Parallel Series Idea

August 2, 2022 by Leave a Comment

In my second post about The Silkworm post-publication in 2014, I launched the idea that Rowling-Galbraith was writing her Cormoran Strike series in parallel with the seven Harry Potter novels. I wrote:

Reading The Silkworm, consequently, it’s only natural that we serious readers of the Hogwarts Saga be sensitive to what we hear or experience in this detective novel that seem to be echoes from the Boy Who Lived’s magical adventures.  I want to make three observations for your comment and correction here, thoughts that will not include a list of fun correspondences (did you flinch when you read that you can “hear the rumbling of the traffic on Charing Cross Road’ from Strike’s flat? Me, too), but all of which, I think, put the Cormoran Strike novels in a new light.

First, as noted in my ‘first thoughts’ post that I put up after reaching the half-way point of Silkworm, there are several rather jarring correspondences between this mystery and the second novel of the Harry Potter series, Chamber of Secrets. The key to the case, as Strike observes more than the once, is the book within the book, namely Bombyx Mori, and its transparent depictions in story of the suspects in the murder of the book’s author.

Along the way to discovering whodunnit, we are given a short course in the difficulties and inevitable mistakes to be made in drawing dot-to-dot correspondences that seem obvious and are not. Readers of Chamber of Secrets, perhaps the best stand-alone Potter novel, will recall a similar book-within-a-book experience there with Riddle’s diary and how we are to understand what we learn from reading or entering into it. Hagrid is sent to Azkaban because of what is misunderstood about the events depicted — and the woman whose “purity of desire” makes Strike sure she is not guilty, an echo of Harry’s surety about the Gameskeeper, is also jailed unjustly and then liberated.

My first idea for your consideration is this: Ms Rowling is writing this seven book series in parallel with her previous seven book series. {emphasis in original}

My second and third points in that post were that she was doing this so “this parallel series can act as the key to a right understanding of the first series, the Hogwarts adventures” and, that in doing this, she “invites her readers to understand her fiction as a psychological distillation of her experiences, which is to say, we are to read them through the filter of her biography if we are to get at the heart of their meaning.” The second point, like the first, has been confirmed by each new book, and the third, which seemed a stretch even to me at the time, has been supported by the author in her remarkable contribution of “inspiration” to the Museum of Curiosity in 2019.

The idea of a Parallel Series has become something of a touchstone or premise here at HogwartsProfessor. Louise Freeman predicted years before Strike4 was published, for instance, that Lethal White would take place against the background of the 2012 London Olympics just as Goblet of Fire used the TriWizard Tournament even though this seemed unlikely given the time spacings between the books, Cuckoo to Career. Beatrice Groves, similarly, guessed that the ‘Trelawney’ song would be sung in Troubled Blood because of the important place of Professor Trelawney’s prophecy in Order of the Phoenix. The Parallel Series idea (hereafter ‘PSI’), in other words, not only has interpretative value but can be and has been used to predict future book plot points.

The links below are to HogwartsProfessor posts detailing the parallels or echoes to be found between the Strike novels and the corresponding number in the Potter series. This is an ongoing discussion, so please share your thoughts in the comment threads beneath each post!

 

 

Filed Under: Pillar Posts

Psychomachia

August 2, 2022 by 4 Comments

Pillar Post Place Holder for Sidebar Listing

Filed Under: Pillar Posts

TRL: 2000 JKR Interview Footage Posted

August 1, 2022 by 5 Comments

It was Joanne Rowling Murray’s 57th birthday yesterday, and, if Troubled Blood is any measure, birthdays are a very serious business to the author. We expect her friends and family sent the requisite cards and presents. The Presence herself was silent on her Twitter platform with respect to those celebrations, in contrast with years past. Harry Potter fandom, which has at the major sites and conventions done everything possible to eradicate all mention and memory of the author, of course, celebrates today as the birthday of The Boy Who Lived.

In keeping with the practice of Cormoran Strike, at least until the last chapter of Strike 5, we neglected to post anything here on the subject. The faculty drew a blank about what to get the woman who already has every material thing she wants and, like the Strike of old, we didn’t remember the date in time to send her a token card. Here’s hoping she’s more forgiving than Robin is in these things; as there is exactly zero evidence that Mrs. Murray knows we exist, it’s more than a stretch to imagine her being put out by our collective neglect of her birthday.

