Beatrice Groves: Striking Epigraphs

September 7, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Today’s offering for Serious Strikers waiting impatiently for Troubled Blood’s publication on 15 September (and for those who have read the first 9 3/4 chapters available free online already) is a Guest Post from Oxford’s Beatrice Groves, author of Literary Allusion in Harry Potter. Her subject? ‘Literary Allusion in Cormoran Strike,’ as you might expect, and with special emphasis on Rowling-Galbraith’s use of epigraphs in Lethal White and Career of Evil. Enjoy! 

Striking Epigraphs

J.K. Rowling has used epigraphs in every novel she has written since Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; and they are an especial delight of her Strike series (see my previous blogs on Silkworm here and here, Lethal White here, and my hope that Troubled Blood will see her using Spenser’s Faerie Queene for her epigraphs here). Rowling’s epigraphs bring specularity – three-dimensional shading – to her novels. Hunting out the meaning behind her choices makes the reader into a detective, adding an additional depth to her exploration of this genre. This blog post will consider some of the literary effects she achieves, and clues that she drops, with the epigraphs in her two latest Strike novels – Career of Evil and Lethal White – in both of which, I believe, she achieves epigraphical firsts.

Lethal White

Lethal White’s epigraphs are unique because they consist of seventy-one quotations drawn from one single other text – Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm (1886) – making Lethal White more epigraphically indebted than any other novel. By creating this depth of interplay between the two works Rowling embeds many-layered clues in her epigraphs. As I discussed last week, the parallels she creates with Rosmersholm centre on the importance of white horses in both texts, and the resemblance between the unspoken passion in Rebecca and Rosmer’s relationship with that between Robin and Strike.

But there are many other telling epigraphical links. Take, for example, the epigraph to Chapter 49: ‘Rosmers of Rosmersholm – clergymen, soldiers, men who have filled high places in the state – men of scrupulous honour, every one of them …’.

This is the chapter in Lethal White in which Strike interviews Drummond – and the epigraph fits because Drummond (like Kroll, who speaks this line in the play) is a man of paternalistic traditionalism: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, Cormoran Strike

Troubled Blood Chapters 1-10 Now Free Online Pre-Publication At Overdrive.com

September 6, 2020 by 8 Comments

For whatever reason, be it calculated marketing design or an oversight error made with a library distribution website about the date of release, the first ten chapters of Robert Galbraith’s fifth Cormoran Strike mystery is now available online at Overdrive.com. The link is here and to access the free chapters the Serious Striker need only click on the box beneath the cover which reads: READ A SAMPLE. The book’s opening epigraphs then appear and, by clicking on the right edge of the page, the first 154 pages of Strike 5 are accessible for everyone’s reading pleasure, free of charge.

The book is seventy-three chapters long so this sample is approximately one tenth of the total. I have discussed at length the first seven chapters, Troubled Blood’s Part One, and the book’s front matter that were released last week on AppleBooks. See First Seven Chapters of Troubled Blood Pre-Publication Release on AppleBooks for that.

Today’s release gives us the first three chapters of Part Two’s seven chapters. It includes our first look at The Demon of Paradise Park and the beginning of Cormoran’s interview with the missing person’s business partner about their shared medical practice on St John’s Lane, Clerkenwell. The tenth chapter ends after only a few pages, alas, and mid-sentence, but a free preview is a free preview — Enjoy!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Guest Post: Galbraith Says Leda Strike’s Death Was Murder Rather than Suicide

September 5, 2020 by 1 Comment

From Kelly Loomis —

A post which should be exciting for regular HogPro readers was made on Twitter this morning by The Rowling Library. This tweet linked to audio clips of J. K. Rowling on her official Robert Galbraith website. There are some audios on the new website in which Rowling talks about some topics of the Cormoran Strike books. 

These audio clips seem to have come from various interviews and can be found under the “Discover” tab at the top of the website.  It doesn’t give the source for these interviews and breaks them up into subjects such as “Strike”, “Why London,” and “Denmark Street”. 

What may be the most interesting to HogPro readers is the confirmation of Strike’s belief that Leda was actually murdered.  We have been speculating on who that murderer could be while not having confirmation that it really was a murder to solve.  Below I have transcribed the remarks as best I could. It comes from the clip titled “Strike”.

“He is – ah – in some ways haunted by two dark angels…which…female angels anyway… his mother who was, um, murdered but that murder was never, came, to trial. And by his ex Charlotte, with whom he’s been with for 16 years on and off and in book four, we finally meet Charlotte properly so I’m enjoying writing that at the moment.  But, yeah, so there are certain things hanging over his life and of course that does hugely color his attitude to work and to relationships.”

