He is experiencing an emotional “drought,” if you will, which sets the tone for the entire book.Īnd why did Rowling inflict this emotional starvation on her main character? Because at the end of book four, Harry feels like he’s at the top of his game. In story terms, the drought mirrors the complete lack of contact Harry has with the Wizarding World at that time. In fact, in the summer of 1995 there actually was a pretty severe drought in England and hosepipe bans were a very real thing.

And Rowling is spot on with the whole drought thing. This chapter takes place on the second of August, 1995. Rowling writes:Ĭars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing - for the use of hosepipes had been banned due to drought. I hope the next one is as good as the previous ones.Today we’re spending a little bit of time with chapter one of Order of the Phoenix.įrom the very beginning, we’re introduced to the theme of drought. I’ve been very impressed with Jim Dale’s performance and the audiobooks as a whole for the HP series up to this point, but I unfortunately have to say this one took a BIG step backwards for me. Randomly throughout the story, there will be an extremely long unnecessary pause in between paragraphs that leads you to believe the app crashed or something. I don’t know if this particular audiobook was rushed or something, but the editing is very odd in places. It’s described as light and airy, but the voice he gives her sounds like that gruff uncle whose had too much to drink at the New Year’s Eve party. If you’re listening to all the books in order, it’s very jarring to hear everyone suddenly pronouncing the character’s name differently. It wouldn’t be a big deal if it wasn’t SO inconsistent from the other readings he’d done. But suddenly in this book Dale pronounces the T at the end VERY prominently. Rowling herein has said that’s how it’s pronounced. For the previous 4 books, Dale has pronounced “Voldemort” with a silent “T” in a very French manner.

But the audiobook made some strange choices with the recording and narration that really took me out of the story.

Read the order of the phoenix pdf