A Guest Post from Joanne Gray

When I first looked into a possible Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ link to J. K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series over a year ago, I didn’t see enough to fit what I thought really fit the criteria of providing echoes between the two works. But that changed while reading John Vlahos’ article, “Homer’s ‘Odyssey’: Penelope and the Case for Early Recognition,” when I began to notice that in presenting his case, he was using Homer’s own words to show the poem’s main couple, Odysseus and Penelope, as “two-of-a-kind and a well-matched pair…possessing a special understanding which Homer described as homophrosyne, meaning of “one accord, one mind.” (p. 12)

The more I read, the more I was reminded of J. K. Rowling’s two main characters, Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. I felt I had finally found a way into the connection between the two works and I began to search the ‘Odyssey’ to hopefully find those elusive echoes between the two.

Just as Odysseus and Penelope are at the heart of Homer’s Odyssey, his epic story of a soldier’s journey home from war and his need to get home to his wife Penelope, I was reminded of the interview J. K. Rowling gave about her Cormoran Strike series and her remark about the greater plot running through it: “The larger plot is about these two characters [Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott] and what happens to them personally” and “the dynamic between them is, I think, the thing that keeps people reading. It’s certainly the thing that keeps me writing.”

Kostas Myrsiades, Professor Emeritus of Comparative and Greek Literature, edited the special ‘College Literature’ issue that also contains his poem (printed in part below) which captures this deep understanding between Odysseus and Penelope that exits at a level without the need for words…

True revolutions

are ignited by consenting minds

erupting spontaneously

whenever eye meets eye

as when Penelope before the beggar

caught Odysseus’s eye …

Their gazes touched once again
and both Odysseus and Penelope knew. (Kostas Myrsiades, 1993)

Both couples in the Odyssey and Strike series are equal in their intellects and joined to their partner in an uncanny ability to wordlessly convey meaning between each other. Just as in “Lethal White,” [Ch. 62, pg. 551] between Cormoran and Robin:

“He glanced at her. Robin had had occasion before now to deplore how easily he seemed to read her thoughts.”

Rowling shows the intuit connection earlier between Cormoran and Robin in ‘Lethal White’ (p. 25)

“Neither of them could tell who had made the first move, or whether they acted in unison. They were holding each other tightly before they knew what happened…The feel of her was both new and familiar, as though he had held her a long time ago, as though he had missed it without knowing it for years.”

There are so many more of these moments scattered throughout the four Strike books. Here is a list of the (so far) echoes between Homer’s Odyssey and J. K. Rowling’s Strike mysteries in character and story:

[Read more…]

Fasten Your Seat Belts—Strike Book 5 Could Be A Bumpy Ride (Joanne Gray)

Strike fans received a gift in the early hours of Cormoran Strike’s November 23^rd birthday when JK Rowling, in a tweet to another writer, wrote: “I’ll do the column if you write Robin’s internal monologue on the morning of her 29^th birthday.”

To anyone who’s a fan of the series, this small bit of information actually says quite a bit. Besides finally confirming that she was currently working on the fifth book of the Strike series, it also revealed the date of the scene to anyone who knew that Robin’s birth date is October 8, 1984.

It also revealed to those who knew that the fourth book, Lethal White, ended on September 2012, when Robin was still 27. It would be another year and a month before she turned 29! 

A quick Strike fan tweeted JK Rowling: “So Strike 5 is set in late 2013!”

Unfortunately, she neither confirmed nor denied his comment. Nor did she reveal what chapter in Book 5 she was working on. So the question immediately presented itself—could there be another big time jump at the beginning of the fifth book—just like there was after the prologue in Lethal White, Book 4?

I personally do not believe that she will be making another big time jump in Book 5. I have no proof of this but when she wrote the ending of Lethal White she clearly seemed to be laying down a couple of story crumbs leading into the next book.

The last line of Lethal White contains a detailed description of “the magnificent mansion” on the Thames with “its front doors engraved with twin swans.” Both the detail and placement of this last image gives the reader an expectation that as a stepping stone into the next book, we should expect it’s story to be told in Strike 5.

Another expectation of something coming in the next book is the “Finsbury Park” echo that appears in the same position, in the next to last paragraph, on the book’s last two pages. Both times Finsbury Park is linked to Robin needing to get answers—to see if a man will talk to them. This has been crafted with real intentional emphasis.

