Note:  this was originally a comment to John’s first Silkworm post.  Per our Headmaster’s request, I am hastily re-posting as a bona fide post, posthaste.  Spoilers for The Cuckoo’s Calling and the first 12 chapters of The Silkworm below the jump.

I had had the good intentions to re-read The Cuckoo’s Calling before starting The Silkworm but did not get it done. So, I decided to read them concurrently and make my notes alternating: first Chapter 1 in CC, then chapter 1 in The Silkworm, etc. Obviously the chapters won’t match up perfectly, but knowing Rowling’s tendency to build the Harry Potter books on the same sequencing formula, this seemed as good an idea as any. [Read more…]

Having just finished The Silkworm, I think we can see represented below in this token sample of interviews from Ms Rowling’s past the struggling, prematurely aging, red-headed writer named Kath Kent, the blonde Robin coming to terms with her discovery of who she is, and the several literary celebrities whose self-importance is lampooned cover to cover. The Silkworm all but demands this kind of “personal; heresy” interpretation, as touched on yesterday, and which I’ll explain in greater detail next week. Until then, enjoy the remarkable transfiguration of Jo via this YouTube time capsule opening.

True confessions time! I have not yet finished reading The Silkworm. Nonetheless, I have some thoughts I want to share about the book after only reading the first 28 chapters, what I think of as the first half of the book. This preemptive posting is not standard operating procedure at HogwartsProfessor, so let me explain why I’m commenting at significant length before having read all the way through.

First, it’s a promise I made to myself after reading Casual Vacancy and again after finishing Cuckoo’s Calling. I made a commitment not to read straight through future Rowling efforts but to make notes on each chapter as I went along. I pledged to do this out of frustration and hope. The frustration was that I found it very difficult to stop and take notes through the whole book on my first second-pass because I was in speed-read mode rather than the mental framework for close-reading. I still haven’t finished the outlining of Vacancy or Calling the way I want.

My hope was to slow it down, consequently, and savor the ride and all the clues and back references being made through the Silkworm mystery. Of course, I also wanted to be as sensitive as I could be to the structural clues and Rowling signatures we know from her Hogwarts Saga and previous post Potter publications. By which I mean principally “Ring Composition” and “Literary Alchemy.”

So far, so good. I’m 28 chapters in and I have made notes on each chapter, with thoughts about what the story seems to be about. Right now, I’m thinking it’s not unlike Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban in several ways. More on that in a minute.

If you’re interested in what I think Ms Rowling is doing even though you’re well aware that I haven’t finished the book, take the leap over ‘the jump.’ This is almost as much fun, for me at least, as guessing the elements and plot points of the Harry Potter novels as they came out. Here, though, if I hit any bull’s eyes, readers will naturally be skeptical that I peeked at the finish or read some reviews. I’ll risk that — and the much more likely possibility that I will be miles off and embarrassed tomorrow when I try to finish my close reading.

There are spoilers below, too, but only for plot points of the first half of the book and my guesses about the end! You’ve been told, pro forma.

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