Courtesy of Patricio Tarantino at TheRowlingLibrary.com!
Rowling-Galbraith: On Denmark Street
July 13, 2021 by 1 Comment
Why did #Strike decide to rent an office in the mecca for musicians, Denmark Street? Here's author Robert Galbraith on the connection between Strike and the iconic London street. pic.twitter.com/J78VbDWhnq
— Robert Galbraith (@RGalbraith) July 13, 2021
“Denmark Street fits Strike like a glove, because, obviously, his parentage. He comes from in some ways from Rock n Roll Royalty but he’s never lived that life, and yet he’s gravitated to Denmark Street. And Robin might be calling him on that at some point in the future.
“It is an iconic street. And it is a place clearly that he feels at home, though I’m not sure he’s ever thought that through. Because he grew up being dragged around concerts by a passionate Rock fan and a groupie. So to operate out of a place where the buskers are constantly playing is, so this is home to him, yeah.
“But I love Denmark Street. I know it of old and used to live quite near there and it’s just one of those iconic places that I hope is not about to disappear though I fear for its future.”
Beatrice Groves, in her exegesis of Rowling’s choice of Charing Cross Road, has pointed out the importance of Denmark Street to Robin rather than Strike, that is to her what the Leaky Cauldron was to Harry Potter, and to The Presence herself as well:
More recently Rowling has spoken of how setting Strike’s offices on Denmark St was not a random choice, any more than was the placing of the Leaky Cauldron in Charing Cross Road. For Rowling, like Robin, once temped in Denmark Street: ‘I was sent to an office in Denmark Street years ago, and I was only there a week, and I loosely based Strike’s offices on that place where I temped.’ This was the first time that Rowling has mentioned her personal connection with this area of London and it makes sense that this might have been the time in her life when she got to know, via perusal in her lunch breaks, the bookshops of Charing Cross Road….
In sending Robin to temp in the office where she herself once temped, Rowling is doing something more than simply using a location which is familiar to her. For Strike’s office is to Robin what the Leaky Cauldron was to Harry: it is her portal of transformation. It will take her from the loveless, conventional life by which she feels stifled, and into her dream career. Matthew shares with the Dursleys both his obsession with the gaze of others, and in the desire to quash anything unconventional, anything of which those others might disapprove, out of the person whose behaviour might reflect badly on him. Matthew’s attempt to keep Robin away from the job for which she longs precisely echoes the Dursleys’ attempt to crush the magic out of Harry. It seems likely that it is no mere coincidence that the place that transports Harry from the Muggle to the magical world should be next-door to the place that transports Robin into the life she has always wanted.
Wordsworth writes that ‘there are in our existence spots of time,/ That with distinct pre-eminence retain/ A renovating virtue.’ I can’t help wondering whether Rowling has placed the gateways into her heroes’ dreams at precisely this location because she connects that particular ‘spot of time’ in her life, that time when she was temping in London the late 1980s, with the fulfilment of her own dreams. My hunch is that Rowling connects that time, and place, in her life with the crystallising of her own transformative dream to become a writer.
Rowling in today’s short comment talks about the Strike connection to Denmark Street, a side street to Charing Cross famous for its guitar stores and past clubs, the latter all closed (Strike’s address was in the not so distant past a notable one; see my post about dropping by Strike’s premises and favorite pub in 2016). The most exciting part of her asides here, I think, for Serious Strikers is the near confirmation in them that our prediction that the Agency will be forced to move from Denmark Street in Strike6 (and that Joe North’s home would be a perfect fit).
The eviction and search for new digs would be the perfect occasion for Robin to explore with Strike why he chose Denmark Street in the first place — and to suggest, when he neglects the obvious connection, that it was because an avenue that was Rock n Roll heaven at the time of his parents’ meeting felt like home to the recently demobbed soldier. My choice for the place for them to have this conversation is one closer than even Charing Cross Road or the Tottenham pub, namely the Church of St Giles in the Fields, the remarkable and beautiful building and grounds of which, though never mentioned in the books, are only a few steps and just across the street from the Agency’s entrance.
