Guest Post: Pictures from St Mawes

September 3, 2020 by 1 Comment

Good friend of this weblog, Lesley Stevens, just happened to be on a ‘staycation’ this week in Cornwall. She stopped by St Mawes, took some lovely photographs of The Victory and other key locations we visit in the Troubled Blood seven chapter preview released last week, and sent me this kind note. Enjoy!

Good morning, John. 

I trust all is well with you. 

Unwilling to travel abroad this year, we are currently enjoying a ‘staycation’ in Cornwall. 

After a much looked forward to visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan yesterday, we took a diversion on the way back to our holiday accommodation to visit the costal town of St Mawes for obvious reasons. 

We had hoped to lunch at the Victory Inn but unfortunately they were not serving food. I did take a photo of the outside however and also a few photos of the beach, sea wall and the ferry stop most of which are to be found on the Strike fan site on the Internet, but the beach photo I took illustrates the location of the Victory to the sea wall (look for the sign amongst the roof tops) which I thought might be of interest. 

We also drove down Hillhead Road which I understand to be the location for Aunt Joan and Uncle Ted’s cottage.

This is a one way steep twisting road which runs in the direction from the top of the hill to the sea front with vehicular access from the top of the Hill only. In the future, I can imagine it would be tricky to film in this street, however there were some pretty cottages with front gardens overlooking the sea which might with a little tv wizardry make for an easier location for Strike and Lucy’s chat.

I also picked up a local tourist guide which has maps of the town and the Roseland peninsula in which it is located and which I thought may be of interest as the plot unfolds and if locations are mentioned. 

Anyway, today here in Cornwall, the weather is as Strike remembers: 

Strike remembers how the rain is different in Cornwall, remembering how it “lashed like whips” against the windows of the spare bedroom of his Aunt and Uncles house. 

We are staying in our holiday cottage avoiding the rain and reading (thank you for the Hogwarts Professor post on the first seven chapters of Troubled Blood and the Beatrice Groves pillar post, perfect reading for today) and playing board games … much to the disappointment of our dog Trowser who can’t see the problem in going out at all ! 

Kind regards, 

Lesley 

Thank you, Lesley, for the kind note and for the wonderful photographs! I have reproduced here as many as the WordPress blogging software allows — and add this ‘thank you’ paragraph, both to express my gratitude and in order to include The Victory foto you mention taken from the seawall. Your being in St Mawes this week reminds me of Prof Groves’ trip to the White Horse Inn while reading Lethal White; I hope you are able to enjoy the first seven chapters of Troubled Blood while you’re in St. Mawes!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts

Exciting New Beatrice Grove Articles: Alchemy, Ickabog, Cormoran Strike!

September 2, 2020 by 4 Comments

For fans of J. K. Rowling and her literary artistry, podcasts with and online articles by Oxford’s Beatrice Groves are always an event — and we are in the midst of a veritable flood of new material from this sage Potter Pundit. I had to update the author of Literary Allusion in Harry Potter‘s Pillar Post page at HogwartsProfessor this morning in the wake of her latest Cormoran Strike detective work — and had to make twelve new entries!

For the literary alchemists in the reading audience, there are links to her podcast on Alchemical Weddings and her three posts inspired by Rowling’s ‘Solve et Coagula’ tattoo.

For Ickabog readers, she wrote two articles about the meanings and allusions in the names of her political fairy tale’s characters.

And for Cormoran Strike fans waiting impatiently for the release of Troubled Blood, there is a podcast about The Faerie Queene as well as articles sharing her reflections on Tom Burke and Aleister Crowley, her discovery of a Walt Whitman poem embedded obliquely in Cuckoo’s Calling, and her exegesis of the Rosmersholm epigraphs in Lethal White for understanding the relationship of Cormoran and Robin.

If that weren’t enough, I have read she is writing up her predictions for Troubled Blood, two posts that should go up 9 and 10 September.

I list below the articles and podcast added to the Groves Pillar Post this morning. Enjoy this feast of new material from a premiere Potter Pundit!

At HogwartsProfessor.com:

February 2020: Reading, Writing, Rowling: Draco!

April 2020: Reading, Writing, Rowling: Troubled Blood — Spencer, Manson, More!

August 2020: Reading, Writing, Rowling: Alchemical Weddings in Harry Potter and Beyond!

August 2020: Blood Relations and Troubled Blood — A Hint from Tom Burke

At MuggleNet.com:

MARCH, 2020: “The Faerie Queene” and the Fifth “Strike” Novel: “Troubled Blood”  On March 20, 2020, J.K. Rowling changed her Twitter header to an image taken from “The Faerie Queene”, an epic poem containing the phrase “troubled blood,” the title of the forthcoming “Comoran Strike” novel. What relevance, beyond inspiring its title, will “The Faerie Queene” have on “Troubled Blood”?

MAY, 2020: Three Posts on Literary Alchemy and ‘Solve et Coagula’

**Solve et Coagula: Part 1 – Rowling’s Alchemical Tattoo (May 23, 2020) – Last year, J.K. Rowling got a tattoo of the alchemical Latin phrase “solve et coagula.” Read about how the phrase has an intimate connection with everything she writes.

