Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Rowlings
Posted by Mark on December 14th, 2005
In the grand scheme of things, this book really just serves a similar purpose to the first book. The characters, having been introduced are now going to get developed further. The overall plot will begin to be slowly revealed (as it will over the next few books).
Unlike rest of the series, this one always seemed a bit out of place to me. I cannot quite explain why, perhaps it is a bit like Babylon 5 where over the course of 5 seasons there were certain episodes integral to the long term story arc, and many that were just thrown in to tell side stories. This book always seemed that way. (Note: I just realized there is probably a small number of people reading Harry Potter AND who are familiar with the entire Babylon 5 series story arc).
At least I used to think this. After reading “The Half Blood Prince” I am beginning to think this story was actually more important than it seemed at the the time and perhaps much more was revealed in it than seemed to be on the surface.