HogwartsProfessor has posted ChrisC’s thoughts about the literary and mythological roots of Jonny Rokeby and Charlotte Campbell the last five days. Here are my three take-away thoughts on the subject, and, after the jump, there is a one-stop round-up of links to the five parts of the series. Thank you, ChrisC, for your Guest Posts!

(1) The Duke Ellington-Doctor Faustus Link is an Over Reach. Fun, though!

I love a literary puzzle, right? And Rowling is a puzzle writer. Check out this brief passage about Robin from Career of Evil:

Quite suddenly, she experienced one of those jolts of excitement with which she had become familiar since starting work for Strike, and which were the immediate reward of looking for a tiny piece of information that might mean something, nothing, or, occasionally, everything. (p 90, cf., pp 249, 402)

 I think what Brian Boyd describes in Nabokov as the “magic of artistic discovery” which that author goes to great effort to bring to the reader is perhaps the single greatest link between Rowling and the “writer I really love.” Robin’s excitement about finding a clue, the secret entry to what really happened, is a parallel with what we are supposed to be doing and feeling as readers engaged in a contest with author and text to discover the greater reality not yet visible in the plot details and character musings.

Having said that, moving from a picture of Jonny Rokeby and Duke Ellington (and other men) and then making a link between the character Rokeby and Marlowe’s Faust because Ellington once wrote a score for Orson Welles’ Faust just won’t work.

For one thing, despite the reference provided via an embedded link, it’s doubtful Ellington wrote a musical score for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. The 1950 Welles event in Frankfurt for which Ellington wrote music, ‘An Evening with Orson Welles,’ was not Marlowe per se but the actor’s “own version of ‘Faust’ (based on material by Marlowe, Milton and Dante).” It was a variety hour for servicemen including songs by Eartha Kitt — one with her playing ‘Helen of Troy perhaps a nod to Faust–– rather than a production of the Marlowe drama per se— which play was not a musical, right? [Read more…]

Who is Jonny Rokeby? Part 5: Potential Plot Points By ChrisC

This whole series of rokeby posts is premised on the idea that J.K. Rowling means us to the see the character of Jonny Rokeby in her Cormoran Strike novels as a latter-day Faust character.  Through unpacking a number of inter-locking symbols within one single scene, at least a case has been made that she wants her readers to view the father of Cormoran Strike in a way that owes its style to the literary alchemy tradition of the Renaissance and to Marlowe’ Doctor Faustus, specifically.

In the final essay of this series, let’s look at what all this symbolism could mean in terms of both plot and genre.  Won’t you join me after the jump for one more walk on the wild side?

[Read more…]

Who is Jonny Rokeby? Part 4: Helen of Troy By ChrisC

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Illium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss –

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus.

This is not the first time an echo from ancient Greek mythology has been discussed on this site.  A while back, Joanna Gray and John Granger collaborated on an essay about the mythological allusions in the relation of Cormoran Strike to his mother Leda.  Helen of Troy came up in the course of that feature, however its main focus was on Strike as a combination Aeneas/latter half of the ancient family team of Castor and Pollux. Mythological Leda Strike: Cormoran, Zeus, Castor, and Pollux,

However, if Jonny Rokeby is meant to be seen as a post-modern Doctor Faustus, then it is time to bring Pollux’s sister Helen into the spotlight.  To understand the reasons why, and how come even that isn’t quite what it seems, meet me after the jump on the wrong side of the street.

[Read more…]