Rowling’s remarks about her murder not coming to trial confused me because we had been told in Career of Evil that Whittaker had been brought to trial for Leda’s murder.  We are told in Chapter 6 while Robin reads Whittaker’s Wikipedia page that “When Leda Whittaker died of a heroin overdose in 1994, Whittaker was charged with her murder.  He was found not guilty. ” Chapter 10 of Career of Evil gives us a great deal of information about Whittaker and Leda’s relationship in the form of Strike’s remembrances of that time and of Whittaker’s trial for her murder. 

Since she was writing book four, Lethal White, at the time of this quote, the only conclusion I have is that she meant that the “real” murderer had not been brought to trial yet. I am interested in what thoughts you as HogPro readers have about her “reveal”?

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike

Guest Post: Will Troubled Blood Have A Spenserian Story Scaffold?

September 4, 2020 by 3 Comments

 

Chris sent me this speculative post before the seven chapter preview of Troubled Blood was available on Apple Books — and it holds up rather well in light of Strike 5’s first Part. The idea that Spencer’s Faerie Queene will play an outsized role in understanding Troubled Blood, a possibility first suggested here by Nick Jeffery when the Strike 5 title was announced, was certainly confirmed by the preview in which Faerie Queene passages begin the book and each chapter!

A Spenserian Story Scaffold for Troubled Blood?

By ChrisC.

After giving it some thought, the best “working idea” I’ve got about Strike 5, Troubled Blood, has to do with its story scaffolding. My theory is best put in the form of a question. “What if Rowling were to pattern Troubled Blood, at least in part, on Book 1 from Spenser’s Faerie Queene?” There’s a lot to examine on this topic, so why not join in after the jump?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts

Guest Post: Pictures from St Mawes

September 3, 2020 by 1 Comment

Good friend of this weblog, Lesley Stevens, just happened to be on a ‘staycation’ this week in Cornwall. She stopped by St Mawes, took some lovely photographs of The Victory and other key locations we visit in the Troubled Blood seven chapter preview released last week, and sent me this kind note. Enjoy!

Good morning, John. 

I trust all is well with you. 

Unwilling to travel abroad this year, we are currently enjoying a ‘staycation’ in Cornwall. 

After a much looked forward to visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan yesterday, we took a diversion on the way back to our holiday accommodation to visit the costal town of St Mawes for obvious reasons. 

We had hoped to lunch at the Victory Inn but unfortunately they were not serving food. I did take a photo of the outside however and also a few photos of the beach, sea wall and the ferry stop most of which are to be found on the Strike fan site on the Internet, but the beach photo I took illustrates the location of the Victory to the sea wall (look for the sign amongst the roof tops) which I thought might be of interest. 

We also drove down Hillhead Road which I understand to be the location for Aunt Joan and Uncle Ted’s cottage.

This is a one way steep twisting road which runs in the direction from the top of the hill to the sea front with vehicular access from the top of the Hill only. In the future, I can imagine it would be tricky to film in this street, however there were some pretty cottages with front gardens overlooking the sea which might with a little tv wizardry make for an easier location for Strike and Lucy’s chat.

I also picked up a local tourist guide which has maps of the town and the Roseland peninsula in which it is located and which I thought may be of interest as the plot unfolds and if locations are mentioned. 

Anyway, today here in Cornwall, the weather is as Strike remembers: 

Strike remembers how the rain is different in Cornwall, remembering how it “lashed like whips” against the windows of the spare bedroom of his Aunt and Uncles house. 

We are staying in our holiday cottage avoiding the rain and reading (thank you for the Hogwarts Professor post on the first seven chapters of Troubled Blood and the Beatrice Groves pillar post, perfect reading for today) and playing board games … much to the disappointment of our dog Trowser who can’t see the problem in going out at all ! 

Kind regards, 

Lesley 

Thank you, Lesley, for the kind note and for the wonderful photographs! I have reproduced here as many as the WordPress blogging software allows — and add this ‘thank you’ paragraph, both to express my gratitude and in order to include The Victory foto you mention taken from the seawall. Your being in St Mawes this week reminds me of Prof Groves’ trip to the White Horse Inn while reading Lethal White; I hope you are able to enjoy the first seven chapters of Troubled Blood while you’re in St. Mawes!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts