Three quick thoughts about Rowling’s birthday message to Cormoran Strike, a character in books she is writing, i.e., a person not real in any of the conventional understanding of that word (though very much in keeping with Rowling’s discussion of “real” in Deathly Hallows, Troubled Blood, and Christmas Pig):
(1) Hallmarked Man is not yet finished. Which means it won’t be published until this time next year? Nick Jeffery said as much in a recent post, but it’s still dreadful to type out and see written on a page. I wrote a year ago that the structural evidence of the first seven books suggests strongly that it was originally conceived as a septology a la Potter. The longer it takes her to finish Hallmarked Man, longer than it did, say, for her to write and prepare for publication the epics of Troubled Blood and Ink Black Heart (?), the more than thesis takes on tangential credibility, I think.
(2) One Thing Revealed about the Series Ending: The joking conversation with one of her characters, “try not to be a grumpy sod about turning fifty,” means that Cormoran Strike survives the seven book series’ many dangers and his enemies, and, more surprisingly, perhaps he survives Covid and the shots. Rowling has said previously that the series will end before the lockdowns and masking mania of Covid appear and today, it seems, we have been told, he lives on to celebrate his fiftieth birthday I doubt this sort of jest is a binding commitment not to kill her champion, But I’m hopeful.
(3) Strike’s Birthday: For a longish discussion of what we know and can figure out about Strike’s actual birthday in 1974, see ‘Troubled Blood: Strike’s Natal Chart.’
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