Guest Post: On the Naming Fear & Jinxing in Harry Potter (Pratibha Rai)

November 1, 2020 by 3 Comments

Pratibha Rai is an Oxford University graduate and she has been a Harry Potter partisan since 2001. Her research today mostly concerns the sociology of collecting in early modern Europe. She enjoys finding parallels between Harry Potter and history of art. This time last year she shared with us what she discovered about that life-saving short-cut antidote, the Bezoar; today she shares her thoughts on ‘Naming Fear and Jinxing’ in the Hogwarts Saga. Enjoy!

“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in these civilized times, is carried on.”

When Mary Shelley penned this line in her penultimate novel ‘Lodore’ (1835), she was advocating the power of words in the context of bringing about social change. Words do not lifelessly sit on a page but are actionable and combative in “the world’s great fight”. In this martial metaphor, we can assume that words can either be a weapon or a defence – determined entirely by the speaker. This double-edged nature of words is echoed in Proverbs 18:21 from the Bible, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”. Nowhere is this more literally true than in J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter universe where speaking or not speaking Voldemort’s name is a matter of life and death. In this article, I shall explore J.K Rowling’s passionate interest in the power of words in battle primarily through the active Taboo cast on Voldemort’s name; a device that highlights the role that Fear has over silence and speech. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts

Troubled Blood Sound Track: Eternal Father, Strong to Save (Joan’s Funeral)

October 27, 2020 by 1 Comment

Joan’s funeral service finished with the hymn most beloved of sailors, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” While the congregation sang the familiar words, Ted, Strike, Dave Polworth and three of Ted’s comrades in the lifeboat service shouldered the coffin back down the aisle of the simple cream-walled church, with its wooden beams and its stained-glass windows depicting purple-robed St. Maudez, for whom both village and church were named. Flanked by an island tower and a seal on a rock, the saint watched the coffin-bearers pass out of the church.

O Savior, whose almighty word
The winds and waves submissive heard,
Who walked upon the foaming deep,
And calm amidst the rage did sleep…

Today, a little music. Tomorrow, some thoughts about the saint and the “seal on a rock.”

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Harry Potter Book Collector Challenge: Start Your Cormoran Strike Library Now

October 26, 2020 by 1 Comment

Watch the first seven minutes if you want to experience bibliophiliac collector madness without the books.

Really, though, is this supposed to be satire? I certainly experienced it as a hilarious warning against the conjugal conceits of collection and display (says the man who just spent a weekend moving and reorganizing on new shelves his LP library of 7,000 plus albums…).

I wonder how much the re-sale value of this collection has dropped since Harry Potter Fandom, Inc., has collectively cancelled J. K. Rowling. The collector, even if he is a real person rather than an actor as I want to believe, may have felt the need to burn his cache in a bonfire statement of solidarity with those the author has oppressed.

Does anyone out there have the full shelf of Cormoran Strike novels in their various hard and soft cover editions? I wonder how long it will be until Lethal White can be found in Macedonian or Bombyx Mori in Latin… Best to get started now, before Strike Mania captures the world’s imagination and the attention of investor collectors. Please send photos of your collection today for posting here at HogwartsProfessor!

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Rowling Interview Transcript and Notes

October 21, 2020 by 4 Comments

Rowling-Galbraith has given one interview about Troubled Blood in the first month of its publication history, a softball session (Tee-ball?) I complained about the day after its release. “So many more important questions she could have been asked!” et cetera.

I asked my wife to type up a transcript of the interview for ease in reference, and, Serious Striker that she is, it can be found below the jump. Reading through it, I confess my first response to the interview was both understandable in its disappointment — think of the work posted here on the Spenser epigraphs and Tarot card spreads alone, neither of which gets more than a head nod — and lamentable. The interview is much better and more revealing than I thought.

I have numbered the fourteen questions, provided a comment for each, and hope that you will use those numbers and add your own thoughts in the comment thread below. Corrections of the transcript are welcome, of course, as are alternative questions you would have asked The Presence, even if she was only virtually Present. Enjoy! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Troubled Blood: The Acknowledgments

October 19, 2020 by 2 Comments

‘Troubled Blood: The Acknowledgements’ is a HogwartsProfessor commissioned (“explicitly requested”) Guest Post. Its author, Nick Jeffery, is a longtime and frequent contributor to this website both in the post comment threads and as Go-To-Person for questions the staff here have about Rowling-Galbraith. It is a delight to welcome him to the Faculty Lounge to share his findings about all those named in the Troubled Blood Acknowledgement Page and about a few not mentioned as well. Enjoy!

I confess that one of the first things I do when faced with a new Robert Galbraith mystery is to immediately flip to the last pages. Not to spoil the mystery, or even to see how far the Robin-Cormoran relationship will develop, but to peek at the acknowledgements and its glimpse into the private world of J. K. Rowling’s still astonishing life.

Of necessity there were no acknowledgements in Cuckoo’s Calling lest the pseudonym be exposed but every book since has a page that lists her thanks in sometimes plain and sometimes intriguing language.

Join me after the jump to take a look at the acknowledgements in Troubled Blood. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts