The Casual Vacancy, written by J. K. Rowling, is her first novel published since the Harry Potter series.
When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling 512 pages published by Little, Brown and Company on September 27, 2012 ISBN-10: 0316228532
I just got this book and I am excited to start reading it but first things first. This is a classical approach to reading including pre-reading, during-reading and pos-reading exercises.
Prereading Activities: According to reading theory, we must activate our relevant previous knowledge. Almost everybody (unless you are on a remote desert island) has read or heard of Harry Potter. That gets us to thinking about the kind of books the author has written before...but this is supposed to be a book for adults. Will she be writing down at adults? Will it be an adult fantasy? What kind of vocabulary will she use? Will the book be any good? All of these questions are going through my mind and those questions are part of prereading or predicting, if you prefer. I went to the reviews. They are decidedly mixed:
"No doubt there will be reviewers who have already decided to pour vitriol upon The Casual Vacancy no matter its merits," said Jonathan Ruppin, of Foyles. Jan Moir in the Daily Mail took umbrage at what she saw as Rowling's attack on the middle classes. "More than 500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature crammed down your throat," found Moir. She went on to call Rowling "the kind of blinkered, left-leaning demagogue quick to lambast what she perceives to be risible middle-class values, while failing to see that her own lush thickets of dearly held emotions and prejudices are riddled with the same narrow-mindedness she is so quick to detect in others". Author Christopher Brookmyre, in the Telegraph, was far more positive, giving The Casual Vacancy four out of five stars, saying that it "reveals in unflinching detail the fractures beneath the surface of modern Britain.It is far grittier, bleaker (and, occasionally, funnier) than I had expected, and – the acid test – I suspect it would do well even if its author's name weren't JK Rowling".
So now I have some beautiful words such as vitriol, umbrage, lambast, risible, unflinching and grittier and I still don't know what to expect from the book. Oh well, I guess I will have to read it and answer the prereading questions as part of the posreading activities.
I have now read the first seven chapters. They are not long. Each chapter has been setting up a character study much like the first Harry Potter book. J.K. Rowling definitely has not lost the ability to create fully rounded actors in her books. I am reminded of the Dursleys where a few words made you dislike the characters. As an example, Miles Mollison is defined in the second chapter. On page 12, the first thing he does the next morning is to call his parents. His voice changes while he is talking to his mother projecting strength and he even calls himself "her little soldier". He lies, on page 13, to his father and is ashamed of it. His wife describes him as big and paunchy which tells us that he is not obese but he is overweight. He uses cologne to cover old sweat...very careful outwardly but not very clean. He has short, grey hair. She describes him as being dull often to the point of being absurd and pompous because he wears a hat on formal occasions. After the chapter, we come away with the impression of a person who is soft, somewhat weak and very concerned with outward impressions.
This is what we do when we start reading. We identify each person and create a character profile. We decide whether we like or dislike the person. This can change later on of course but the initial reaction is important. So far, we have Barry Fairbrother (the dead man who remains important even though he is quite dead) and his wife Mary and their four children. We have Miles Mollison and his wife Samantha along with Miles' parents Shirley and Howard. Simon Price is a tyrant and his wife Ruth is submissive but the son Andrew is the fully developed character in this family leading us to think that later on he will be quite important in the story.
Some questions for these first seven chapters would be: what is the relationship between Gavin and Kay? What is implied about Barry Fairbrother and Dr. Jawanda? How does Dr. Jawanda's physical appearance differ from the gossip? What is the town like? Why is the town as important as any of the other characters?
I am just over two thirds of the book. The descriptions are really quite good and you feel that you know the people involved but nothing is happening. I can see why some critics say it is slow. Still, I get the feeling that the tension is building and something terrible is about to happen.
From the reviews, I know that at least one more person is going to die and as I read I find myself speculating about who will die. There are many unhappy characters with dark secrets who could be contemplating suicide and then of course we have the wife-beater who should be killed off. I am now past the 400 page mark so something should happen soon.
It all comes together in the last forty pages. I wasn't expecting it. The two most innocent of the characters meet a sad end. That would lead to a post-reading discussion of why they died. Were they too fragile? Were they too innocent to continue living? Why did life continue for the rest as though nothing had ever happened? How do the Fields compare to low-income projects in Mexico City? There are so many questions left in the air and that vague sensation that life is not fair. All in all, J.K. did not let me down and I greatly enjoyed this book. I can see why the BBC bought the rights to turn it into a TV show.
