Welcome Guests from the 18 December 2013 Diane Rehm Show about Casual Vacancy!
If you’re looking for a place to start in the posts below, Post #3 details how much cursing there actually was in the book , Post #4 how very autobiographical this book is (and why that shouldn’t matter), and Post #5 is an exegesis of the not very subtle political allegory of John Bull and his wife the Queen vs. the Empire’s legacy and promise in its outliers. After that? 6, 8, 11, and 12 will help you see the anagogical meaning that reviewers and first time readers miss in haste and because the social message is so loud.
Enjoy!
The Original Introduction to the Post:
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to throw together my first thoughts and questions on J. K. Rowling’s new novel, Casual Vacancy, but I found time today to write up some of my impressions after a hurried reading last weekend. This is only a small beginning, of course, for a thousand neglected topics. I think immediately of the Casual Vacancy title and Part captions, the propaganda quality of the work, and how much our reading of this book because we love our Harry Potter experience colors our appreciation of the novel. None of that below, though you will find literary alchemy, the political and personal allegories, and a word by profane word count on the cussing in Vacancy among other subjects
We’ll get to the neglected topics I mentioned and others soon enough, I’m sure. I hope in the twelve threads below to jump start our conversation of the artistry and meaning and experience of Casual Vacancy, subjects I suspect have been largely lost in the fanfare and shock of the book’s publication. Thank you in advance for joining the discussion and for inviting all the serious reader friends you know to jump in, too!
2. MuggleMarch or A Modern Moonacre Manor
3. Potter to Potty-Mouth: The Profanity by the Numbers
4. Literary Narcissism or The Art of the Psychic Realm
5. Barry Fairbrother and the Political Parable
6. Literary Alchemy: The Conjunction of Sex and Death
7. The Seven Part Ring Composition
8. Andrew and Gaia: Fallen Man and the Natural World?
9. Andrew and Stuart: Doppelganger, Ouroboros, or Diptych?
11. Religion: Christian Hypocrites and Sympathetic Sikhs
12. Authenticity and Hypocrisy:’Penetration,’ Suffering, and the Birth of Consciousness
Post First Week Round-up:
13. Christianity Today: ‘Profoundly Biblical Worldview’
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