Running Grave, Part Eight: A Ring Reading

October 15, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Part Two Parallels, Eight’s Latch, Turn, and Turtle-Back Lines, Answers to Robin’s Questions, Guesses about Strike’s Epiphany, and the Pizza Mystery

It just gets better and better! Running Graves’ Part Eight turned up the excitement with a Papa J – Cormoran Strike confrontation, a car chase and shooter, and, as Robin says to Cormoran after the Brewster-Edensor dialogue, “Loads of information!” In this post I’ll be laying out the larger ring parallels between Parts Two and Eight, sharing my thoughts about Part Eight’s individual ring elements, and then giving my last guesses about whodunnit before all is revealed in Part Nine. If the sun isn’t up before I’m done, I’ll put up some thoughts about Rowling’s “meaning in the middle” and other points that this long look at the structure highlight.

For more please visit The Hogwarts Professor Substack. You do not need to subscribe to read, but if you choose to, subscription is free. Look out for the Part Nine conclusion tomorrow!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Ring Composition, Substack Post

Running Grave, Part Seven: A Ring Reading

October 14, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Part Three Parallels, Part Seven’s Ring Elements, Its Whodunnit Revelations, and the ‘Real’

Part Seven, the shortest Part in The Running Grave at only eleven chapters, ticks all the boxes in this series of Strike7 ring readings’ signature points. It has the external book-ring parallels with Part Three, the signature latch, turn, and turtle-back parallels internally, and its meaning-full middle in which we get a skiff of clues pointing to the mystery’s resolution. Part Eight is the largest of the novel’s Parts, close to twice the size of Seven, so I’m going to rush this post out in my hurry to read and chart the twenty chapter set later tonight. Here we go —

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Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Ring Composition, Substack Post

Running Grave, Part Six: A Ring Reading

October 13, 2023 by Leave a Comment

The Novel’s First Turtleback Line is a ‘Wow!’ and the Interior Ring has a Surprise Inside

Yesterday’s ring reading of Part Five parsed the central Part of the nine Part Running Grave as its own distinct ring with latch, turn, and turtle-back parallels but also included some discussion of the novel axis, the connections between Part Five as the book’s turn and its relations to the beginning and end of the story. [I’m going to assume that the important links here are to Part One rather than the Prologue and to Part Nine instead of the Epilogue, though the latch of Prologue and Epilogue, the throat-clearing introductory material and the tying up of loose ends, will almost certainly be something to review as well.] The turn in Part Five, chapter 70 and chapters 71-72, reflected both the latch of this central Part and the ‘meaning in the middle’ of Part One.

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Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Ring Composition, Substack Post

First Thoughts on a First Read of The Running Grave

October 12, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Elizabeth Baird-Hardy Reviews Strike7

I confess, I do not have the enviable levels of self-control exhibited by our Headmaster in his careful part-by-part reading, so I am now sharing my thoughts after my first fairly fast read. Although I did post my thoughts on Troubled Blood as I finished each section, I was still reading at a breakneck pace to find out what had happened to Margot Bamborough and to see how the brilliant Faerie Queene template matched up with our Denmark Street team. I must also confess, that though Nick and Evan both rank The Running Grave as their favorite installment so far, I do not share that reaction. Troubled Blood, for me, remains the best of the field, by a large margin. That being said, I have some thoughts on The Running Grave, although I am not yet ready to decide where it belongs in my ranking (I feel it will certainly be above The Silkworm and Career of Evil. I like each installment, and really like some elements, but I do play favorites). These are my thoughts based on a first, fast read (with a head start courtesy of those leaked chapters a few weeks back). Be warned, spoilers abound, as I hope most of our readers will have already finished the novel before reading my post. If not, come back and join me once you have made it all the way to page 960.  

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Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Elizabeth Baird Hardy, Substack Post

Running Grave, Part Five: A Ring Reading

October 11, 2023 by Leave a Comment

The Center of the Nine Parts, the Story Turn of Strike7?

It’s been more than a week since Running Grave was published and we’ve reached the half-way point in my reading of Strike7 as a serialized Dickens novel of nine individual Parts. To my surprise (and delight), I still have not been spoiled, which is to say ‘I don’t know the ending,’ and each of the first four Parts I’ve read as well as the Prologue have conformed for the most part with traditional writing; each has had an identifiable latch of beginning and end chapters, a story-turn that echoes beginning and points to the end, and chapters or chapter bundles that mirror one another across the axis of turn and latch. I have been reading one Part each night after I finish writing up the previous Part’s ring notes and stray thoughts, then charting the Part I’ve just read, then taking a look at it to see if the ring pieces are visible. With a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ on that I go to bed with the prayer that the structure will be obvious in the morning.

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Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Ring Composition, Substack Post