Post Rushdie, JKR Told “You Are Next”

August 13, 2022 by Leave a Comment

 

Read about the tweeted threat to Rowling here, here, and here.

Bari Weiss’ substack column today, ‘We Ignored Salman Rushdie’s Warning,’ mentioned Rowling twice while reviewing the history of the Rushdie fatwa and that author’s recent claim that the world is a much more dangerous place than when he was forced into hiding forty years ago.

The Pakistani man’s twitter account has been suspended.

 

Filed Under: Twitter

Rowling Tweets First Chapter Epigraph: It’s a Poem by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

August 12, 2022 by 8 Comments

Three quick thoughts: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Twitter

Rowling Admires Twitter Conversation about Strike Characters, Prompts Pat C

August 11, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Nick Jeffery revealed to me that the “Twitter conversation about the Strike books” Rowling says is the *Best* are the tweeted questions of Kurt Schreyer, friend of and contributor to HogwartsProfessor. Note Nick Jeffery and Louise Freeman’s contributions to the comment threads below Kurt’s provocative tweets:

Curiously, Rowling’s follow-up to the post above was a comment about Pat Chauncey, the Strike Agency secretary, which prompted (cued?) the twitter account for this fictional character to go into over-drive (see Nick Jeffery’s post yesterday about the various hilarious accounts Strike characters have started).

I am wondering if this does not confirm the speculation that these accounts are a playful and clever means to prime the pump, i.e., create more enthusiasm for the incipient Ink Black Heart.

Is it possible that The Presence is the Voice Behind the Curtain and that today’s ventriloquist’s dummy is Pat Chauncey, @SuperKingPAatC? If so, I hope she gets to Ciara Porter soon!

Regardless, this is the most fun Striker fandom has had on social media in many a day and has succeeded in engaging Rowling herself, for which thanks and congratulations are due to Kurt Shreyer!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Twitter

Aurelius Dumbledore Going to Azkaban?

August 9, 2022 by

Looks like Ezra Miller, poster child for the telegenic teflon celebrity, may finally be going to jail. If the Credence Barebone character rises from the seeming death he is doomed to at the end of Beasts 3 — and you’ll recall the phoenix-like character did exactly that following  his MACUSA execution at the end of Beasts 1 — one has to hope that Warner Brothers or Rowling, Inc., insists on a switch of the actor involved. I doubt that this thespian will be as hard to replace with a quality equivalent as was Richard Harris, the first and true silver-screen Albus Dumbledore, may he rest in peace.

Of course, if Credence goes through sufficient story-chrysalis transformation before his next appearance in the Beasts franchise, perhaps Michael Gambon is available. 

For more on the Miller cascade of woe and self-destruction, go here and here. His arraignment on these latest charges is 26 September.

Just in! Beatrice Groves’ piece on Secrets of Dumbledore, ‘Exit Pursued by Qilin: The Stage Directions of The Secrets of Dumbledore,’ is the cover article in the latest issue of The Rowling Library Magazine. Check that out for some mental floss to clear your head of the news above as well as insights about all things Fantastic Beasts:

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, Fantastic Beasts

True Book 1: The Pitman Fragment

August 8, 2022 by 1 Comment

Two days ago I posted an overview of the True Book’s appearances in Troubled Blood after writing up my working hypothesis, several corollaries to that idea, and the premises of my argument. That post was meant to preface a series of explorations of each of the seven mentions and illustrations we get of the True Book in Strike5; I suspect this series is best read in sequence but can be started at any point with other parts easily referred to if the reader wants more information. 

Today’s post is a close-up look at the first mention of this text, the fragment of Pitman shorthand that DI Bill Talbot left in the Metropolitan Police Bamborough case file that mentions the True Book. Cormoran shares it with Robin at the end of their Clerkenwell walk in conversation about this file on Halloween in the Three Kings Pub. It looks like this (Part 2, chapter 14, page 149):

Almost everything about the walk and consequent conversation in the last chapters of Part 2 are pointers to the revelations of Whodunnit at the end of Part 6 and Troubled Blood in general; Robin discusses the phone boxes, there’s a plastic nurse, the costume party backdrop in the pub with its Nativity associated name hints of the book-to-come’s occult touches and Christian backdrop. Oakden’s note about the Cross being the place to dig, the last piece from the file Strike shows Robin in the pub, is important in this regard with respect to how to interpret the prevalent cross symbolism in the text, a subject for a future post.

The Pitman shorthand note, however, is, as the first of seven passages and illustrations taken from the True Book, the natural key to its interpretation. It may even be a key to how to read Rowling’s work as a whole. For all that, join me after the jump for my attempt to answer four questions about this ‘note in a bottle,’ I mean, in a police file. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike