Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Audiobook Review)

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Title: Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire

Series: Harry Potter, book 4

Author: J K Rowling

Publisher: Listening Library

Narrator: Jim Dale

Duration: 20 hours, 30 minutes

Copyright: 2000

Genres: fantasy, adventure, mystery

Filed in: Audiobook reviews

Review copy provided by Carrollton Public Library.



THE GIST: The Riddle house has been empty for many years, but it is empty no longer. Lord Voldemort, still weak and disheveled from his previous encounters with Harry Potter, has occupied the ancestral home of his long-dead muggle father, and he’s not alone. Wormtail, formerly known as Scabbers the rat, has re-joined his master in order to help him regain the power he lost thirteen years ago. How they plan to do this remains a mystery for now, but it doesn’t sound good for Harry Potter.



Meanwhile, Harry is spending the summer at one of his favorite places in the world, the Burrow. This year, England is hosting the Quidditch World Cup, and Mister Weasley has gotten tickets through his job at the Ministry of Magic. The World Cup is a fantastic spectacle, with over a hundred thousand witches and wizards from all over the world gathered in one place. The quidditch match is great, but the event ends in terror when several death-eaters, hooded supporters of Voldemort, make an appearance. Ministry officials manage to chase them off, but the dark mark is seen flying over the grounds. The symbol of Lord Voldemort hasn’t been seen for thirteen years, and no one likes to think what that might mean.



The adventure doesn’t stop there; after the World Cup, it’s back to school, were Dumbledore promptly announces that Hogwarts will be hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament this year. Students from three different wizard schools, Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beau Baton will compete to become the Tri-Wizard Champion. The tournament is not all fun and games though. The three tasks the competitors must complete are extremely dangerous and possibly deadly. In fact, the Tri-Wizard Tournament hasn’t been held for over a hundred years because too many competitors were dying! That's why only students age seventeen and higher are allowed to enter. Younger students just wouldn’t stand a chance. Surprise, surprise, the name Harry Potter comes out of the Goblet as a contestant, and there’s no backing out. Each entry represents a binding magical contract, and it's either compete, or die.



Wow, this doesn’t look good. Lord Voldemort back in the country, death-eaters at the World Cup, and now someone inside Hogwarts trying to do Harry in. Even if Harry survives the tournament, he will almost certainly have to face Voldemort again. Is it possible for him to escape a third time?



MY THOUGHTS: How on earth does J K Rowling manage all those characters. She keeps everyone involved in the story, and each character has such a distinct personality. There’s one scene in this audio book in particular that really illustrates this: At the Burrow, the day before the quidditch world cup, Bill and Charlie Weasley are in the back yard causing two battered old tables to dog-fight each other in mid air. Fred and George are Cheering and egging them on, while Ginny laughs at their antics and Hermione watches from the sideline, caught between amusement and anxiety. From overhead, an upstairs window crashes open and Percy yells down at them, berating them for interrupting his report on cauldron bottom thickness. Each character is involved in the scene, and each is acting according to their personality. Rowling doesn’t miss a trick, even Hermione’s cat, Crookshanks, is involved, chasing the garden gnomes around. J K Rowling is a wonderfully gifted story-teller.



FAVORITE ROWLING CREATION: Molly Weasley’s clock. Every family should have one of these. Useless for telling the time, this clock lets Missus Weasley keep tabs on her whole family. It has nine hands, each engraved with the name of a family member. Instead of numbers around the face, the clock has locations such as "home,” “work,” or “school.” It also shows places like “hospital,” "prison,” “traveling," and even ”lost.” At the 12 o’clock position it shows “mortal peril,” which will become very important if the dark lord really is re-gaining power. On second thought, maybe a clock like this would not be ideal for every family. My mom would go nuts if she could see where I was all the time.



NARRATOR: For "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" Jim Dale created 127 distinct voices, enough to earn him a grammy award. Let's try an experiment; as you sit at your computer, try to say something using as many different voices as you can. If you can do 20 I’ll eat my hat! Okay, I don’t wear a hat, but you get the point. Jim Dale is really a superb audio book narrator!



FAVORITE JIM DALE VOICE: So hard to pick just one from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I like Jim Dale’s voice for Vernon Dursley. He sounds very pompous and blustering which fits the character perfectly. Also, hearing Winky the house-elf drunk on butter beer cracks me up. I love how Dale throws in the hiccups and everything. Last, but not least, is Viktor Krum. He doesn’t talk much, but I have to laugh every time he tries to pronounce Hermione’s name. It always comes out something like Her-me-oh-ninny. I can see why Dale got a grammy for “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, he really outdid himself.



FAVORITE SCENE: I love the scene where the Weasleys come to #4 Privet Drive to pick up Harry and take him back to the Burrow. They decide to use the floo network. The only problem is, the Dursleys have boarded up their fireplace in lieu of the electrical one which they prefer. So Mister Weasley pops into the boarded-up fireplace, thinking he's come out at the wrong one. ThenFred and George pop in. "Fred, no, go back!" shouts Mister Weasley. "Get your elbow out of my eye!" shouts Fred. Then Ron pops in, only adding to the confusion. Meanwhile, Harry and the Dursleys are listening to the commotion from the living room; Harry barely containing his laughter, the Dursleys looking simply terrified. Arthur Weasley finally blasts open the fireplace, destroying half the Dursleys living room in the process. The scene finally comes to a hilarious conclusion with the boys going back out the fireplace, in the midsts of Uncle Vernon pelting knick-knacks at Arthur, and Dudley choking on his own tongue which has grown to a length of three feet after he ate one of Fred and George’s ton-tongue toffeys. Molly Weasley will not be impressed when she hears about this.



MOST SHOCKING REVELATION: Mad-Eye Moody is not really Mad-Eye Moody at all, he’s actually one of Voldemort’s strongest supporters in disguise! How did this slip by Dumbledore for an entire year?



FAVORITE CHARACTER: You’ve got to love Mad-Eye Moody. A grizzled old ex-Auror with a glass eye and a wooden leg, this guy knows what fighting dark wizards is all about. That makes him the perfect choice for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, which is vacant again. Moody is not afraid to tell people like Snape, and Karkaroff exactly what he thinks of them either, which is my favorite thing about him. And Mad-Eye has a very big surprise in store for us too! Oops, I already gave that one away. Sorry.



FAVORITE QUOTE: Sirius Black; “If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”



FINAL WORD: “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is a great audio book, definitely my favorite so far. There were so many funny scenes I had trouble picking just one. Also, we see more signs of the kids growing and maturing with the first hints of Harry’s crush on Cho Chang. Rowling’s subject matter continues to mature as well; Harry Potter knows about death, but it’s his first experience with it up close and personal when he witnesses Cedric Diggery’s murder. I love how Rowling keeps mounting the tension throughout the seven audio book series.



FILM ADAPTATION: “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” hit theaters in 2005 and took in over 100 million dollars in its opening weekend alone. Since then “Goblet of fire" has grossed almost 900 million and is number15 on the list of all-time highest grossing films.



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This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.

Audiobook review by Steven Brandt

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