I finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaba last night. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take notes while reading, but I definitely remembered several things that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Rowling's writing evolved even further after writing Chamber of Secrets. I love her style. It's very fluid and there's rarely a dull moment. In fact, there's never a point during these first three books where I want to put them down and read something else. I cannot say that about series like Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time. While both series are great and I enjoyed them both, there were times in both (an entire book in one of them) where I did not enjoy myself.
Professor Lupin, as always, is a favorite in this book. Everything that Harry learns about his father is such great insight in to Harry's lost past. I never realized just how much Ron and Hermione bicker throughout the series until now. Even in this book, it is obvious that they have feelings for one another.
Already knowing what's going to happen in this book makes me want to read it even more. In fact, I think I read faster simply because I know what's right around the corner, and I cannot wait to get to it. I've been taking my tablet to the gym with me and reading the books while I walk on the treadmill at the end of my workout. And there have been some embarrassing moments where I've gotten a little teary eyed or laughed out loud and people around me are looking at me, thinking, "Wtf is her problem?"
I don't care though because this book was so much fun! Hogsmeade, Sir Cadagon, Sirius, Lupin, Snape, Hermione, Scabbers, Ron, and yes, as always, Harry. What the movies tend to lack is a feeling that this story is occurring from Harry's point of view. It's difficult to show someone's internal monologue in a movie, but the movies always felt like it was a story about these things that happened to Harry and rarely did we get scenes that contained just Harry and only one other character. Yes there are a few iconic scenes with just Harry and Dumbledore, or Harry and Voldemort, but this book made me realize that it was with this movie they began to change things quite a bit; a lot was left out as well.
I enjoyed every minute of this book. I remember when I originally read it and found it to be my favorite of the first three books. I hated, absolutely hated, waiting for the 4th book to come out. I liked the fact that Harry found out that he was not quite so alone in this world; he has Sirius now; he's met some of his father's friends from school. I never realized it before, but all 4 of them, James, Sirius, Lupin, and Peter (I think) all end up dead by the end of the last book. I wonder if Rowling planned that.
I also wonder if Rowling planned the entire series out before or after writing Sorcerer's Stone. I wonder that because Sorcerer's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban deal little with the horcruxes. And even in retrospect, Chamber of Secrets didn't really allude closely enough to the idea of a horcrux that I can't imagine Rowling initially created Riddle's diary to act as such. She might have thought of it as a deeply evil creation of dark magic meant to control a new writer via Riddle's teenage memory.
Still, I'm not sure whether or not the horcruxes and Riddle's past were set in stone by the end of Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm not convinced either way if the underlying, later main, plot of books 4 through 7 had been developed until after she finished Prisoner of Azkaban.
I think of it this way. The first three books were very episodic. Each book was it's own episode in a t.v. series. Little ties the three together except that the three main characters are best friends and that they attend school together and look forward to it each year. But the book has to be about something, so there's the ever looming threat of Voldemort's possible return to power some day. And, yes, something does happen, as individual plot lines, in each of the first three books that is entirely wrapped around that single plot line (Voldy's attempts at returning to power, whether by him directly or his servant or magical items).
In Goblet of Fire, the story takes a turn. The end of the book brings an actual cliffhanger. Yes, Prisoner of Azkaban alludes to that story starting with the escape of Peter Pettigrew, which leads me to the conclusion that Rowling developed the idea of the horcruxes and Voldemort's return to power via, what are in essence, one of his lich phylacteries, while writing Prisoner of Azkaban.
I'm so glad I decided to reread these books because now I'll have a first-time shot through all seven books without waiting for a single one. I'll retain a lot of things from the previous books that I most likely did not retain while waiting for the next one to be released. And with this little analysis, one of the thoughts that I've mulled around in my brain since I finished the series for the first time was "Did Rowling intend the series to end up like this? When Rowling started in on Sorcerer's Stone, was this this story she imagined? Did it turn out like she wanted?"
If I ever get a chance to speak with her, via letter or in person, I would ask her this: "When you began writing Sorcerer's Stone, were you already aware of the overarching plot for the rest of the books? Did you already know about Voldemort's horcruxes and his soul that was split seven ways, one in him and six external pieces? Or did this all develop later?" I'd also ask her where she got the idea of the horcrux from, because they are so similar to lich phylacteries that I can't imagine she got it anywhere else.
I thought of all this while reading Prisoner of Azkaban again, finally coming to the conclusion that some time while writing the end of this book she must have developed the rest of the story for the series. I'm just not sure I'd believe it if she had planned the entire series out before she wrote the first book. At least, I'd be incredibly surprised if she did because the first three books feel so different from the last four.
Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed my reread of Prisoner of Azkaban. On to Goblet of Fire.
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