**Solve et Coagula: Part 2 – The Ripley Scrolls, Nicolas Flamel, and Ben Jonson’s Alchemist (May 24, 2020) – Dr. Beatrice Groves looks further into the origins of the phrase “solve et coagula” and the way in which it encapsulates Rowling’s own metaphors for her “process.”

**Solve et Coagula: Part 3 – Literary Alchemy (May 25, 2020) – In Part 3 of her “solve et coagula” analysis, Dr. Beatrice Groves explains how literary alchemy influences J.K. Rowling’s writing process.

JULY, 2020: Two Posts on ‘The Names of The Ickabog‘

**The Names of “The Ickabog” – Part 1 (July 22, 2020) – Dr. Beatrice Groves reveals the meaning behind the names of “The Ickabog” and explains how this newest fairy tale connects not only to the “Harry Potter” series and “Casual Vacancy” but also to such diverse artists as Shakespeare, Keats, and Monty Python.

**The Names of “The Ickabog” – Part 2: Ichabod (July 23, 2020) – Dr. Beatrice Groves uncovers how “The Ickabog” alludes to not just the name “Ichabod” but also the themes, plot, and narration of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

AUGUST, 2020: Handfasting in “The Cuckoo’s Calling” and “Harry Potter”: A Discovery of a Walt Whitman Poem? (August 29, 2020) – Dr. Beatrice Groves argues that the unnamed poem Lula Landry recites in “The Cuckoo’s Calling” is Walt Whitman’s “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances” – a poem that connects to the theme of handfasting in both “The Cuckoo’s Calling” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”.

AUGUST, 2020: The Epigraphs of “Lethal White”: Shipping Strike & Robin (August 30, 2020) – Dr. Beatrice Groves explores how the “Rosmersholm” epigraphs in “Lethal White” reveal not only the importance of the white horse motif but also the passionate partnership at the forefront of both stories.

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves

First Seven Chapters of Troubled Blood Pre-Publication Release on AppleBooks

August 31, 2020 by 13 Comments

Troubled Blood, the fifth Cormoran Strike mystery, is due in bookstores as hard copy and eBook on 15 September. Its first seven chapters and front matter, however, were released last week on AppleBooks for members of that service in the United States (and only in the United States) to peruse and read. HogwartsProfessor friends in the US and overseas, Hurrah!, sent me screenshot editions of this preview and I pledged in gratitude for this kindness (I do not own any Apple products so had no access to the release) to write up my thoughts on what the epigraphs that open the book, the structure points to be made from perusing the Table of Contents, as well as the substance of the seven chapters.

Let’s start with a hat tip to these friends-who-will-not-be-named lest they be besieged for copies of their samizdat edition as our first order of business. Thank you for your brilliant and successful effort to create a readable pdf file from what is meant to be phone-only reading. Cheers!

Next, there is the necessary warning to those not wanting to be spoiled or who want to read the seven chapters on AppleBooks themselves before we begin discussion here. Everything after the jump will be revelations of the book, almost ten percent of its substance in chapters, and all of its epigraphs and Table of Contents (TOC). Don’t ‘go there’ if you want to wait until its proper publication or if you are preparing pre-pub predictions about the book.

As a summary of my first thoughts, a preview review of the preview, I share below as a first entry on this subject the epigraphs, the essentials from the TOC, the dedication, and capsule outlines of the players, scenes, key elements, and odd notes of the seven chapters. I open the conversation inside these summaries with my first thoughts on the revealed parts of Troubled Blood. If you’re interested in any of that, please join me after the jump by clicking on ‘Read More.’

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Beatrice Groves: Blood Relations and Troubled Blood – A Hint from Tom Burke

August 26, 2020 by 13 Comments

A Guest Post from Oxford’s Beatrice Groves, author of Literary Allusion in Harry Potter — Enjoy!

Blood Relations and Troubled Blood: A New Hint?

I was delighted when Holliday Grainger and Tom Burke turned up on my radio, while I was eating breakfast this morning.1 They were there to advertise the TV version of Lethal White (which starts on Sunday, on BBC1 in the UK) and Burke gave one piece of new information about the adaptation. He mentioned the new emotional vulnerability in Strike we see in Lethal White (in particular in the chapter when his nephew is taken to hospital). Burke notes that this episode is cut from the TV show, but he says that he tries to keep this vulnerability in his mind in his performance. (I liked the idea that he was keeping true to this scene in the way he plays his character although it is not in the show – making the novel, not the TV script, the blueprint for his character). [Read the transcript of ‘The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show’ episode with Burke and Holliday at TheTottenham.com; thanks and a hat tip to Nick Jeffery!]

But what particularly interested me was a hint he gave about Troubled Blood. Burke said: ‘I know a little bit [about Troubled Blood] because there was a particular thing – there was a particular… my grandfather was a novelist, and there was a particular thing he wrote about that comes into the novel in a particular way, so we got chatting about that.’2 Not much to go on – but enough to get me itching to know a little more. So here’s an over-view of the work of Burke’s grandfather (a novelist whom I suspect will be new to most of us) and my best guess as to what that topic might be.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, Cormoran Strike

Lethal White on BBC1: Trailer Release

August 19, 2020 by 5 Comments

Filed Under: Uncategorized