New Cover, New Substack Posts, and a Journey to Wales

July 24, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Since our last posting here at the HogwartsProfessor weblog, Rowling, Inc., has released the cover for The Running Grave with the attendant story tease and summary, the HogwartsProfessor Substack site has been active with posts on a variety of exciting topics, and I have confirmed my reservations (and packed) this week for a trip to Swansea University in Wales, a journey I begin in just a few hours. Here are a few notes for those of you who stop by our old haunts before I leave for the airport.

The Strike 7 Cover and Story Blurb

I read about the cover and tease release via TheRowlingLibrary.com and had these three thoughts about the images chosen:

(1) The yellow or gold touches suggest the end of literary alchemy and the dawn at the end of Deathly Hallows. 

(2) The Cromier pier location in Norfolk we have seen before in Rowling twitter headers and is a fit with the locale described in the teaser paragraphs.

(3) The picture itself is reminiscent of an oriental pagoda, Torii, or paifang, a point of spiritual passage, entry way, or gate. I’m hopeful that this hint is a pointer to the psycho-spiritual content of the seventh book with its I Ching epigraphs.

I’d also note that a a fan had tweeted a mock-up of this scene as a cover for the upcoming novel months ago.

This is either a remarkable coincidence or suggestive that the marketing team responsible for promoting Rowling-Galbraith mysteries is especially attentive to the series’ social media mavens. Perhaps a little of both?

About the teaser paragraphs, I was only reminded that discussing them at any length here or elsewhere is to become an unpaid adjunct member of said marketing team. I have played that role for as long as I can remember writing about Rowling’s incipient releases — and think I’ll pass on speculating about what it may mean this time.

In brief, the Agency is headed to Norfolk, Robin is going undercover into a religious cult, and Strike has plenty to reflect on with respect to his childhood experiences nearby; who needs to prime the pump of pre-publication sales any more than that exciting story-line? I very much look forward to reading Strike7 in September and writing then about its Deathly Hallows echoes, ring structure, alchemical notes, prophetic epigraphs, and mythological backdrops — if any of those elements appear.

HogwartsProfessor Substack Posts

Since my last update here at the beginning of last month, the HogwartsProfessor staff have been very busy over at the Substack site writing about The Running Grave and related topics.

Elizabeth Baird-Hardy, our resident movie and Hunger Games expert, shared her insights about the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes trailer. I am not a fan of movie adaptations as a rule and those made of Suzanne Collins’ novels were especially ironic and bad; Prof Hardy’s notes were very encouraging, however, and I suspect on the strength of her arguments I should go the theater on the day of release.

Nick Jeffrey wrote two posts, one on The Black Dog in English literature with special attention to Rowling’s use of the image, and another this morning on literary mimics, parodists, and satirists, ‘The King’s Canary,’ that discusses both a Dylan Thomas work that may have been the model for Owen Quine’s Bombyx Mori and a contemporary writer that seems determined to say unkind things about The Presence, albeit covertly in story. Each Jeffrey post rewards the time invested in reading them several fold with pleasure and valuable information available nowhere else.

I wrote about the choice of the I Ching as the source of epigraphs in Strike 7. I happened in a series of synchronous discoveries, the most notable in a grocery store storage room, to stumble on a Jungian commentary on and translation of the Oracle by Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher, which book pointed to a very promising possibility of why Rowling-Galbraith chose to ‘go there’ for her Running Grave chapter headers.

