★★★★☆ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Full-Cast Edition), by JK Rowling

** spoiler alert ** Boys 'n' girls

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Full-Cast Edition)

JK Rowling

** spoiler alert **

Boys 'n' girls

The first thing I noticed when I began listening to Goblet of Fire was that Harry and Ron and Hermione's voices had changed. Indeed, HRH are voiced by Frankie Treadaway, Max Lester, and Arabella Stanton in books 1-3. In 4-7 the actors are Jaxon Knopf, Rhys Mulligan, Nina Barker-Francis. Harry and Ron's voices are deeper¹. Harry is now 14. Presumably we are meant to understand that puberty is happening.

There are other signs. For the first time, students display an awareness of the opposite sex. (I'm fudging a bit: Percy Weasley has had a girlfriend for two books now.) This awareness is mostly limited to the entirely realistic spectacle of boys acting like abject idiots in the presence of pretty girls, and girls tittering vapidly in the presence of attractive boys².

The other very noticeable thing about Goblet of Fire is its length. At 20 hours and 13 min it's almost twice as long as any of the previous novels (Philosopher's Stone is 8h 41min, Chamber of Secrets 9h 37min, and Prisoner of Azkaban 11h 32 min). From this point on twenty hours is the new normal.

I have an idea about that. As an author, J.K. Rowling is a superb juggler. She can put a lot of balls into the air, keep them all in motion and even let them bounce off each other occasionally, then neatly catch them at the end. (She exercises the same talent in her Cormoran Strike mysteries and the Fantastic Beasts films.) Long novels give her the most scope for juggling.

Goblet of Fire is not the best example of her juggling abilities, because it is essentially one thing after another. We have the World Quidditch Cup, then the three tasks one after another, and then the final grim scene in which Voldemort returns. It is true that there are a couple plot threads running through those five sections. These are tied up clumsily with a series of Villain Monologs at the end (principally by Voldemort and Bartie Crouch, Jr.). It feels to me as if Goblet of Fire was her first attempt at the juggling act. She would later perfect it, but she's not quite there yet.

Goblet of Fire is the hinge point of the Harry Potter series as a whole. Until the end of this novel Voldemort has been an ominous but ineffective threat. At the end of Goblet of Fire, though, he is back, alive and fully active and killing people. The war is on. Consequenrly, Goblet of Fire is essential to the story of the series.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Full-Cast Edition) on Amazon

Goodreads review

1. I have a complaint about Knopf and Mulligan. Their voices are similar enough that I couldn’t always tell when I heard one of them which one it was. I wonder if TV and film actors might have a blind spot about this. Audiobook narrators know they have to have a distinct voice for each character. In TV and film, that isn’t as necessary, since the viewer can see who’s speaking. In this audiobook I particularly enjoyed the performance of James McAvoy as Mad-Eye Moody. There’s a voice with character!

2. The most conspicuous exceptions are Hermione, Neville, and Viktor Krum. Neville asks Hermione to go to the Yule Ball with him, because she’s smart and has been kind to him. Well-done, Neville! “Smart” and “kind are good reasons! Viktor is older, and is at this point an international Quidditch star, so he’s used to being the guy surrounded by tittering girls. Viktor is and remains a minor character, but he always presents as decent, talented, and intelligent.