rather natural voice-acting ability (the man knows how to pause like nobody’s business) created a children’s story that can fill the room.

I’m aware there are a great many people out there that enjoyed this book more than I did and I imagine for those who did, listening to Gaiman read it himself will just wreck them.  This has been one of my most favorite audiobook experiences thus far.

Recommendation

The only other complaint I’d pass on here, was that it seemed to have such a deficit of emotion (and a story about an orphaned child should have been easy) that I never felt much about it at all.  Honestly, the 2009 nominees included some pretty big names (Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi, and Neal Stephenson), and it seems unlikely that this one pulled out the win.  It was fun at times, but mostly just seemed uninspired.  If my daughter were reading now, this would be pretty hard to suggest given the dearth of amazing SF/F for kids in existence.

HEP SCORE

Universe 2/5

Social/Political Climate 3/5

Dialogue 4/5

Scientific Wonders 2/5

Characters 3/5

Overall 14/25

After initially deciding not to listen to any more audiobooks for the remainder of the challenge, the time it is taking me to finish Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is forcing me to.  So while I continue with that beast, I'm also listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.