File this under ‘Shared Text’ and ‘Chicagwarts.’ The post below is taken directly from an email I received this morning from the University of Chicago Alumni Association (for my relations with and debts owed my alma mater, see ‘Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower’ (2008), an article in the alumni magazine, and my interview with Marcella Delaurentis of ‘The Chicago Maroon,’ the College’s newspaper, also in 2008). Of all the book-drinks featured in Literary Libations, they chose Harry Potter’s, for what I think are obvious ‘Shared Text’ reasons. I cannot recommend the butterbeer recipe below because brown sugar is a poison but, if this is your poison of choice, have at it!

With Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a Bloody Mary.
With Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a brandy hot toddy.

Those are just two of nearly 200 drink pairings that Amira Makansi, AB’10, suggests in Literary Libations: What to Drink with What You Read (Skyhorse Publishing, 2019).

The book also includes nonalcoholic pairings for young adult and children’s books. For the Harry Potter series, the choice is butterbeer, of course. Here’s how to make it.

1 c. brown sugar
2 tbsp. water
6 tbsp. butter
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. apple cider vinegar
¾ c. heavy whipping cream, divided
½ tsp. rum extract
4 (12 oz.) bottles cream soda

In a small saucepan, over medium heat, combine the water and brown sugar and bring to a boil. Stir often until the mixture reads 240˚F on a candy thermometer.

Remove from heat and promptly stir in butter, salt, cider vinegar, and ¼ cup whipping cream. When fully incorporated, set aside to cool. When mixture has cooled, stir in the rum extract.

Combine 2 tbsp. of the brown sugar mixture and the remainder of the heavy cream in a medium mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer or a stand mixer, beat the heavy cream until just thickened, but not completely whipped. This should take 2-3 minutes.

To serve, divide the sugar mixture between four tall, chilled glasses. Add ¼ cup of cream soda and stir to combine. Top with the remainder of the cream soda and spoon the cream over the top. Makes four servings.

Read more about Makansi and Literary Libations in the Core.

The great lacuna in Potter studies is what Rowling read and loved in her French studies at Exeter and beyond.

Victor Hugo and Colette are the only authors we have for certain from her testimony and names in her work and Manon Lescaut is the only French story title she has mentioned as a favorite.

There is a famous French writer, though, Joris-Karl Huysmans, who was known by his first initials, i.e., ‘J. K.’ 

Never heard of him? Me, neither. From his wikipedia page:

Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans(5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel À rebours (1884, published in English as Against the Grain or Against Nature). He supported himself by a 30-year career in the French civil service.

Huysmans’ work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of Naturalism, he became associated with the decadent movement with his publication of À rebours. His work expressed his deep pessimism, which had led him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. In later years, his novels reflected his study of Catholicism, religious conversion, and becoming an oblate. He discussed the iconography of Christian architecture at length in La cathédrale (1898), set at Chartres and with its cathedral as the focus of the book.

Là-bas (1891), En route (1895) and La cathédrale (1898) are a trilogy that feature Durtal, an autobiographical character whose spiritual progress is tracked and who converts to Catholicism. In the novel that follows, L’Oblat (1903), Durtal becomes an oblate in a monastery, as Huysmans himself was in the Benedictine Abbey at Ligugé, near Poitiers, in 1901. La cathédrale was his most commercially successful work. Its profits enabled Huysmans to retire from his civil service job and live on his royalties.

I wonder if Huysmans was well known to the Presence through her French studies at Exeter or travels in France and if she thought her life as a school teacher and sometime writer when she became J. K. herself would parallel his life as a civil servant cum author when she chose the ‘K’ for her faux middle initial.

The ‘Kathleen’ as grandmother’s name is not a reason per se because she had many other relatives, I’m sure, and teachers whose names she might have chosen. As her ‘Galbraith’ and “Potter’ “explanations,” the K-rationale rings hollow.

I am not a Francophone or Francophile as noted. So I asked Cory Faniel at La Gazette du Sorcier, “Is Huysmans someone Rowling is sure to have read, a French studies staple akin to Zola, Hugo, and Proust?” Cory responded promptly for his staff at France’s most important Wizarding World fan site:

Huysmans is not a big name in French studies as far as we know.

We had to Google him. He might be briefly mentionned when discussing L’Assommoir de Zola.

Note that no one in my team studied French Literature in France at University, so were are not completely aware of the details of programs on offer.

I reached out to Beatrice Groves as well. Nope; this French novelist J. K. is not an author with whom she is familiar.

Anyone out there a Modern Languages major with a concentration in French Literature care to comment? Is this J. K. an author that Rowling is likely to have read at Exeter? Any similarities between his work and hers, i.e., was this an association that she might have wanted a well read (in French!) person to make? It trumps J. K. Galbraith, no?

We got some great results in our first look at embedded pictures on The Presence’s website homepage. The Smith’s album cover shown is from an album that has song lyrics noting three different murders (per Louise Freeman) and one song with a suggestive title, ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ (Chris Calderon). For more discussion on that, go to the thread following ‘Hidden Photos at Rowling Websites: Digital Clues and Detective Work #1.’

Today let’s have a look at another photo-on-the-edge, this one in plain site but hard to figure: a book and what looks to be a coaster but the url says is a ‘bath.’

Well, the url actually says “bath-book.png” and looking at the book maybe it just means the book was dropped in the tub during a reading (Rowling has said this a common fate for her favorite books).

The book is Off With Their Heads by Ngaio Marsh and it deserves it’s own longish post. Just as a teaser, it features a white horse so it got this brief mention in our Lethal White pre-publication White Horse Round-Up:

Rowling’s home web site is not PotterMore; it is JKRowling.com. It’s worth a visit every month or so to see what she’s put up there. Early this year I noticed a book cover I’d missed on previous drop-ins. The title is barely legible (see picture on the right), but it turns out to be Ngaio Marsh’s Off With His Head! which was published as Death of a Fool in the United States. I asked my Lewis Carroll expert and friend, Brian Basore, to look into it because I assumed it was a reference to the Queen of Hearts in Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. Not so much, it turns out.

But — Alchemy (the forge!), the Fool (see Evan Willis on the Harlequin) temperaments/humours, Shakespeare, Jonson, mise en abyme, murder mystery… with P. D. James’ The Skull Beneath the Skin, Marsh’s Off With His Head is another model for Silkworm and a brilliant alchemical murder-mystery set-piece. It’s must reading for Potter Pundits, especially with the Rowling.com cover posting.

And, as Brian Basore reminds me, the murder in the novel turns on the details of a Morris Dance routine in which the star figure is a white horse in two pieces. Are you seeing a pattern?

I will write up those notes soon, trust me, but what I’m really wondering about today is that coaster:

Any ideas? The closest thing I could find was a Welsh dragon bumper sticker. I’m confident that’s not it. Please tweet it out to your friends, do the requisite Google searches, or post it on FaceBook for your followers to recognize. I look forward to reading your findings…

If you are surfing the internet and wind up at J. K. Rowling’s home website, that’s JKRowling.com, odds are good you’re not seeing all there is to see on the front page. Some of the best material is just out of sight on the page’s margins and what is there seems to be cut off so there may seem to be nothing but a page corner that is showing. It can be seen, however, via a simple trick. Evan Willis at the University of Dallas taught me the trick; using Google Chrome, right clicking on the image and then ‘Open Image in New Tab’ brings up the full picture no matter how much or little is evident on the home page.

We’ve already learned a lot from this trick. Prof Beatrice Groves’ four part series on Rowling and Scotland was inspired at least in part by her learning this trick and trying to figure out the badge photo near the top of the page. Rowling’s internet minions have changed the foto used for the ipad screen consequent to her latest re-tweet of a Pottermore message about the Times Square event (so right-clicking on the badge only brings up the iPad), but early last month it brought up the picture to your right. Prof Groves with a little help from her friends recognized it as the Murray Clan broach and the rest is history.

This week I hope to post several pictures here from JKRowling.com and Robert-Galbraith.com to challenge you to figure out what they are, why it might be on the home page, or just what it means. Today’s mystery image is from the upper right hand corner of the homepage and almost completely covered by the iPad with Rowling’s current twitter page on it. The url for the isolated picture tells us it is a ‘Smiths’ record album and it seems to be an inner sleeve. Click on that link to see the isolated picture full size.

Anyone care to guess which album it is or why she chose it for her homepage? The Smiths were one of Rowling’s favorite rock bands at UExeter, but they didn’t make her list of Desert Island Discs; how do they rate this just barely visible picture on the front page of the world’s best selling author? The closest match I could find for it was this one from ‘The World Won’t Listen.’ If you own the double LP album, let us know what it’s about in the comment boxes below!