I am beginning to write up the notes I jotted down in Utah earlier this month about the structure of Ink Black Heart. My premise for this work, as you’d expect, is that the sixth Strike novel is a ring composition; the first task in this sort of research, because it is the easiest of the four qualities of a ring to identify, is to see if the opening and closing chapters act as a ‘latch’ for the work as a whole. Heart’s open and close are neatly separated from the rest of the novel’s parts by being names other than ‘Parts;’ the first four chapters are its ‘Prologue’ and its last chapter or epilogue, which follows Part 5, is called the ‘Coda.’
Before I begin the structural exegesis, though, something that will eventually include — in addition to the latch — explorations of the story turn in Part 3, parallels between Parts 1 and 2 with 4 and five, and each Part being a ring unto itself, I want to note something peculiar about Rowling’s structural choices in Strike6. She chooses to call the last piece, as noted, a ‘Coda,’ rather than, say, an ‘Epilogue,’ a first for this series or any of her novels and screenplays. I think there are at least three decent explanations for this change, which I’ll share after the jump. [Read more…]
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