As a further piece of reinforcement that these end pieces will play a part in the fifth book’s storyline, there is JK Rowling’s recent Twitter heading depicting St. John’s Gate. There is actually a link between St. John’s Gate and Finsbury since St. John’s Gate is in Clerkenwell and Finsbury is a sub-district of Clerkenwell. Interestingly, Finsbury Park is a neighborhood in Harringay, which has its own echo with Career of Evil.

Harringay immediately brings to mind the name “Digger” Malley of the Harringay Crime Syndicate, which is mentioned in the third Strike book. In Career of Evil, Strike had originally thought that “Digger” could be a possible suspect for sending them a woman’s severed leg, but he quickly struck him off his suspect list.

When the BBC TV (JK Rowling, Exec. Producer) version of Career of Evil did not even mention “Digger” among the suspects. I took this omission as proof that the Harringay Crime Syndicate was not coming back in future books. Surely JKR would have told them to include it in the script if she planned to use it in future books?

But then I saw the Finsbury Park echo on the last two pages of Lethal White and wondered if maybe “Digger” would actually make an appearance in Strike 5? “Digger” was, after all, a part of not only Strike’s past—“Digger owed his previous stretch of incarceration to Strike’s evidence” (Career of Evil Ch 12 pg 89) but Shanker also, at one time, actually worked for “Digger”!

Even though I believe that Strike 5 will start a few months after Lethal White, I also believe that October 2013 will loom large in Book 5. I base this on the closely reasoned findings and speculation of Prof. Granger in his wonderful October 27, 2018 post, titled “Lethal White:  The Big Change at the Turn — The End of the Strike Agency?”

I agree with him that Strike crossing the legal boundaries he had always maintained between acceptable legal and unacceptable illegal tactics for his Agency in Lethal White may have some unforeseen consequences for Strike. Ironically, the very reason he crossed those boundaries—to save his Agency—could turn out to be the very thing that brings it all down.

Strike’s watershed moment in Lethal White came in chapter 10 (pg 110) when he crossed his own Rubicon and moved into the far more dangerous world of illegality with the words, “How d’you feel,’ said Strike, so quietly that she had to lean in to hear him, “about breaking the law?”

He convinced Robin they needed to engage in clearly illegal acts so he/they wouldn’t lose his/their highest paying client and risk him/them slipping back into abject poverty again.

If these repercussions are explored in Book 5 then Strike may experience a new level of fear (different than the fear for Robin’s physical safety he experienced during the events in Career of Evil). This new fear would be even more emotionally tormenting since he knows he is the cause if Robin finds herself in legal jeopardy.

As Prof. Granger also speculated, the UK Phone Hacking scandal could play a big role in Book 5. The year 2013 is when the biggest names in the News and the private eyes they employed to hack the phones for their newsgathering were being swept into the non-stop media coverage of the scandal. It was all reaching its final act of them all appearing before the Judges at Old Bailey.

Add to all this the possible trouble Cormoran and Robin could experience from both of their exes, Charlotte and Matthew, and it becomes a real “perfect storm” that could sweep them into the media tide of October 2013.

October 28, 2013 – The trial of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner begins at the Old Bailey in central London. All are accused of conspiring between October 2000 and August 2006 “to intercept communications in the course of their transmission, without lawful authority.” They deny the charges.

October 30, 2013 – It is revealed that former News of the World employees Neville Turtleback, James Weatherup and Greg Miskiw have pleaded guilty to phone hacking.

October 31, 2013 – Prosecutors reveal that Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson had a clandestine affair.

However, I have to believe that they can escape actual arrest or, at least, any convictions because such a prospect is just too hard to process. In the real world, the most famous of the arrested private detectives, Glenn Mulcaire, worked for “News of the World” and, although he was given a light sentence, he never afterwards found steady employment.

That fate would be one of Cormoran’s worse nightmares. Looking back over these speculations for Strike 5, it appears that no matter how you look at it, the  ‘Fasten Your Seat Belt’ sign has been turned on for Book 5. To paraphrase Bette Davis, we all need to prepare for a “very bumpy ride”.