Harry Potter Book 8 - a Redux to Old Themes in a New Flawed Format!
The new Harry Potter Book 8, "Harry Potter and the Accursed Child" picks up the old story 19 years later and stays true to the original theme - of kids learning the fortitude of friendship by understanding that love is stronger than death. The whole plot of the original 7 books was driven by Dumbledore's odd way of educating Harry Potter in order to get Harry to the point of being willing to die for his friends.
The new Harry Potter books follow along the same theme of friendship albeit with a teenager who is differently challenged. Harry Potter was a neglected orphan who was thrust into the limelight of magical stardom with enormous responsibilities. Harry Potter's son, Albus Potter, the protagonist of book 8, has the opposite problem. He is born with the weight of privilege, of being the son of the super star wizard, and so he feels compelled to seek his magical stardom in order to be worthy of his name. Of course this gets him in trouble!
An other aspect of the continuity with the original series of books is that some emotional loose ends that were not quite tied up in the 7 books found some resolution in book 8. For example, the emotional tension between Harry and Dumbledore finds some resolution in Book 8. The passage in book 8 discussing how "love blinds" - when selfish agendas get intermingled with the need to love - opens up the old wounds between Harry and Dumbledore and also manages to medicate them as best as it could be. I loved reading through the second half of the Book 8 especially for the sake of nostalgia of the wound of old Harry Potter love.
My one major misgiving I have is that medium of the theater play, which the book 8 is written in, does not work for the Rowling-type story telling. Rowling is a story teller who is brilliant at creating conflicts in terms of moral values by embedding the values in characters and then creating very complex yet plausible plots to deepen the value-laden characters in order to explore them in a way that blossoms into meaningful cathartic experiences. The key to this deep intricate story telling is being able to develop complex yet plausible plots which cannot be effectively done in the theater play format. I really wish Rowling had made book 8 into the novel form instead of the theater play. In the play format in order to make Rowling's story work a few Perry Mason type plot twists are employed. These plot twists make some parts of the story feel inauthentic.
Keeping the implausibility of the plot twists aside, the story powerfully speaks to the Griffindor aspect in all human beings. There in deed were a few scenes in book 8 that moved me to tears, not the least of which happens in a new graveyard. We are human because we belief that love is stronger than death, that there are certain things worth courageously dying for, love being chief among them. It is this Griffindor sensibility that is key to human self-transcendence, the ability to move our of our narcissistic self to truly encounter the "other" who is a friend we learn to truly love. After all, the greatest Teacher of all time said, there is no greater love than to give one's life for one's friend (John 15:13).
Rowling's Harry Potter stories continues to delve on the theme of love being stronger than death and deep friendships moving one to a place of self-transcending courage and so herw works will continue to be perduring, in spite of the new format not quite working its strengths.