Fourth Reading Response *SPOILER*

         I interpreted the ending of this book as having two resolutions.  The first one being that Harry went to a masked ball, not only because Hermine told him to, but because he wanted to.  Throughout the entire book, and as I have mentioned in the other reading responses, Harry has hated the whole concept of dancing.  Even during his 'training' from Hermine he was reluctant to participate, and deep down, only did it in fear of himself committing suicide.  This is a huge event in Harry's life where he can honestly say that he enjoys dancing.  No matter what happens next, Harry has gone through a life-changing experience and has come out a more well-rounded man.  The tone of this section is very soothing due to the magnificent description of Harry's love for dance.  However a second resolution seems imminent because, despite still forty pages left, Harry's metaphoric immortality issue has not been resolved.
         Harry's will to be a part of the immortals is of much more personal importance for Harry.  Through a series of related out-of-world experiences, which were implicitly  drug-induced hallucinations, Harry goes through a very powerful rite of passage.  Just like he promised to Hermine, Harry killed her.  What was strange and very clever was the trap that many of the readers, including I, probably fell into, was the false implication that by killing Hermine Harry would become an immortal.  It is later explained by Mozart in the hallucination, that the exact contrary was true.  Harry took life too seriously and a true immortal would not have killed her.  What Harry didn't realize until the very end was that when Hermine was teaching him to dance, it only superficial.  She was actually training him to not care about the bourgeois, or about anything in general.  Harry killing Hermine was the final lesson for him; to show him that he needs to stop taking life with such extreme seriousness, and also to show how impossible is was for him to become immortal before.  So from the point when Harry met Hermine until the final meeting with Mozart, he was being prepared for the door to immortality to be opened.  Whether or not Harry decides walks through the door, is up to the audience.
         There are a multitude of themes used throughout the novel, but in my opinion, the main one is the concept of immortality.  Harry's explicit definition is one "who belongs to a reality which is timeless".  Examples are Mozart, Goethe, Hermine (we later discover), and a secondary character Pablo.  One thing that all immortals have in common is their grand sense of humour of the world, and not taking anything too seriously.  I believe that Harry's misconception was that to be remembered was to be immortal and vice-versa.  But when Mozart was writing his music, or Goethe was writing his poetry, they had no intention of being famous.  They did it for the love of it.  As a sort of proof of my theory, Hermine didn't have a special gift or anything to be famous for, yet she was still immortal.