Before I Kill You, Mr. Potter...

As I mentioned not long ago, I've recently been re-reading the first six Harry Potter books, refreshing my memory before the arrival of book seven. I just finished book four, Goblet of Fire, this evening.

I have not, as of yet, made any discoveries between the pages of the other books like the bewildering-but-amusing photo I found in book one.

But I have found several moments of clearly planned-out foreshadowing, placed in the earlier books to echo with greater meaning once one has knowledge of the later books. This is one very commendable aspect of J.K. Rowling's writing: it's abundantly clear she hasn't been making all of this up as she went along. The important pieces, she's obviously known from the beginning.

Also enjoyable in the writing, I think, are the carefully constructed plots. Every detail falls into careful place. And I find the characters as enjoyable as ever. Writers who do tend to think their plots out so carefully often fall down when it comes to character, but not J.K. Rowling. The books are loaded with vivid and fun people.

But one thing that has always quietly nagged at me about her writing has felt particularly strong to me in reading these books for the second time. The conclusions of her books are like the endings of episodes of Scooby Doo. All the mayhem and mirth complete, things always wrap up with a long and laborious sequence of exposition, where we're walked point by point through every way in which we were fooled by the mystery that has just taken place. You know what I'm talking about.

In Scooby Doo, it's something like "he really just made us think we were hearing ghosts by putting marmalade in this blender and leaving it running on top of this stack of paint cans!"

In Sorcerer's Stone, it's Quirell/Voldemort's long explanation of Voldemort's not-quite-dead existence, feeding on unicorns and trying to get his hands on the immortality of the Stone.

In Chamber of Secrets, it's the epic tale of everything that has been going on between Ginny and Riddle's diary all year, the explanation of how four different people (plus a ghost and a cat) survived an encounter with the basilisk, how it was moving around the school, blah, blah, blah.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, it's a ponderous climax explaining every detail of Peter Pettigrew's faked death, discovery by Lupin and Sirius, and exactly how Sirius escaped from prison -- every single step of the process.

In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort chatters away like a James Bond villain, describing almost every detail of the last 13 years of his sort-of life. And then we get another chapter of Veritaserum-influenced Crouch Jr. explaining every bit of mischief he's been up to for the last 700 pages, disguised as Mad-Eye Moody.

I suppose this is the downside of having so intricate a plot, and not ordering it in such a manner that details are exposed along the way. Where many writers open their books with three or four chapters of expository background before getting to the meat of the story, J.K. Rowling seems to end her books this way.

Frankly, it's a wonder than the movie adaptations of these books have turned out (generally) as good as they have -- a climax of five to ten minutes of talking and explanations doesn't really make for riveting cinema.

And while I wouldn't expect J.K. Rowling to now, at the end, alter this formula that has made her more money than could fit in all the vaults at Gringott's, I do hope she at least continues with book seven to craft a book that is enjoyable overall despite this rather significant, recurring flaw.