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...Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Scholastic; 870 pages), the sinister Potions teacher Severus Snape gives Harry a lesson in Occlumency, the art of hiding one's thoughts from magical prying. "Only Muggles talk of 'mind reading,'" Snape sneers. "The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure ... The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, Potter ..." As usual, Snape is right, and in Phoenix Harry's mind becomes quite a bit more complex--and he acquires a few new layers...
There is nothing a reviewer could write that would stop a Harry Potter fan from reading Phoenix. Conversely, there is nothing a reviewer could say, short of an Imperius Curse, to persuade a nonfan to read it. (Book critics know much of the Dark Arts but not that much.) The Hogwarts Express is here, and you can either lie down on the tracks or get on board. If you choose the latter course, you're in for a thoroughly satisfying ride. Just when we might have expected author J.K. Rowling's considerable imaginative energies to flag--this is the fifth...
...what really makes the Harry Potter series great is its dual nature. It's a fantasy wrapped around a nightmare, an unreal, escapist fiction with an icy core of emotional pain that is very real. In Phoenix, Rowling even kills off a major character, one of the people Harry needs most...
...Harry Potter we meet in Phoenix is a darker, more volatile Harry, and it's not just adolescent petulance. Harry is showing the mental scars of having been hunted and harried for four straight years, and the rage and fear he feels will strike a chord with any reader, adult or child. "You don't know what it's like!" he shrieks at Ron and Hermione. "You--neither of you--you've never had to face him, have you?" No, they don't know what it's like...
...Harvard is supposed to be curtailing this type of behavior,” Potter says. “It’s clear that Harvard is still attacking unions through outsourcing...