Hogwarts Professor

I received a comment on my post ‘Rowling Q&A in The Sunday Times’ that included an off-topic question. I have elected to answer it here rather than on that thread. It’s a subject in which I think a lot of HogwartsProfessor readers are interested, for one thing, and none of them would be going to a post on the Times Q&A to learn more about it.

Hi. I agree. Her recent interview [with The Times] was meant to sell newspapers rather than give real information. Whatever you’ve got to say about The Supper At Emmaus, I’d like to hear it. It’s an interesting Christian painting.

Besides that, I’ve got a question about Strike #8, The Hallmarked Man. All the clues she’s given us are about metals.  Metals say “Nigredo” to me, but the predominance of silver says #8 might be the  “Albedo” book? If so, was The Running Grave the “Nigredo” book?  Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your answer.

There are actually three questions in those two paragraphs. Here are my answers for this Serious Striker:

(1) “What do you think of Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus?”

If you are a HogwartsProfessor subscriber over at Substack, you’ve already received my long-form essay on this subject. I hope you’ll read it and let me know what you think.

(2) “Was Running Grave the ‘Nigredo’ novel in the Cormoran Strike series?”

Great question! We will not know until we have all ten books in the Strike Saga but it certainly was a break-down piece for both Robin and Cormoran.

If I had to wager on the subject (and, being broke, the betting would have to be for amusement rather than remuneration), I’d go with Evan Willis’ idea on the Tetrachtys structure of the ten book set, which, if memory serves, has a three book nigredo ‘triad,’ a two book albedo and one book rubedo ‘monad,’ that last in parallel with Christmas Pig. See ‘Why the Cormoran Strike Novels are a Ten Book Series‘ for the math and the alchemy.

Of course, Rowling-Galbraith might be doing in the ten book series what Bronte Studios is said to be doing in the ten year adaptation of the Hogwarts Saga, i.e., one year for each of the first four and two for each of the last three. Alchemically, that would give us two books for each of the ‘back-side’ reverse alchemy turtle-shell lines. See William Sprague and Louise Freeman for the ‘reverse alchemy’ idea in Potter and Strike.

(3) “Will The Hallmarked Man be the ‘Albedo’ novel in the Cormoran Strike series?”

No idea! I can point you to a Serious Striker, though, who has given this a lot of thought (and written cogently about it, too). Which is to say, “Someone in addition to Evan Willis and the piece linked to in the answer to the second question.”

That would be Beatrice Groves, Research Fellow and tutor at Trinity College, Oxford, and author of  Literary Allusion in Harry Potter, who in her post at the HogwartsProfessor Substack about Rowling’s latest twixter picture ‘The Golden Journey to The Hallmarked Man‘ provides links to other articles she has written that explore the alchemy possibilities in Strike8. Here is the paragraph with those links to save you the search:

The second thing that struck me was, of course, the alchemical possibilities of the title of Flecker’s poem – some gold to add to all that silver! I’ve written about the possible influence of alchemy and precious metals on Strike 8 before and had predicted the keyword ‘silver’ in the title of all the epigraph texts of The Hallmarked Man – maybe instead they will all have a precious metal in the title? The ‘sound of silver bells’ in the wider poem was also a line that stood out given that we know Silver Bells, by Dean Martin is going to play some kind of role. Most striking in this regard is the ‘glimmering sea’ of Rowling’s header quotation, as it is so close the silver sea of the previous epigraph text we have been given. That sea turned silver by the sun glinting from it: ‘“A silver sea! A silver sea!” he cried aloud, and into his mind there flashed an incongruous comparison of the bountifulness of Nature’s silver with the pitiful grains they hacked out of her rocks with such toil and hardship’ (A Maid of the Silver Sea).

To answer your question, “Evan Willis and Beatrice Groves think that Hallmarked Man will be an albedo novel.” They come at the subject from remarkably different angles and they seem to have arrived at the same conclusion.

If you’re wondering why I’m not entering this fray, the answer I think is in this ‘Rowling Studies’ podcast that Nick Jeffery and I posted, you guessed it, over at the HogwartsProfessor Substack site. Check out Memorial Day’s ‘On Reading, “On Writing:” A Four Generational Approach to J. K. Rowling’s New Q&A.’ In that conversation, Nick and I discuss the rut that Rowling Studies is in, one, incidentally, that I helped dig and sustain over more than two decades.

The rut, in brief, is interpreting Rowling novels as they come out, exegesis largely independent of her work as a whole and devoid of discussion of its inspiration in psychological ‘Lake,’ labor that continues until Team Rowling begins to drop cookie crumb clues — Twixter contests, cameos, and scene shots! — about the nest book, at which time all energy shifts to predictions about that novel (scorecards about bullseyes and misses to be scored post publication).

Forgive me, but, having done that book sales-fandom excitement pro bono work for Rowling, Inc., for as long as I have, I think it’s time to re-think what we’re doing, kick back on the guess-work, and do the “slow mining” reflection that Ruskin recommended in Queen of the Air to get a better appreciation of Rowling’s artistry and meaning. I helped pioneer the ‘Let’s Guess!’ speculative game during the inter librum years of Potter Mania to help introduce readers waiting on the next book to ideas like literary alchemy and psychomachia.

That’s just not necessary anymore, I think. What we need now is a critical biography approach as well as an oeuvre wide perspective, frankly, a less frenetic and breathless enthusiasm for an anticipated or just published work and more Larger View take on what The Presence is writing. That’s still lot’s of fun, trust me, and has all the advantages of being new ground.

So, count me out on this year’s guesswork about Hallmarked Man. I think the Checklist I wrote before Ink Black Heart is still a good guide if you want to go there. I’m simultaneously in rut-recovery and excited about exploring a new methodology.

Love to Father Nicholas and Kansas friends from Oklahoma!