I began what will be a series of posts about the soul’s journey to perfection in spirit depicted in allegory in Rowling’s work, with a review of the several attempts that have been made to read the Hogwarts Saga as a retelling of Prudentius’ poem, Psychomachia. This introductory post will be followed soon by one exploring the choice of the name ‘Prudence’ for Strike’s half-sister, a Jungian analyst with whom he seems certain to be meeting in the early going of Running Grave, an encounter that may parallel the opening chapter of Deathly Hallows and the death of Charity. Will Prudence in ‘Running Grave’ Suffer a Fate Similar to Charity’s in ‘Deathly Hallows’? A Look Back at a Neglected Aspect of Psychomachian Allegory in Harry Potter

That series was put aside by the advent of Evan Willis’ theory about why the Cormoran Strike novels will be a ten book series. In anticipation of this effort, I laid out why I thought the Parallel Series Idea suggested strongly that Rowling’s detective fiction, if indeed it is a ten book set, is best thought of as seven in number with three add-ons not especially important to the integrity of the ring cycle. I included in that post my best guess about who will die in Running Grave the way Dobby did in Deathly Hallows and who will pay the part of Kreacher. If Running Grave is ‘Deathly Hallows 2,’ What Strike Series Characters will Play the Parts of Dobby and Kreacher?

Evan Willis’ post, Why the Cormoran Strike Novels Are a Ten Book Series, exploded my PSI-generated idea of seven + three with a brilliant numerological exposition and exploration of Rowling’s artistry and meaning. In brief, he argues that the two mythological backdrops to the Strike series, ‘Castor and Pollux’ and ‘Eros and Psyche,’ both involve the parting of the principal players before their eventual reunion and that this will be what happens in the Strike novels post Running Grave with their return to one another only in Strike 10. He explains that Rowling’s parallel series work will continue in Strike 8, 90, and 10, albeit with Casual Vacancy, The Ickabog, and The Christmas Pig as her standards or foils. The geometric figure he invokes as Rowling’s guiding structure for the first and second set of ten books written in parallel is the tetractys.

Willis’ synthesis of sacred geometry, alchemy, mythology, hermetic symbolism, tarot, I Ching, and Rowling’s parallel writing is, frankly, the most exciting and boundary-stretching bit of Rowling analysis in many years. I wrote a post in response (and in admiration) to explain the tradition of numerological symbolism in the English Greats, to note that Running Grave will reveal whether Willis has hit a grand slam or struck out in his swing for the fences (his structure-based predictions are that specific), and to share an alternative ten point symbol that may be used in Strike 7 as an echo of the “triangular eye,” the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. Is Tetractys Theory the Best Explanation of Why the Cormoran Strike Series is Ten Books in Length?

Please join us over at the HogwartsProfessor Substack site for extraordinary posts like these!

Trip to Swansea University in Wales

In two hours, I depart from Oklahoma City for Dallas and then London. God willing, I will wind up Wednesday in Wales for the graduation ceremonies at Swansea University. I have been given a pair of Guest Tickets, one of which will be used by my host, Nick Jeffrey, and the other is available for you to claim. Drop me a note in the comment boxes below if you’re interested and will be in the area!

I am being interviewed by the University’s alumni office for a write-up in their magazine; I hope the story angle will be about my scholarship rather than than my age, which is of course well above the average new PhD’s, my Walter Mitty existence as a Potter Pundit, or (egad) Rowling’s controversial, not to say “radioactive,” status. I promise to provide a link to the story should it ever be published online.

I remain hopeful that my thesis will be published one day as well. Until then, I’ll share tomorrow over at the Substack site a keynote talk I gave at St Andrews University on my first trip to the UK more than ten years ago now. Be sure to subscribe — it’s free — so that will come directly to your inbox! The World Turned Inside-Out and Right-Side Up: Harry Potter has More to Teach Us about Literary Criticism than Literary Criticism does about Harry Potter.

 

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Hog Pro Notes

Rowling-Galbraith Commits to Ten Book Series, NOT Seven, for Cormoran Strike

April 28, 2023 by 5 Comments

Yesterday in the announcement of The Running Grave’s publication date at JKRowling.com, readers were given two statements in hard print that the series will be not seven books long, not an indefinite number, but ten in length. First:

THE RUNNING GRAVE will be the seventh title in a planned series of ten, the first six of which have all been Sunday Times and international bestsellers. The Strike series has been praised as ‘the work of a master storyteller’ [Daily Telegraph], ‘unputdownable’ [Daily Express] and ‘a blistering piece of crime writing’ [Sunday Times]; with Strike and Robin dubbed ‘one of crime’s most engaging duos’ [Guardian].