Prereading Activities: According to reading theory, we must activate our relevant previous knowledge. Almost everybody (unless you are on a remote desert island) has read or heard of Harry Potter. That gets us to thinking about the kind of books the author has written before...but this is supposed to be a book for adults. Will she be writing down at adults? Will it be an adult fantasy? What kind of vocabulary will she use? Will the book be any good? All of these questions are going through my mind and those questions are part of prereading or predicting, if you prefer. I went to the reviews. They are decidedly mixed:
"No doubt there will be reviewers who have already decided to pour vitriol upon The Casual Vacancy no matter its merits," said Jonathan Ruppin, of Foyles. Jan Moir in the Daily Mail took umbrage at what she saw as Rowling's attack on the middle classes. "More than 500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature crammed down your throat," found Moir. She went on to call Rowling "the kind of blinkered, left-leaning demagogue quick to lambast what she perceives to be risible middle-class values, while failing to see that her own lush thickets of dearly held emotions and prejudices are riddled with the same narrow-mindedness she is so quick to detect in others". Author Christopher Brookmyre, in the Telegraph, was far more positive, giving The Casual Vacancy four out of five stars, saying that it "reveals in unflinching detail the fractures beneath the surface of modern Britain.It is far grittier, bleaker (and, occasionally, funnier) than I had expected, and – the acid test – I suspect it would do well even if its author's name weren't JK Rowling".
So now I have some beautiful words such as vitriol, umbrage, lambast, risible, unflinching and grittier and I still don't know what to expect from the book. Oh well, I guess I will have to read it and answer the prereading questions as part of the posreading activities.
I have now read the first seven chapters. They are not long. Each chapter has been setting up a character study much like the first Harry Potter book. J.K. Rowling definitely has not lost the ability to create fully rounded actors in her books. I am reminded of the Dursleys where a few words made you dislike the characters. As an example, Miles Mollison is defined in the second chapter. On page 12, the first thing he does the next morning is to call his parents. His voice changes while he is talking to his mother projecting strength and he even calls himself "her little soldier". He lies, on page 13, to his father and is ashamed of it. His wife describes him as big and paunchy which tells us that he is not obese but he is overweight. He uses cologne to cover old sweat...very careful outwardly but not very clean. He has short, grey hair. She describes him as being dull often to the point of being absurd and pompous because he wears a hat on formal occasions. After the chapter, we come away with the impression of a person who is soft, somewhat weak and very concerned with outward impressions.
This is what we do when we start reading. We identify each person and create a character profile. We decide whether we like or dislike the person. This can change later on of course but the initial reaction is important. So far, we have Barry Fairbrother (the dead man who remains important even though he is quite dead) and his wife Mary and their four children. We have Miles Mollison and his wife Samantha along with Miles' parents Shirley and Howard. Simon Price is a tyrant and his wife Ruth is submissive but the son Andrew is the fully developed character in this family leading us to think that later on he will be quite important in the story.
Some questions for these first seven chapters would be: what is the relationship between Gavin and Kay? What is implied about Barry Fairbrother and Dr. Jawanda? How does Dr. Jawanda's physical appearance differ from the gossip? What is the town like? Why is the town as important as any of the other characters?
I am just over two thirds of the book. The descriptions are really quite good and you feel that you know the people involved but nothing is happening. I can see why some critics say it is slow. Still, I get the feeling that the tension is building and something terrible is about to happen.
From the reviews, I know that at least one more person is going to die and as I read I find myself speculating about who will die. There are many unhappy characters with dark secrets who could be contemplating suicide and then of course we have the wife-beater who should be killed off. I am now past the 400 page mark so something should happen soon.
It all comes together in the last forty pages. I wasn't expecting it. The two most innocent of the characters meet a sad end. That would lead to a post-reading discussion of why they died. Were they too fragile? Were they too innocent to continue living? Why did life continue for the rest as though nothing had ever happened? How do the Fields compare to low-income projects in Mexico City? There are so many questions left in the air and that vague sensation that life is not fair. All in all, J.K. did not let me down and I greatly enjoyed this book. I can see why the BBC bought the rights to turn it into a TV show.
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