• Running Grave: Finale, Albedo, or What?

    ByJohn
    8 Comments

    In my flash poll of HogwartsProfessor readers of the post they are most interested in reading, the consensus pick has been the Elephant in the Room of Running Grave speculation, namely, “Will it be the series finale, the seventh of ten or more books, or both somehow?” We’ll know the answer soon enough, it seems, so this guesswork is only an amusing distraction as we wait on Strike7, but it does provide an opportunity to reflect on what we know about the author’s artistry and meaning. As that is the heart and soul of what we do here, let’s have a look at the three possibilities for Running Grave’s place in the Cormoran Strike mysteries. After the jump! Read More “Running Grave: Finale, Albedo, or What?”

  • Strike & Ellacott Files: ‘Epigraph Misattribution in Ink Black Heart’

    ByJohn
    4 Comments

    Louise Freeman has her finger on the pulse of Cormoran Strike fandom and relays on the HogwartsProfessor staff backchannels news of any important discoveries out there. Today she wrote us a note with the subject line ‘Some Gaffes We Never Caught’ about a post by Lindsay Land at the Strike and Ellacott Files. That post, titled ‘Epigraph Misattribution in Ink Black Heart.’ reveals they “found five misattributed epigraphs. Four of them are the correct author but the wrong title, while one has the incorrect author and title.” The article does not discuss the meaning (or lack of meaning) in these “misattributions” but it very helpfully details the mistaken allusions and provides links to the poems and authors in play.

    Professor Freeman’s subject line is in reference to the HogwartsProfessor staff and readership collective collection of mistakes in the Strike novels, mistakes we usually call “gaffes” or “Flints.” The thread of finds for Ink Black Heart is a long one (you can check it out here), but it, as Louise noted, does not include the epigraph mistakes that the ‘Strike and Ellacott Files’ podcast crew has found. Lindsay Land wrote in response to Prof Freeman’s comment after the post that “I guess with so many, it’s going to happen.” The six mistakes — Beatrice Groves had found another misattribution in the epigraph to chapter 51 – are indeed six out of one hundred and eight, but isn’t a 5.5% error rate still extraordinary, as Louise Freeman put it, “with a writer as meticulous as Rowling”?

    I don’t know if she is being sarcastic given her awareness of Rowling’s many mistakes in continuity and finer points (as in the difference, say, between Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.), but it’s still a question worth asking: “What, if anything, are we to make of these mistakes?” Join me after the jump for some shameless brainstorming and speculation consequent to this great find at Strike & Ellacott Files. Read More “Strike & Ellacott Files: ‘Epigraph Misattribution in Ink Black Heart’”

  • Strike Series Rankings: The Final Tally

    ByJohn
    0 Comments

    Kurt Schreyer posted a challenge to his Cormoran Strike loving followers on social media to rank the six mysteries from most favorite to least favorite. You can read his summary of the challenge responses he received from his dinner guests and twitter audience as well as his own ranking of the six Strike novels here.

    Seven of us who write at HogwartsProfessor responded to this idea with posts that included both rankings and our reasoning and criteria for preferring certain books to others. I started the task here and was followed by Beatrice Groves, Nick Jeffery, Louise Freeman, Chris Calderon, Evan Willis, and Elizabeth Baird-Hardy.

    Join me after the jump for a tabulation of our rankings here, a comparison with the first twitter responses, and a few ideas about the various approaches Serious Strikers have taken to rank the series entries thus far with an eye to their merits and demerits. Read More “Strike Series Rankings: The Final Tally”

  • Elizabeth Baird-Hardy’s Strike Favorites

    ByElizabeth
    4 Comments

    In the interest of being as un-influenced as possible, I have collected my list of Strike novels, ranked from least favorite to favorite, without looking at anyone else’s list. I look forward to seeing how my fellow professors here at HogPro list the books, as I have been scrupulously careful to avoid seeing them yet. As with any list, there is always room for debate. While I always enjoy those countdown lists on the radio, usually around New Year’s, I often find myself shouting at some faceless host who has the gall to rank one of my favorite songs outside the top ten on the list of “Greatest 80s Songs,” so I understand the complexities of lists and personal opinions.

    In ranking the adventures of our favorite Denmark Street detectives, I am considering my own tastes and interests, of course, as well as what seem to be more empirical standards. It is worth noting that I do not consider an error (like some we have noticed and discussed here over the years, unsurprising considering the amount of text covered by these books) to be an automatic reason to devalue a book or move it down the list. I find that all the novels are worthwhile, so even my Number 6 is not a bad book; I just like the others better, and there is something I like very much in each book, just as there are aspects I don’t like as much. While my number 1 book has not changed since its publication and is likely to remain my favorite in perpetuity, I have found some of the others shifting position on my list, and they may continue to move about with time. I do look forward to discussing all of our lists to see where we differ and concur. Since  I have not read anyone else’s lists, mine may be more or less detailed. So join me after the jump for my humble (and spoiler-laden)contribution to the Strike Ranking Extravaganza! Read More “Elizabeth Baird-Hardy’s Strike Favorites”

  • Evan Willis- Strike Series Ranking

    ByEvan Willis
    3 Comments

    Continuing our series of Hogwarts Professor staff posts ranking the Strike books, I’ll be adding my thoughts to the mix. (After which, I will be interestedly reading through everybody else’s posts, eager to hear what they thought and how they evaluated the texts!)

    My method here will be informed by my general tendencies when reading. I struggle with texts if they are considered by themselves alone, independent of other texts. The more I can practice what Mortimer Adler called Syntopical reading, reading texts together in each other’s light, the better I will enjoy and gain from any given book. I will, therefore, tend to rank texts higher when they play a pivotal role narratively in a series, or when the motifs or structure of a text is well illumined by or illuminating of other texts, or most generally when they reward Syntopical reading. The degree to which a book is fundamentally about how one reads, as in the common text-within-a-text of Rowling’s writing, also act favorably in my evaluation. This is not the only standard applied, of course, but in evaluating these books this aspect came up most frequently. In no small part, what follows is just the degree of enjoyment I had while reading each of them, such that the justifications below might not be as airtight as they could be. Ranking follows after the jump, starting from last place and continuing to first.

    Read More “Evan Willis- Strike Series Ranking”