Then, much later in the piece:

‘It’s been brilliant to see the enormous success of the Robert Galbraith books over the past ten years and an honour to publish them. With over 11 million copies sold in the English language to date, the story of Strike and Robin has captured readers’ imaginations and, like so many others, I can’t wait to see what happens to them over the course of the final four books in the series.’ David Shelley, Group Chief Executive, Hachette UK.

After that announcement went global, Rowling sounded much more tentative about the ten book endpoint in a tweet to a reader who asked if Strike’s series would end as Harry’s did at the seven book mark:

Three Quick Notes: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

The Running Grave to be Published in September

April 26, 2023 by 2 Comments

According to Amazon and numerous other booksellers, the official release date in September 26th.  Page count is 832, which may feel like a novella compared to the last two.

Five months to go!  (or, depending on when you are reading this, less.  Click link below to be exact.)

Countdown to The Running Grave

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Louise Freeman

Ink Black Heart Nominated for Crime Writers Association ‘Gold Dagger’

April 23, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On this ‘Long List,’ the first stage of CWA nominations, Rowling-Galbraith is the Pachiderm in the room; her sixth installment of the Strike series is, I’m guessing here, correct me if I’m wrong, by far the best selling one of the twelve novels listed and the only one slotted pre-publication for adaptation for television. I think it’s a fair bet, too, that it is the only novel to have been reviewed in major metropolitan dailies around the world (and lauded for the most part).

This by no means is to suggest that The Presence’s elephantine status in any way guarantees that she wins. I think it is far more likely to count against her, especially as much of the Chattering Class is still mesmerized by Transmania. The CWA is dedicated to awarding their Daggers to the best book — and they passed over Troubled Blood, which frankly was, outside of perhaps the seventh Harry Potter novel and The Christmas Pig, was the best thing Rowling has written to date.

Ink Black Heart is much more of a stretch for readers, especially those not already enchanted with the Robin-Cormoran back story, so I have my doubts about her chances. The recent turning of the tide in the Trans Wars, visible in articles like last week’s ‘Why Harry Potter is a Literary Masterpiece‘ in The Telegraph and in the news that Max will be filming a new adaptation of the Hogwarts Saga for television with Rowling and Bronte Studios having key roles, though, means perhaps she won’t be fighting against the current as much as she was with Strike5.

The good news potentially about this nomination is that Rowling may do an interview about Ink Black Heart to help her chances as she did for Troubled Blood’s Silver Dagger nomination. Those questions were generic ones asked of every nominee so we learned little from the exchange that we didn’t know from close reading of the book (“most meticulously planned book I’ve ever written;” yawn). Here’s hoping that Rowling-Galbraith will one day sit down with some Serious Strikers who are not just fan girls/guys and ‘shippers to answer questions more challenging than “What makes a book a ‘thriller’ in your view?”

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Aleister Crowley and the I Ching

April 22, 2023 by Leave a Comment

I was researching Emile Coue, a French ‘New Thought’ expert of the inter-war years, yesterday and remembered that I had first read about him on a skiing trip to Canada in the mid 70’s. The book was a madhouse collection of stray information called The People’s Almanac and I was consumed with it when I wasn’t on the slopes (my cousins will testify to this, I think, because I entertained them each night — I thought I was entertaining them, at least — with trivia and bizarre historical facts and figures from the text). It’s available online here; the Coue article is on page 561 and his most famous book, Self-Mastery Through Conscious Auto-Suggestion, can be downloaded here.

On page 562, though, was something much more interesting: a short piece on Aleister Crowley and his obsession with the Yi King, what is now referred to as the I Ching or The Book of Changes. More after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike