However, the idea of JK Rowling putting her talents to new stories and new worlds is an intriguing one. A couple of days ago information about Jo's new novel has been released. From her (new) official website:
Little, Brown announces details of J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock.
Seemingly an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, 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 parish 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.
Publication date 27th September 2012 (UK & US)
To be honest, the title and description don't do much for me. It doesn't sound like a fantasy or sci-fi novel either, which doesn't help. However, there is one thing that I find promising. One of the things that Jo does best is weaving in social commentary within the humor in her writing.
The Harry Potter books (especially books 3-6) provide an in-depth commentary on the the school system and some of the different teaching styles out there. From Hagrid to Trelawney to Umbridge to McGonagall to Snape to Binns, there's alot more than simple humor in the classroom scenes. Another prominent example is the way she handles the politics and the whole Ministry of magic dynamic in the stories. One of the funniest chapters in the sixth book is "The Other Minister," which takes the Muggle Prime Minister's point of view. In other hands it could have been a dry chapter, but JK Rowling manages to poke fun at both Muggle and Wizarding politics and make us laugh in the midst of the gloomy and increasingly dark setting of Voldemort's rise.
From the synopsis of this new book it looks like she's going to have a lot of room for this kind of humorous social commentary. I hope this is what they mean by "blackly comic."
Many others have been trying to compare this new book to Harry Potter and the conclusion tends to be that she'll never live up to her previous success. Personally, I think that JK Rowling did the cleverest thing she possibly could given the impossibility of "living up to" the wild success of the Potter phenomenon: she's writing a completely different kind of book so that the only point of comparison we'll have left is her writing skill - and she's already proven, to me, that she's got plenty of that.
So, I might not be lining up to get a copy on release night like I did with the Potter books, but I will certainly give "The Casual Vacancy" a chance and hope for an enjoyable read!
Thoughts?
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