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Happy 24th Birthday, Harry Potter!
June 27, 2021 by 1 Comment
Hat tip to Patricio Tarantino at TheRowlingLibrary.com and to Beatrice Groves for sending me a reminder that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published on this date in 1997. Much more than Harry’s fictional birthday of 31 July, one he shares with The Presence, the date of his first adventure’s publication marks his true entry into the real world.
Many thanks to the midwives at Bloomsbury that made the birth and the subsequent births so eventful — and congratulations to Harry’s real mum, the author, for all she overcame to carry the Boy Who Lived to term and to his final victory over the Dark Lord!
Troubled Blood: Steel Dagger Interview
June 26, 2021 by 1 Comment
Troubled Blood is up for another prestigious award, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. This annual prize is for the ‘Best Thriller’ and is given out by the British Crime Writers Association as one their Dagger prizes, the most prestigious of which is the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement. The Steel Dagger differs from the Diamond Dagger in focus and in being a relative newcomer to the Crime Writers Association.
Its focus is the thriller, which is an inclusive genre, no doubt about it:
[The Steel Dagger] award is for the best thriller novel first published in the UK. The broadest definition of the thriller novel is used for eligible books; these can be set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, action/adventure stories and psychological thrillers. Ian Fleming said there was one essential criterion for a good thriller – that ‘one simply has to turn the page’; this is one of the main characteristics that the judges look for. Sponsored by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.
Unlike the Diamond Dagger, which has been an annual event since 1986, the Steel Dagger has only been awarded since 1982. The names on the Diamond list, as you’d expect for a lifetime achievement award, are relatively well-known; Eric Amber, P. D. James, and John Le Carre, for example, won the first three, and authors we have discussed here at HogwartsProfessor — Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, and Martin Edwards, for starters — are past winners. In contrast, I have read only one Steel Dagger recipient, though I have read everything that winner has written.
It’s a big enough deal that Rowling-Galbraith submitted answers to interview questions sent to all the nominees in hopes that she can add a Steel Dagger to Troubled Blood‘s trophy case, next to her Nibbie Crime and Thriller statuette. The interview is short but relatively revealing.
Join me after the jump for a walk through The Presence’s answers and two other thoughts about this award — [Read more…]
J. J. Marsh’s ‘Behind Closed Doors:’ Did Cormoran Strike Begin as a Bet that Rowling Made with Two Old Friends?
June 23, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Rowling tweeted last month that “one of my best friends, who lives in Spain,” had sent her a video of an accomplished guitarist.
One of my best friends, who lives in Spain, just sent me this. Speaking as a very bad guitarist, I’m in awe 💃 🇪🇸 🦉 pic.twitter.com/O95dZArp84
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 18, 2021
I asked Nick Jeffery who this “best friend” of Rowling might be and he, as always, had a good guess:
My guess (and it is a guess) is Aine Kiely, one of the Godmothers of Swing from the Prisoner of Azkaban dedication. She fits the bill as ‘one of her oldest friends’ and is currently working and living in Spain. The other Godmother of Swing, Jill Prewett, writes detective fiction under the name J J Marsh and lives in Switzerland. Both have holidayed with JKR in recent years.
I was struck by Nick’s aside that one of Rowling’s oldest and dearest friends writes detective fiction. I had read Prewett-Marsh’s 2013 interview with Rowling, one of the best, but hadn’t known the journalist here was a writer, too. I see now that Rowling mentions Ngaio Marsh twice in that very bookish discussion, the most frequently cited interview, I think, in our list of Rowling references to books and authors she likes.
I ordered, consequently, an omnibus or Box Set edition of J. J. Marsh’s first three Beatrice Stubbs novels: Behind Closed Doors, Raw Material, and Tread Softly. My thought was to check if these books, written by Jill Prewett and published at the same time as Rowling-Galbraith was planning and writing the Strike series, had any obvious over-laps with the more famous Cuckoo’s Calling and subsequent four books.
I read the first Stubbs book, Behind Closed Doors, last weekend and think there may indeed be a connection, a fun one.
Three notes before I connect those dots, all after the jump: [Read more…]
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