Beasts2 — and Phantom of the Opera?

May 8, 2023 by 4 Comments

A thought from Randall:

Just re-watched the 2004 Warner Brothers film version of “The Phantom of the Opera” and was struck by (anti-)parallels to the 2018 Warner Brothers film, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.”

In “Phantom,” Erik is a deformed boy imprisoned in a freak show in Paris. A young girl (the future Madame Giry) feels pity for him, so when he strangles his handler/jailer, she helps him escape into a crowd. Erik becomes the Phantom, living underground in the dark, and continues to kill.

In “Crimes,” Nagini is a blood-cursed girl imprisoned in the Circus Arcanus, in Paris. A young man (Aurelius Dumbledore) feels pity for her, so when she attacks her handler/jailer (Skender), he helps her escape into a crowd. Nagini eventually becomes permanently trapped in snake form, serving Lord Voldemort, living concealed in mostly dark places, and continues to kill.

Maybe we will see more (anti-)parallels, if and when J.K. Rowling publishes more of the “Fantastic Beasts” story. Maybe others have noticed these (anti-)parallels; I did a search but did not find any mentions of them.

This reminds me of the reader who wrote that the Gloria Conti “termination” of mobster Luca Ricci’s child was a simple re-telling of the Godfather, Part II, plot in which Katherine “Kay” Corleone (née Adams) aborts the child of her husband, Michael Corleone. Rowling-Galbraith’s character enjoys a much happier fate than Kay. I cannot find the email or post comment in which the reader shared this; apologies all around on that point.

I wonder if Potter Pundits and Serious Strikers, in our common denominator text-source focus are not overlooking the influence of much more popular culture, blockbuster movies, on Rowling’s imagination. I know it’s something I never choose to explore, largely because I know very little about movies (I have not seen either Phantom of the Opera or any of the Godfather films) and I am not a fan of the medium.

The thing is, Rowling drops repeated references to the Godfather movies and their influence on Gloria Conti in Troubled Blood, to include that character’s resistance to seeing Part II. If these had been book teases, I would have definitely been reading them because of the strong indicators that these references were bread crumbs dropped by the author as helpful clues.

A movie? It never occurred to me to watch the Godfather films or even read about them on Wikipedia.

Thank you, Randall, for throwing light in my most glaring media blind-spot!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Teevee Harry Potter Trailer Released

May 2, 2023 by

I found this new trailer near the end of another article in the UK press celebrating Rowling’s new ten year contact with MAX television for adaptations of the Hogwarts Saga. The first was The Telegraph‘s ‘The uncancelling of JK Rowling: Tide appears to be turning for the Harry Potter author ostracised for her trans views.’ That 15 April piece was followed yesterday by a Daily Mail article along much the same lines: ‘Cancelled? Thanks to her new £16m Harry Potter TV deal, it’s JK Rowling who’s having the last laugh over trans activists.’

Imagine the conversations at MuggleNet and Leaky Cauldron about what to allow on their Harry Potter fan sites. Each has posted declarations, libelous statements in fact, that Rowling proclaims “harmful and disproven beliefs about what it means to be a transgender person,” i.e., maintaining that biological sex is real, and “commitments” that their sites will not print her image, include links to purchase items from which she might profit, or allow discussion of her post Potter work and “life.” See here and here if you have your doubts about those “commitments.”

For Leaky, which hasn’t posted any Harry Potter news since last October, this wasn’t much of a stretch or sacrifice; the website is largely dormant. For MuggleNet, answerable as they are to their Media Labs owners for generating clicks and traffic, this has been a bit more difficult. [Read more…]

Filed Under: HBO+ TV Adaptation, Hog Pro Notes

Rowling-Galbraith Commits to Ten Book Series, NOT Seven, for Cormoran Strike

April 28, 2023 by 5 Comments

Yesterday in the announcement of The Running Grave’s publication date at JKRowling.com, readers were given two statements in hard print that the series will be not seven books long, not an indefinite number, but ten in length. First:

THE RUNNING GRAVE will be the seventh title in a planned series of ten, the first six of which have all been Sunday Times and international bestsellers. The Strike series has been praised as ‘the work of a master storyteller’ [Daily Telegraph], ‘unputdownable’ [Daily Express] and ‘a blistering piece of crime writing’ [Sunday Times]; with Strike and Robin dubbed ‘one of crime’s most engaging duos’ [Guardian].

