Pagan Tama
(Arthur A. Levine Books; 2016)
One of the most anticipated books of 2016, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is something that Potter fans have been waiting for nearly 7 years: the story of what happened next following the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Something of a “Next Generation” of the Harry Potter series, Cursed Child focuses on the lives of Harry’s second son Albus, and Draco Malfoy’s son Scorpius, as they enrol in Hogwarts. The two find themselves facing considerable challenges as a result of their families’ fame and reputation, and as a result they strike up an unlikely friendship. When they try to confront some of the darker aspects of their parents’ past, they soon find themselves in very deep waters – and deep peril. Of course, most of our old favourites have a prominent presence in this book too, and we get to see how their lives have turned out since Voldemort’s defeat.
Unlike the previous seven books, Cursed Child is not prose but a playscript – that used for the stage production whose tickets are currently as hard to get as phoenix tears. But despite this different format, and the fact that Rowling is joined by two other writers, Cursed Child feels like a Harry Potter book through and through. It is imaginative, vivid and emotional, and with all the twists, turns and surprises we’ve come to expect from Harry Potter. It’s also just as gripping as any of its predecessors. How it manages to achieve this in script format, particularly a very dialogue-heavy format with scarce stage direction, is quite remarkable – magical, even.
So why haven’t I given Cursed Child my “Read of the Month?” Well, much like the other Harry Potter books, Cursed Child isn’t really about witchcraft, or even magic for that matter. Harry Potter is really about people, relationships, and society. In the world of Harry Potter, magic functions more as a handy plot device more than anything else, and very often causes more harm than good (this is certainly the case in Cursed Child). Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise; Rowling has a bit of an odd relationship with Pagans – she once tweeted that “The only people I never imagined [at Hogwarts] are Wiccans,” which was something of a blow to all the young Wiccans out there who had fallen in love with the world of Harry Potter. Considering this blog is primarily about Paganism and the related field of witchcraft, I therefore felt that I couldn’t give “Read of the Month” to a book that wasn’t really about these things. But don’t doubt that it’s a brilliant read and one that’ll delight the fans.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In