Ink Black Heart – Anomie Online

August 24, 2022 by 2 Comments

Of all the characters playfully enjoying the run up to publication day on Twitter, none is more intriguing than Anomie. He has tweeted only thirty two times since joining twitter in June, including the deleted “Sister from another mr.” tweet, which is a possible misidentification for Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. It is notable that an image search for “Mary Elizabeth Coleridge” delivers a photograph for Mary Mapes Dodge and another of Emily Dickenson, explaining both the error by Anomie and our Headmaster. I can in fact only find one genuine photograph of Coleridge online.

 

There are several clues that Anomie has left. An Emily Dickenson poem, shortly after the audio snippet was revealed:

And a snippet from Cattulus 8– advice to himself.

There are of course the pictures we discussed on Monday to which Anomie left the following cryptic reply:

Look again. Look closer. Look not at the words.

Yes, I believe this is the same Anomie that posts on Twitter, where he has left similar messages:

What do you think these messages are hinting at? Let me know in the comments down below!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Ink Black Heart – Twitter Character Update

August 22, 2022 by 6 Comments

Pat Chauncey has posted an update that suggests both she and Strike are still smoking, which poses an interesting if slightly meta question. In what time frame are the characters speaking from? The existence of Anomie would suggest they are operating from a frame at or about the time of Ink Black Heart. This would also explain the existence of the now ancient Wolfgang. 

Roddy Fforbes has disappointed. While we could infer that he was British and upper or upper-middle class from his brief mentions in the book, he has now become a full pastiche of Bertie Wooster. If the creators of this account have access to The Ink Black Heart, then I cannot believe that Roddy is written like this:

 

Anomie remains as mysterious as ever, posting four pictures. Firstly images of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and the Yorkshire Dales from early British Rail advertising. Then an image of the underground from the Ladybird book The Story of the Railways (1961) and the cover of a humorous modern Ladybird book for adults The Rock Star using original period illustrations.

Brian Mathers is continuing his sickly sweet posts followed by blood curdling threats, sure to end up swiftly in the “nutter drawer”.

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Nick Jeffery, Twitter

Ink Black Heart: Rowling Interactive Q&A

August 20, 2022 by Leave a Comment

The Robert Galbraith Twitter account has announced an upcoming interactive fan question and answer event. Scheduled for the 8th and 9th September this is likely to be right in the middle of most fans first reading of the new book. Some video has already been posted, and saved for posterity by our friends at The Rowling Library:

What does The Ink Black Heart explore?

I see this as a novel about disconnection. And people feeling disconnected in real life. And exploring what they find online as a way of connecting. But – it – I don’t want to give too much away. But the central theme of the book is anomie, which is a state of lacking normal social or moral norms. And – so, yeah, it’s really an exploration of that. It is a very sort of modern malaise. Although the term anomie has been around for a long, long time and it really – the term arose through industrialisation. People losing meaning in their daily lives and – and feeling that they themselves were not really part of society. Not really part of a whole. So, yeah. So, it’s a big theme. But it is explored in a very sort of contemporary way.

How much of the novel is drawn from your own experience?

I have never created a book – and this book certainly isn’t created from my own experience – you know, with a view to talking about my own life. That doesn’t mean, of course, that your own life experience isn’t in the book.

With this book – I had been planning this book for so long and then a couple of the things that happen in this book have since happened to me. And so, I would like to be very clear that I haven’t written this book as an answer to anything that happened to me. Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were – are you clairvoyant? I wasn’t clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like.

But, no, it’s not – this isn’t about my experience of – as being a creator. My experience – if I wrote about my experience as a creator, it would look very different. And I have to say, for example – which I think will be a question readers would ask: the Potter fandom, by and
large, has been amazing to me. Incredibly supportive and I still receive tonnes of love from the Potter fandom. So, the fandom in this book is very much not a portrait of the fandom. It is of a very – I think a very different kind of fandom.

What is it that makes Strike and Robin such a good team?

The reason I love writing those two characters so much is I love them both as characters. And I love the friendship. I love writing – and of course I love writing the sexual tension, which I know is – is a big deal for certain readers. But my feeling was always that each of them had quite a lot of changing and growing to do. Even Strike who is 10 years older than Robin.

You know, his – his past is an unusual one. And it has left him with issues that I don’t think he has ever really fully explored. And I feel that in books five and six, this being book six, you start to see him recognising some of this. He has still got a way to go. Equally, Robin, who’s had, you know, not a particularly typical romantic history because of – she has trauma in her past – in this book really does get to show a quite – what I think readers might find quite an unexpected side of her.

So, I love – I love the fact – to me it is a real friendship, they do – they rub – they can occasionally infuriate each other. But they are very complementary personalities, I think.

And they – their shared endeavour is really – is at the absolute root of what they value in each other and what they – I think now in this book, particularly at the end when something quite symbolic happens, you see that they recognise that they couldn’t have done it without
each other. And that’s – you know, that’s a wonderful feeling when you – when you have a shared endeavour with someone, and I empathise with that a lot.

It is not yet clear how the event will be conducted, but fans have been promised the opportunity for voting for the questions the want answered. It seems likely that all the answers have already been recorded, and I for one hope that in the fullness of time we will get to see all the footage.

 

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Nick Jeffery

Rowling “Strikes TV Deal for Spin-off!” Maybe

August 19, 2022 by 1 Comment

The UK’s Daily Mail has a “scoop“. According to Alison Boshoff who seems to concentrate entertainment and celebrity articles, her sources in London have confirmed that a deal was struck six months ago and writers are currently working on the project. Current rumours have been sparked by the change a of management at Warner Bros, now led by David Zaslav, however:

The company’s corporate spokesman refuses, rather aggressively, to comment on any ‘private meetings’ which Zaslav (known as ‘Zas’) may have had. All most peculiar, given that the ‘meeting’ would concern the largest asset Warner has — the intellectual property (IP) covering all things boy wizard — and would thus not really be personal at all. Rowling controls the Potter ‘IP’, and every decision has to come through her, whether it’s about merchandising, theme parks, video games or anything else.

Warner has been criticized in the past for providing limited support for J. K. Rowling, however in the aftermath of the latest threat to her, the new management were quick to issue a supportive statement.

‘Warner Bros Discovery strongly condemns the threats made against J.K. Rowling. We stand with her and all the authors, storytellers and creators who bravely express their creativity and opinions . . . the company strongly condemns any form of threat, violence or intimidation when opinions, beliefs and thoughts might differ.’

I have a ‘rule of thumb’ that any anonymous source used by the Daily Mail celebrity pages are largely fictitious. Is the world yet ready for a non Rowling written spin-off? (Fantastic Beasts 3 not withstanding). Let me know you thoughts down below.

Filed Under: Nick Jeffery

Ink Black Heart Audio Snippet Online!

August 18, 2022 by 7 Comments

Strike super fans The Tottenham have posted the first five minutes of the Ink Black Heart audio book read by Robert Glenister. Thank you Sue for the tip-off! As well as this leak there are lots of shenanigans from our ersatz characters on Twitter. Tune in tomorrow for an update!

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