Five Predictions for JKR Q&A Today

September 22, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday I posted three questions I hoped someone would ask Rowling-Galbraith during the “interactive” question and answer session today, This morning I rush to put up five predictions of what questions she will be asked and what her answers will be. Apologies all around for not posting this earlier to encourage the Serious Strikers here to share their ideas of what The Presence will and will not say; it only occurred to me as I began reviewing and writing up my latch notes on the novel’s beginning and end.

Prediction 1: My idea that this will be “interactive” in the sense of her engaging with readers in any back-and-forth way will be shown as ridiculously naive.

I want to start my prognostications with an almost sure-thing and that  I was wrong yesterday to think Rowling-Galbraith would engage with fans in a meaningful way is just that. Patricio Tarantino of The Rowling Library wrote to me on the moderator channels to explain that “interactive” here most likely meant that the “pre-recorded, not live” event  involves those who tune in being asked “to vote for two questions and then they will see the video with the answer to the most voted one and so on.” He expressed disappointment in advance with this format because it suggests “there will be recorded answers that we won’t see.”

If he is right (and, frankly, Mr Tarantino is right more often than not in a spooky Anomie kind of omniscient way with these things…), then the “interactive” Q&A will be a kind of online game akin to the Drek’s Game of Ink Black Heart, one that requires repeated visits to the site to explore its various possibilities, in this case, all the questions and answers. I have little doubt that all the information will be available to the persistent — and that Rowling-Galbraith is having a little fun here with life-imitating-art, the discussion of the book in a curious fashion reflecting the action of the book.

More speculative guesses after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Hog Pro Notes

Three Questions for JKR Q&A Tomorrow

September 21, 2022 by

I am not sure what Rowling, Inc., means by “interactive” but it suggests there is a possibility that The Presence will be taking questions from her listening audience. If true, this would be a first-time-ever event for the Strike series and something Rowling has only done before during Potter-Mania, something she did with children readers.

Except one event. The last time she answered questions from a live audience of adults (rather than from pre-screened cards), if memory serves, was in Carnegie Hall, the night she revealed she had always “thought of Dumbledore as gay.” I’m pretty sure that’s not the sort of publicity she’s hoping to generate for Ink Black Heart through her “interactive” Q&A.

Given the number of Rowling Revilers in the world today, too, that would attempt an ambush of her in any “interactive” environment, I have to doubt that her handlers, being sane, would expose her to this credible danger. If it is a live Q&A, though, and you could get through to ask her one question about Ink Black Heart — and it has to be about Strike6, remember, nothing about her A-Levels reading list, protestors in Iran, or The Christmas Pig diamond earrings — what would you ask her?

I share three ‘off-the-top-of-my-head’ questions after the jump and hope you’ll write yours in the comment boxes. Who knows? Maybe Team Rowling will choose one or two questions from Serious Strikers for a change! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Hog Pro Notes

Anne Rowling, Queen Elizabeth, and Honors at Buckingham Palace

September 12, 2022 by 1 Comment

Rowling said in this 2018 interview with the cast of ‘Crimes of Grindelwald’ on the ‘Today Show’ that her late mother Anne Volant Rowling, if she had lived to see it, would have been over the moon about her daughter receiving honors at Buckingham Palace. Nick Jeffery wrote a beautiful review of the times Rowling has brushed up against royalty through the years, ‘J. K. Rowling and the Queen;’ what I think the interview segment above highlights about those contacts is how much the Royal Family acts as a shared reference, the almost supernatural or extra-temporal pinnacle of the societal hierarchy, for everyone in the UK, to include those who despise the monarchy as a Medieval relic. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Hog Pro Notes

Queen Elizabeth II: Requiescat in Pace

September 8, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Posting at HogwartsProfessor will pause today and resume tomorrow.

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Salman Rushdie and Son Quiz JKR 2006

August 15, 2022 by Leave a Comment

The transcript of this public exchange courtesy of Accio-Quotes.org:

Salman and Milan Rushdie: Hello. We are Salman and Milan Rushdie (crowd applauds). Umm –

JK Rowling: I’m not that sure this is fair (crowd laughs). I think you might be better at guessing plots than most. But anyway, off you go.

Salman and Milan Rushdie: We are 9 and 59. And one of us is good at guessing plots, not me. And this is really Milan’s question and it’s kind of a follow up to the previous one.

JK Rowling: Alright. Okay.

Salman and Milan Rushdie: Until the events of Volume 6, it was always made plain that Snape might have been an unlikable fellow but he was essentially one of the good guys (crowd screams approval).

JK Rowling: I can see this is the question you all really want answered.

Salman and Milan Rushdie: Dumbledore himself – Dumbledore himself had always vouched for him.

JK Rowling: Yes.

Salman and Milan Rushdie: Now we are suddenly told that Snape is a villain and Dumbledore’s killer.

JK Rowling: Un hunh.

Salman and Milan Rushdie: We cannot, or don’t want to believe this (crowd laughs). Our theory is that Snape is in fact, still a good guy (crowd applauds). From which it follows that Dumbledore can’t really be dead and that the death is a ruse cooked up between Dumbledore and Snape to put Voldemort off his guard so that when Harry and Voldemort come face to face (crowd laughs). Harry may have more allies than he or Voldemort suspects. So, is Snape good or bad? (crowd laughs, applauds and screams and Jo chuckles). In our opinion, everything follows from it.

JK Rowling: Well, Salman, your opinion, I would say is … right. But I see that I need to be a little more explicit and say that Dumbledore is definitely … dead (crowd gasps). And I do know – I do know that there is an entire website out there that says – that’s name is DumbledoreIsNotDead.com so umm, I’d imagine they’re not pretty happy right now (crowd laughs). But I think I need – you need – all of you need to move through the five stages of grief (crowd laughs), and I’m just helping you get past denial. So, I can’t remember what’s next. It may be anger so I think we should stop it here. Thank you (crowd applauds).

I think Rowling’s immediate recognition of Salman Rushdie suggests strongly that she had met him previously, had been told he would be in the queue of ‘civilians’ asking questions (rather than on-stage with the authors; Stephen King and John Irving read that night as well), or both. My guess is “both,” and that Rowling’s acquaintance with Rushdie and his son, perhaps even her friendship with the man, is additional reason for her fears consequent to the knife attack in upstate New York — at an author event without evident security akin to the 2006 Radio City event.

Many thanks and a hat-tip to Amnon Halel, a first rank Potter Pundit and long-time friend of this weblog, for the links to the video and transcript above. 

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes