Hogwarts Professor

Lethal White has been a focus at HogwartsProfessor since the publication of Career of Evil in 2015. This Pillar Post for ‘Strike4’ is a gathering and organizing of more than eighty of the more important articles that discuss Lethal White directly or indirectly. This list was most recently updated on 22 June 2019.

I urge the first time visitor researching the subject to listen to the ‘Reading, Writing, Rowling’ podcast about Lethal White which gives a fun introduction to and fire-hose survey of the key topics. From that beginning, either work your way down the list or jump to the subjects which most interest you.

Happy surfing!

Introduction/Overview/Key Points

The ‘Reading, Writing, Rowling’ podcast on Lethal White (Kathryn McDaniel, Louise Freeman, Beatrice Groves, John Granger)
The Top Ten Things We’ve Learned About Lethal White Since Publication Day
The Three Things about J. K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike Novels Every Harry Potter Fan Should Know
Lethal White: The Ring Structure
Lethal White: The Cratylic Names
Lethal White: Autobiographical Elements
Lethal White: Flints and Head Scratchers

Lethal White as Turning Point of Seven Part Ring Cycle

Literary Alchemy and the Mythic Context

M. Evan Willis: The Mythic Context and Hermetic Meaning of Cormoran Strike
Guest Post: Mythological Leda Strike – Cormoran, Zeus, Castor and Pollux (Joanne Gray; prepublication)
Guest Post: Rowling’s Mercurial Hermetic Artistry from Snape to Strike (M. Evan Willis; prepublication)
The Swan Symbolism
More Strike Swans: Historical and Film Connections (Elizabeth Baird-Hardy)
Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 1 Rowling’s Most Loaded Tarot Reference
Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 2 The Historical and Occult Interpretations
Harry Potter and The Hanged Man: Part 3 Its Meaning in Rowling’s Written Work

On ‘White Horses’

The White Horse Gallows: Karmic Legacy of Empire in the UK?
Charlotte Campbell: The Broodmare of Lethal White (Louise Freeman)
Every ‘Rosmersholm’ White Horse Reference (Odd Sverre Hove)
Taylor Swift’s ‘White Horses’ (Louise Freeman)
Lethal White: The White Horse Evidence (pre-publication list of pointers)
Lethal White Horses (Pre-publication; Beatrice Groves, MuggleNet)

Louise Freeman’s Lethal White Posts

Series Mystery Possibilities

Lethal White: Is Strike Rokeby’s Son? The Dates Don’t Seem To Match Up
Bookending the Past: Cormoran Strike’s Real Father? (Joanne Gray)
Lethal White: The Daddy Chiswell Evidence (Joanne Gray)

Literary Allusions and Influences

The National Health Service Sub Plot

Miscellaneous:

Rowling Interviews, Twitter

Pre-Publication: The Lethal White Music Playlist (Louise Freeman)
The Graham Norton Interview
On ‘Galbraith Meets Graham Norton’ (Beatrice Groves)
Rowling as Labour’s Tweeting Prophet
New Political Maturity from Rowling?

Prepublication Predictions and Speculation

A Lethal White ‘White Horse’ Round-Up: An Explanation of ‘Heroin Dark Lord 1.0’

In a nutshell, the theory is that Jonny Rokeby was responsible for Leda Strike’s death, a ‘hit’ that he arranged to insure that she would never reveal what she knew about crimes he committed as a Deadbeat, crimes to include murder, in conjunction with heroin and the drug trade. The ‘White Horse’ that Rowling has been teasing readers with this past year may involve an actual stallion but the larger meaning of the clues is heroin, for which ‘white horse’ is a street euphemism.

Postpublication Scorecard

Welcome Guests from the 18 December 2013 Diane Rehm Show about Casual Vacancy!

Round Up Url

If you’re looking for a place to start in the posts below, Post #3 details how much cursing there actually was in the book , Post #4 how very autobiographical this book is (and why that shouldn’t matter), and Post #5 is an exegesis of the not very subtle political allegory of John Bull and his wife the Queen vs. the Empire’s legacy and promise in its outliers. After that? 6, 8, 11, and 12 will help you see the anagogical meaning that reviewers and first time readers miss in haste and because the social message is so loud.

Enjoy!

The Original Introduction to the Post:

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to throw together my first thoughts and questions on J. K. Rowling’s new novel, Casual Vacancy, but I found time today to write up some of my impressions after a hurried reading last weekend. This is only a small beginning, of course, for a thousand neglected topics. I think immediately of the Casual Vacancy title and Part captions, the propaganda quality of the work, and how much our reading of this book because we love our Harry Potter experience colors our appreciation of the novel. None of that below, though you will find literary alchemy, the political and personal allegories, and a word by profane word count on the cussing in Vacancy among other subjects

We’ll get to the neglected topics I mentioned and others soon enough, I’m sure. I hope in the twelve threads below to jump start our conversation of the artistry and meaning and experience of Casual Vacancy, subjects I suspect have been largely lost in the fanfare and shock of the book’s publication. Thank you in advance for joining the discussion and for inviting all the serious reader friends you know to jump in, too!

1. The Harry Potter Echoes

2. MuggleMarch or A Modern Moonacre Manor

3. Potter to Potty-Mouth: The Profanity by the Numbers

4. Literary Narcissism or The Art of the Psychic Realm

5. Barry Fairbrother and the Political Parable

6. Literary Alchemy: The Conjunction of Sex and Death

7. The Seven Part Ring Composition

8. Andrew and Gaia: Fallen Man and the Natural World?

9. Andrew and Stuart: Doppelganger, Ouroboros, or Diptych?

10. The JayZ song ‘Umbrella’

11. Religion: Christian Hypocrites and Sympathetic Sikhs

12. Authenticity and Hypocrisy:’Penetration,’ Suffering, and the Birth of Consciousness