Then, much later in the piece:

‘It’s been brilliant to see the enormous success of the Robert Galbraith books over the past ten years and an honour to publish them. With over 11 million copies sold in the English language to date, the story of Strike and Robin has captured readers’ imaginations and, like so many others, I can’t wait to see what happens to them over the course of the final four books in the series.’ David Shelley, Group Chief Executive, Hachette UK.

After that announcement went global, Rowling sounded much more tentative about the ten book endpoint in a tweet to a reader who asked if Strike’s series would end as Harry’s did at the seven book mark:

Three Quick Notes: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Telegraph: ‘Why Harry Potter is a Literary Masterpiece that Belongs in the Canon’

April 24, 2023 by

Charlotte Runcie wrote an article last Saturday in The Telegraph (UK) titled, ‘Why Harry Potter is a Literary Masterpiece‘ with the subtitle, “JK Rowling is more than a lightning rod for controversy. She’s an author whose books belong in the canon of English literature.”

Her argument contra the Trans-manian Devils among the literati (and their cousins, the twitterati) who continue to slander Rowling as a “transphobe” and “murderer” (!) was short and to the point:

Beyond the legitimate literary criticism, Rowling has weathered several waves of unjustified attack, first from the harrumphing reviewers who somehow managed to read her books without reading them at all, and then a further wave of rage from those who disagree with her beyond the books, taking issue with her politics (she is pro-Labour but anti-Corbyn, and is a critic of Nicola Sturgeon) or her stance on women’s rights and the much-alleged transphobia. 

But if you go looking for anything transphobic that Rowling has said, you’re going to return empty-handed. In November last year, the journalist E J Rosetta was asked by an editor to write an article called “20 Transphobic JK Rowling Quotes We’re Done With”. After 12 weeks of research, she gave up, saying: “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message.”
As refreshing as it is to read this plain truth stated in a mainline newspaper without equivocation or side-stepping, it’s not the best part of Runcie’s article. To answer the question posed in her title, she leans heavily on Beatrice Groves’ Literary Allusion in Harry Potter. Those of you familiar with that book will recognize almost every point that The Telegraph writer makes about the literary merits of the Hogwarts Saga as an insight taken straight from the source text named. Good for her for choosing such an excellent reference and citing it at least in passing; the article is worth reading just for the reminder of how good Literary Allusion really is.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Ink Black Heart Nominated for Crime Writers Association ‘Gold Dagger’

April 23, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On this ‘Long List,’ the first stage of CWA nominations, Rowling-Galbraith is the Pachiderm in the room; her sixth installment of the Strike series is, I’m guessing here, correct me if I’m wrong, by far the best selling one of the twelve novels listed and the only one slotted pre-publication for adaptation for television. I think it’s a fair bet, too, that it is the only novel to have been reviewed in major metropolitan dailies around the world (and lauded for the most part).

This by no means is to suggest that The Presence’s elephantine status in any way guarantees that she wins. I think it is far more likely to count against her, especially as much of the Chattering Class is still mesmerized by Transmania. The CWA is dedicated to awarding their Daggers to the best book — and they passed over Troubled Blood, which frankly was, outside of perhaps the seventh Harry Potter novel and The Christmas Pig, was the best thing Rowling has written to date.

Ink Black Heart is much more of a stretch for readers, especially those not already enchanted with the Robin-Cormoran back story, so I have my doubts about her chances. The recent turning of the tide in the Trans Wars, visible in articles like last week’s ‘Why Harry Potter is a Literary Masterpiece‘ in The Telegraph and in the news that Max will be filming a new adaptation of the Hogwarts Saga for television with Rowling and Bronte Studios having key roles, though, means perhaps she won’t be fighting against the current as much as she was with Strike5.

The good news potentially about this nomination is that Rowling may do an interview about Ink Black Heart to help her chances as she did for Troubled Blood’s Silver Dagger nomination. Those questions were generic ones asked of every nominee so we learned little from the exchange that we didn’t know from close reading of the book (“most meticulously planned book I’ve ever written;” yawn). Here’s hoping that Rowling-Galbraith will one day sit down with some Serious Strikers who are not just fan girls/guys and ‘shippers to answer questions more challenging than “What makes a book a ‘thriller’ in your view?”

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike