JK ROWLING THE CASUAL VACANCY
Discussion
I'd finished the books I took on holiday during the summer and was desperate for something to read for the last couple of days and this is all I could find in English. I couldn't get into it at all and didn't finish it (I usually finish a book in 1 or 2 days).
Unfortunately my wife put it in my case and I unwittingly brought it home. Not wanting to be beaten,I left it in my car and I've been picking away at it a few minutes at a time waiting for meetings etc just to get it finished.
I've eventually finished it and must say that I found very little to recommend it other than good characterisation and a reasonable attempt to pull all the rambling little sub-plots together at the very end. I hadn't read any of her 'kids' books but had heard they were very good and it left me thinking 'Why would a very rich, and successful author write something so mediocre?'
I've just realised that my question was self answering, it was all about money. A huge chunk of her earnings was from film rights to previous books and, while this book isn't up to much, I'm sure it would make a very successful film...or maybe I'm wrong, maybe I missed something. Can anyone tell who enjoyed it me what I missed?
Unfortunately my wife put it in my case and I unwittingly brought it home. Not wanting to be beaten,I left it in my car and I've been picking away at it a few minutes at a time waiting for meetings etc just to get it finished.
I've eventually finished it and must say that I found very little to recommend it other than good characterisation and a reasonable attempt to pull all the rambling little sub-plots together at the very end. I hadn't read any of her 'kids' books but had heard they were very good and it left me thinking 'Why would a very rich, and successful author write something so mediocre?'
I've just realised that my question was self answering, it was all about money. A huge chunk of her earnings was from film rights to previous books and, while this book isn't up to much, I'm sure it would make a very successful film...or maybe I'm wrong, maybe I missed something. Can anyone tell who enjoyed it me what I missed?
You didn't miss very much, actually.
She's tried the Dickens/Trollope approach, in that there's a large cast of characters acting out a political/social point. As opposed to the conventionally Victorian deep study of a small number of people: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte etc.
I'd disagree about characterisation. It's not bad superficially but each of them, when taken at a granular level, is revealed to be a flimsy container of stereotypes. Lesbian? (Minor one I know) Oh she HAS to drive a sports car, wear a trouser suit and smoke. They all do that. Well actually they are statistically more likely to do such things, but there's nothing much underlying it.
Ditto the slightly corrupt man, the avaricious small business man, the feckless underclass mother etc. She's done research, in that they exhibit certain features true of the archetypes. But that's it. I never felt like they lived. Plus there was the clichéd element: Asian doctors from Birmingham? Come on, this isn't central casting!
Aside from the use of, admittedly well drawn, Happy Families caricatures I took issue with the internal politics. I was of the opinion the book lacked insight into class structure; which was hard to forgive as it was supposed to be a scalpel blade dissection of the thing.
All I learned was the one "good" person in the book, the dead accountant (not a spoiler it happens on about page two) was considered such because he came from a working class background and had managed to elevate himself to a safe lower middle class existence without forgetting his origins. Which is, unfortunately, the Thatcherite/Blairite panacea. I know Rowling doesn't agree with that, in fact she's politically left of those two like me, so I can't for the life of me explain why she's written a book justifying the virtues of social mobility provided by conventional free-market economics.
The rest of the characters come across as the ugly pop-up goblins in a fairground shooting gallery. She snipes at them, we quite enjoy it as readers because they're dislikeable. I can take the shots at the social climbers, they deserve it. But then she gets all Daily Mail on the Estate people, essentially drawing them as obnoxious chavs without any decent analysis of what caused the situation in the first place. I also had problems with the portrayal of the normal working class man as a thuggish petty thief. There's a weird dichotomy at work here, on the one hand she expresses a left perspective in the upper echelons, then goes Tory at the lower end.
So where does that leave anyone? If you're rich then you're scum. If you're poor, you're also scum. You can be comfortable, but don't try and better yourself intellectually or socially as you then become pretentious, and therefore scum.
It's not a badly written book, by any means. I've read it but probs won't again. Sadly I just don't think she's got the sensitivity of insight/analysis or indeed a deep enough grasp of the relevant social science concepts to carry the grand sweep narrative to a coherent conclusion.
For a much better, and shorter, book exploring some of the same themes read 'Estates' by Lynsey Hanley. For a decent social analysis novel try 'Bonfire of The Vanities' by Tom Wolfe. Or even Michael Lewis if you want to focus on the economic rather than the social. Aside from that Janni Howker, Lynne Reid-Banks, Alan Sillitoe et al did realism better. They're a bit old fashioned these days though.
She's tried the Dickens/Trollope approach, in that there's a large cast of characters acting out a political/social point. As opposed to the conventionally Victorian deep study of a small number of people: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte etc.
I'd disagree about characterisation. It's not bad superficially but each of them, when taken at a granular level, is revealed to be a flimsy container of stereotypes. Lesbian? (Minor one I know) Oh she HAS to drive a sports car, wear a trouser suit and smoke. They all do that. Well actually they are statistically more likely to do such things, but there's nothing much underlying it.
Ditto the slightly corrupt man, the avaricious small business man, the feckless underclass mother etc. She's done research, in that they exhibit certain features true of the archetypes. But that's it. I never felt like they lived. Plus there was the clichéd element: Asian doctors from Birmingham? Come on, this isn't central casting!
Aside from the use of, admittedly well drawn, Happy Families caricatures I took issue with the internal politics. I was of the opinion the book lacked insight into class structure; which was hard to forgive as it was supposed to be a scalpel blade dissection of the thing.
All I learned was the one "good" person in the book, the dead accountant (not a spoiler it happens on about page two) was considered such because he came from a working class background and had managed to elevate himself to a safe lower middle class existence without forgetting his origins. Which is, unfortunately, the Thatcherite/Blairite panacea. I know Rowling doesn't agree with that, in fact she's politically left of those two like me, so I can't for the life of me explain why she's written a book justifying the virtues of social mobility provided by conventional free-market economics.
The rest of the characters come across as the ugly pop-up goblins in a fairground shooting gallery. She snipes at them, we quite enjoy it as readers because they're dislikeable. I can take the shots at the social climbers, they deserve it. But then she gets all Daily Mail on the Estate people, essentially drawing them as obnoxious chavs without any decent analysis of what caused the situation in the first place. I also had problems with the portrayal of the normal working class man as a thuggish petty thief. There's a weird dichotomy at work here, on the one hand she expresses a left perspective in the upper echelons, then goes Tory at the lower end.
So where does that leave anyone? If you're rich then you're scum. If you're poor, you're also scum. You can be comfortable, but don't try and better yourself intellectually or socially as you then become pretentious, and therefore scum.
It's not a badly written book, by any means. I've read it but probs won't again. Sadly I just don't think she's got the sensitivity of insight/analysis or indeed a deep enough grasp of the relevant social science concepts to carry the grand sweep narrative to a coherent conclusion.
For a much better, and shorter, book exploring some of the same themes read 'Estates' by Lynsey Hanley. For a decent social analysis novel try 'Bonfire of The Vanities' by Tom Wolfe. Or even Michael Lewis if you want to focus on the economic rather than the social. Aside from that Janni Howker, Lynne Reid-Banks, Alan Sillitoe et al did realism better. They're a bit old fashioned these days though.
Edited by MagneticMeerkat on Tuesday 14th October 23:21
Thanks for the reply, what you have said really makes sense. The thing that confused me were the number of glowing endorsements the book had including one quoted on the cover from Melvin Bragg, someone who I very much respect as an author and critic. Just made me feel I'd missed something.
MagneticMeerkat said:
You didn't miss very much, actually.
She's tried the Dickens/Trollope approach, in that there's a large cast of characters acting out a political/social point. As opposed to the conventionally Victorian deep study of a small number of people: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte etc.
I'd disagree about characterisation. It's not bad superficially but each of them, when taken at a granular level, is revealed to be a flimsy container of stereotypes. Lesbian? (Minor one I know) Oh she HAS to drive a sports car, wear a trouser suit and smoke. They all do that. Well actually they are statistically more likely to do such things, but there's nothing much underlying it.
Ditto the slightly corrupt man, the avaricious small business man, the feckless underclass mother etc. She's done research, in that they exhibit certain features true of the archetypes. But that's it. I never felt like they lived. Plus there was the clichéd element: Asian doctors from Birmingham? Come on, this isn't central casting!
Aside from the use of, admittedly well drawn, Happy Families caricatures I took issue with the internal politics. I was of the opinion the book lacked insight into class structure; which was hard to forgive as it was supposed to be a scalpel blade dissection of the thing.
All I learned was the one "good" person in the book, the dead accountant (not a spoiler it happens on about page two) was considered such because he came from a working class background and had managed to elevate himself to a safe lower middle class existence without forgetting his origins. Which is, unfortunately, the Thatcherite/Blairite panacea. I know Rowling doesn't agree with that, in fact she's politically left of those two like me, so I can't for the life of me explain why she's written a book justifying the virtues of social mobility provided by conventional free-market economics.
The rest of the characters come across as the ugly pop-up goblins in a fairground shooting gallery. She snipes at them, we quite enjoy it as readers because they're dislikeable. I can take the shots at the social climbers, they deserve it. But then she gets all Daily Mail on the Estate people, essentially drawing them as obnoxious chavs without any decent analysis of what caused the situation in the first place. I also had problems with the portrayal of the normal working class man as a thuggish petty thief. There's a weird dichotomy at work here, on the one hand she expresses a left perspective in the upper echelons, then goes Tory at the lower end.
So where does that leave anyone? If you're rich then you're scum. If you're poor, you're also scum. You can be comfortable, but don't try and better yourself intellectually or socially as you then become pretentious, and therefore scum.
It's not a badly written book, by any means. I've read it but probs won't again. Sadly I just don't think she's got the sensitivity of insight/analysis or indeed a deep enough grasp of the relevant social science concepts to carry the grand sweep narrative to a coherent conclusion.
For a much better, and shorter, book exploring some of the same themes read 'Estates' by Lynsey Hanley. For a decent social analysis novel try 'Bonfire of The Vanities' by Tom Wolfe. Or even Michael Lewis if you want to focus on the economic rather than the social. Aside from that Janni Howker, Lynne Reid-Banks, Alan Sillitoe et al did realism better. They're a bit old fashioned these days though.
I am so glad that I'm not you.She's tried the Dickens/Trollope approach, in that there's a large cast of characters acting out a political/social point. As opposed to the conventionally Victorian deep study of a small number of people: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte etc.
I'd disagree about characterisation. It's not bad superficially but each of them, when taken at a granular level, is revealed to be a flimsy container of stereotypes. Lesbian? (Minor one I know) Oh she HAS to drive a sports car, wear a trouser suit and smoke. They all do that. Well actually they are statistically more likely to do such things, but there's nothing much underlying it.
Ditto the slightly corrupt man, the avaricious small business man, the feckless underclass mother etc. She's done research, in that they exhibit certain features true of the archetypes. But that's it. I never felt like they lived. Plus there was the clichéd element: Asian doctors from Birmingham? Come on, this isn't central casting!
Aside from the use of, admittedly well drawn, Happy Families caricatures I took issue with the internal politics. I was of the opinion the book lacked insight into class structure; which was hard to forgive as it was supposed to be a scalpel blade dissection of the thing.
All I learned was the one "good" person in the book, the dead accountant (not a spoiler it happens on about page two) was considered such because he came from a working class background and had managed to elevate himself to a safe lower middle class existence without forgetting his origins. Which is, unfortunately, the Thatcherite/Blairite panacea. I know Rowling doesn't agree with that, in fact she's politically left of those two like me, so I can't for the life of me explain why she's written a book justifying the virtues of social mobility provided by conventional free-market economics.
The rest of the characters come across as the ugly pop-up goblins in a fairground shooting gallery. She snipes at them, we quite enjoy it as readers because they're dislikeable. I can take the shots at the social climbers, they deserve it. But then she gets all Daily Mail on the Estate people, essentially drawing them as obnoxious chavs without any decent analysis of what caused the situation in the first place. I also had problems with the portrayal of the normal working class man as a thuggish petty thief. There's a weird dichotomy at work here, on the one hand she expresses a left perspective in the upper echelons, then goes Tory at the lower end.
So where does that leave anyone? If you're rich then you're scum. If you're poor, you're also scum. You can be comfortable, but don't try and better yourself intellectually or socially as you then become pretentious, and therefore scum.
It's not a badly written book, by any means. I've read it but probs won't again. Sadly I just don't think she's got the sensitivity of insight/analysis or indeed a deep enough grasp of the relevant social science concepts to carry the grand sweep narrative to a coherent conclusion.
For a much better, and shorter, book exploring some of the same themes read 'Estates' by Lynsey Hanley. For a decent social analysis novel try 'Bonfire of The Vanities' by Tom Wolfe. Or even Michael Lewis if you want to focus on the economic rather than the social. Aside from that Janni Howker, Lynne Reid-Banks, Alan Sillitoe et al did realism better. They're a bit old fashioned these days though.
Edited by MagneticMeerkat on Tuesday 14th October 23:21
JKR needs to understand her abilities and limitations.
What she is good at is ingenious plots, rather like Agatha Christie, but more modern and faster paced, and with fantastical invention. Harry Potter was the most traditional of school stories, with magic. That is simple but brilliant. The writing isn't wonderful, loads of cliches, interminably repeated adjectives, and the characters are carefully cut out of cardboard, though they are likeable in a superficial sort of way. She is also very well read, though it is dismaying to see how she seems to want to show that off now. As if she wants desperately to be a 'serious' writer. Is it not enough to be entertaining, inventive and stinking rich?
In the Casual Vacancy she expressly set out to become a commentator on the rich tapestry of life, a la Dickens. She's not dickens and she sure isn't Kipling. She just hasn't seen enough life to do it, what she has seen she has viewed through her particular set of spectacles, and like a lot of female writers, is too fond of tying things up neatly with a ribbon, which isn't what happens in real life. Pagford is just a slightly grittier Hogsmead.
I don't think she did this for the money at all. Indeed I think she probably did it to justify why she has been given all this money. She shouldn't waste her time trying. Just accept her good fortune and keep doing what she is good at. Hogwarts beckons. We know it, she knows it, just do it.
What she is good at is ingenious plots, rather like Agatha Christie, but more modern and faster paced, and with fantastical invention. Harry Potter was the most traditional of school stories, with magic. That is simple but brilliant. The writing isn't wonderful, loads of cliches, interminably repeated adjectives, and the characters are carefully cut out of cardboard, though they are likeable in a superficial sort of way. She is also very well read, though it is dismaying to see how she seems to want to show that off now. As if she wants desperately to be a 'serious' writer. Is it not enough to be entertaining, inventive and stinking rich?
In the Casual Vacancy she expressly set out to become a commentator on the rich tapestry of life, a la Dickens. She's not dickens and she sure isn't Kipling. She just hasn't seen enough life to do it, what she has seen she has viewed through her particular set of spectacles, and like a lot of female writers, is too fond of tying things up neatly with a ribbon, which isn't what happens in real life. Pagford is just a slightly grittier Hogsmead.
I don't think she did this for the money at all. Indeed I think she probably did it to justify why she has been given all this money. She shouldn't waste her time trying. Just accept her good fortune and keep doing what she is good at. Hogwarts beckons. We know it, she knows it, just do it.
Edited by cardigankid on Friday 24th October 19:18
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