All that being said, I was delighted yesterday to watch some archival footage of Rowling circa 2000 being interviewed on a train — yes, literally ‘Rowling rolling along’ — that our friends at TheRowlingLibrary.com found and posted. I share it with you here, albeit a day late, as a birthday present to our thousands of loyal readers, the Serious Strikers, Potter Pundits, and Scamander Savants in thanks for your sharing your time and thoughts with us. Be sure to watch the video through to the end for Rowling’s comments about being photographed with Jerry Hall; it’s worth the wait.

If The Presence has dropped in her by accident (or one of her children or paid staff has searched the internet for birthday good wishes to share with her?), a message of thanksgiving: “Happy Birthday, Mrs. Murray! Thank you for the years of challenging reading and discussion we have enjoyed within, without, and around your wonderful stories. May God grant you many, many years.”

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Troubled Blood ‘Listen Along,’ Part Two: Premises for Reading Talbot’s True Book

July 30, 2022 by 3 Comments

Robert Galbraith’s twitter feed is sponsoring a ‘Listen Along’ for new readers of Troubled Blood. Last Saturday they posted two questions about the novels first fourteen chapters, Parts 1 and 2 of seven, and today, as you can see above, they’ve put up two more, these about chapters 15 to 27. That’s a bit of a weird break, as Part 3 closes at chapter 30, but I guess they have plans for a set of Christmas-themed questions for week three in this series.

If the aim was to generate online conversation among new listeners, the project in its first week was a fail. I was the only person who tweeted a response to their questions and my notes there were for re-readers to come join the conversation here about Troubled Blood‘s first two Parts. That pitch, it seems, and my seven posts here last week about Strike 5’s first fourteen chapters were also a failure, at least with respect to generating conversation; only one reader shared her thoughts about what I was writing all week.

I’ve decided, consequently, not to continue my chapter by chapter review of Troubled Blood, as much as I enjoyed writing those posts. @RGalbraith may have to continue playing a losing hand, but I can move on to more fruitful use of my time here. I realized last night while writing up some thoughts on Talbot’s ‘True Book’ that this bizzarro embedded text is the single most neglected aspect of Rowling-Galbraith’s longest novel and that, if I’m going to explore its depths and various meanings, I’d best do it before Ink Black Heart is upon us, a publication date only one month away.

My working premises for a reading of Talbot’s True Book as I begin are that (1) the book is indeed Rowling’s ‘True Book,’ her covert message about what happened top Margot Bamborough and who killed her, (2) Talbot’s tarot card spreads, the visible Celtic Cross lay-out and the three card spreads hidden in the various illustrations, are not random but Rowling’s deliberate choices to convey her meaning, and (3), in contrast, the astrological chart drawn for the moment and place of Bamborough’s disappearance, guided the choice of star signs for characters and their relationship. This last point is an especially difficult one to grasp or believe, I know, but the alternative, that she wrote the book and then found a time and place to match her story is preposterous.

So, next week, a close look at Rowling’s illustrated True Book inside Troubled Blood, an embedded text that may be The Presence’s most successfully covert bit of writing, a book within the book the characters struggle to understand but the readers of Strike 5 have thus far accepted at face value or at the level of Strike and Robin’s readings. I hope you’ll join me in Trelawney’s classroom for a reading of Rowling’s tarot card spreads and riffs on the Crowley-inspired deck illustrations!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Troubled Blood: Chapters 13 and 14

July 29, 2022 by 2 Comments

The last day of posting in a week of reviewing the first two Parts of Troubled Blood, chapters 1 to 14!

Today, I want to talk about the Walk from the Clerkenwell Clinic to the Three King’s Pub and then the finale of Cormoran’s first review of what he found in the Metropolitan Police cold-case file, the discovery of a secret message in code. It’s a strong finish to the introductory data dumps and foreshadowing in Rowling’s longest novel to date and it has some fun echoing of previous Strike mysteries for the die-hard fan to savor.

We’ll start with the long walk in chapter 13 from Margot Bamborough’s point of origin on 29 Clerkenwell Street to her supposed destination-never-reached, the Three King’s Pub.

Join me after the jump for the answer to that ‘Name The Chapter!’ challenge and a thought about the embedded clue to the mystery of both books hidden in the Walk! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike