I Complete “The Casual Vacancy – Part Seven”

My feelings about writing this post are very strange and difficult to put into words. I wanted to have this blog updated daily, but due to Rowling’s long, long parts and my damnable laziness, it took me nearly three months to finish it. And yet oddly enough it feels like such a short time ago that I set out on this journey. And now it has come to an end, and to be honest, I don’t want it to end. I don’t want to finish this journey. And yet operating this blog has given me such a great deal of stress, and I want to get this post up before the end of the year. To be honest, I think that’s why I don’t want to finish this post. Because of that stress, that I feel that I have such a huge obligation to write the greatest post I have ever written. This is why I will not be writing a “wrapping up” section, as Daniel has done, as it would imply that I felt all my other posts to be inferior, when I poured effort into them and I feel that some of my best work is in them. And I am not going to post readings of any more books. This is the last post of my blog, period. This project has caused me a great deal of stress. To be honest, the only reason I am completing this is because Daniel requested that I continue the posts way back when I was having trouble posting “Tuesday“. Other than him, I have not even the reward of readers.

I realize I have put a great deal of negativity into this post and now my entire blog series in general, in retrospect. And I do not want anyone to believe that I did not enjoy reading this book. I did. For months leading up to this book anticipation built up inside of me. I read the full profile of Rowling by The New Yorker a day or two before the book was released, and I went out and bought it with my own money on opening day.

And now I have finished reading it. We have reached the end of our journey. The Casual Vacancy is complete.

And so we should ask ourselves: What was the main point of this novel? How do those themes come across in the novel? Has Rowling given her first adult novel a satisfactory conclusion?

The book was advertised as a political novel, and I expected and anticipated humorous political scheming and debates, but one thing that surprised and disappointed me about the novel was that the election really wasn’t important at all. It only served in the background to further the characters’ plots. And in this final part, with the election long won, it is the characters’ plots that must be resolved.

The resolution of Shirley & Howard‘s storyline opens the chapter (the part is divided into four sections, but for once they are not numbered, perhaps so that people would read the part straight through in one sitting). Many nay-sayers may critique Rowling for creating drama with an event that was not taking place for the first time but here is a difference. Howard made a quick recovery last time. Now he has regained consciousness but is still at the hospital in critical condition. He has not said a word about Shirley running out with the needle. Rowling seems to imply that the surgery has made Howard unable to sexually perform so Shirley is no longer angry over the affair, but I wish she would be more clear on this.

Samantha & Miles‘ storyline ends in a similar way. The tragedy of Howard’s second heart attack has brought Miles and Samantha back together as well. Rowling wrote in her first novel, “There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them“. It’s clear this is her personal philosophy (see Andrew’s friendship with Gaia and Sukhvinder), but I’m not sure I entirely believe it myself. I could see a temporary pact being made during a tragedy, but I believe it would generally end once the tragedy has finished. It is ridiculous to me that merely the shared experience and concern would cause Samantha to suddenly love Miles to the point that she “had made love the previous night, and she had not pretended that he was anybody else“. However, I know that Samantha did have love for Miles at first, and it was a good move for Rowling to have her say earlier she wasn’t sure whether she loved him or not (although this feels like an editor’s trick, given all the feelings we’ve seen of hers before; the feeling from her should have been incorporated then), so the philosophy isn’t completely implausible in how it plays out here, though I have strong issues with it.

But another very interesting part of Samantha’s personal storyline is that the tragedy of Robbie’s death also changed Samantha in another, far more plausible way. After seeing what all happened as a result of Terri’s drug problems and a feeling of personal guilt over not saving Robbie and thus Krystal as well, she decides to join the council to try to prevent the addiction clinic from being closed. This change is very real to me and I like it, particularly because it adds a large touch of happiness to this very sad ending, which the revelation that Dr. Jawanda has gone through with her resignation does, as well, as it means Colin will be co-opted onto the council.

Andrew & Gaia‘s storyline ends happily, too, for both of them. Gaia is moving back to London as she wanted Andrew is moving to Reading and will be able to see Gaia when she visits, and perhaps this relationship will form though the feelings prior revealed that Gaia has of Andrew (“She was worth much more than Fats Wall, she knew that. If it had even been Andy Price, she would have felt better about it.”) make this somewhat unlikely. But there is hope for him, unlike

Gavin, whose storyline ends in humiliating failure, as he has burned every bridge he had, and has been left with no one, making a vain attempt to make amends with Kay only to be hung up on scornfully.

Fats‘ storyline ends merely with him finally having seemingly given up on his authentic lifestyle. Tessa attempts to take him to Krystal and Robbie’s funeral to further cure this, but Colin is angry at her over the things she revealed to Fats on the ride home (Rowling, annoyingly enough, felt it necessary to have Tessa explain the reasons for her talk with Fats), so she goes simply with Andrew. But he is allowed the further blow of guilt when he looks out the window briefly as the funeral hearse passes by with the coffins out in front to see.

Another shocking twist comes as a result of Fats’ guilt. He confessed to his parents about having written the post about Colin, then proceeded to take credit for all the other posts, in an effort to get himself punished as severely as possible, as he felt he deserved.

Sukhvinder‘s storyline ends with her having seemingly gotten over her depression, which her parents have now realized (being doctors, it stands to reason they recognize cutting scars). It bothers me to realize that Rowling appears to have forgotten Sukhvinder’s desire to drown as she describes Sukhvinder as having been afraid in the water and wondering how long she would have been able to live. But maybe this is just another case of not stating it. She may have been implying that Sukhvinder was afraid of  death in the reality despite her abstract yearning of it, a feeling I know to be perfectly real and a great insight into people, and it would seem that the near drowning was the moment that made her fully realize it. It may be Rowling realizes the insights I do not and is not stating them so the audience and the critics can read them themselves, I’m not sure.

But the storyline resolution that runs through every other one in this section, the one that the book openly closes with, is that of the Weedons. When we are in Shirley’s perspective, she has been ranting about Krystal and Fats, that they caused Howard’s condition to worsen by delaying the paramedics by calling out two ambulances and creating confusion, and to be honest, she has a point. She and Maureen gossip about the imminent funeral.

Then when the story changes to Andrew (this part is divided into sections, but they are not numbered, merely marked by spaces, perhaps so that people would read it in one sitting, which worked in my case), Gaia is planning to go to the funeral and Andrew says he will be attending as well when he hears she is going, then we get a memory of Krystal from him. Then he is driven by Tessa to pick up Fats for the funeral, but as said previously they end up going without him.

Then the POV switches to Samantha, who sees them through the window and mistakes Andrew for Fats and is shocked and then quickly turns away when she realizes her mistake out of embarrassment over “the kissing incident”. We get her reflecting on whether she should go to the funeral (she decides no) and remembering Krystal.

The book closes after Kay and Gaia leave for the funeral, at the actual funeral which is described in vivid detail, and we are told of how Sukhvinder basically made all the arrangement. The book is deeply moving (in a happy way) in Sukhvinder’s devotion, and (in a very sad way) when we learn how Terri has reacted to losing both her children practically within an instant. She has lost all energy and vitality and fallen into a deep state of depression. We are told that “Sukhvinder had been frightened of her… it was like talking to a corpse“, and  at the funeral she “…seemed scarcely aware of where she was“. (The final sentence of the book is “Her family half carried Terri Weedon back down the royal blue carpet, and the congregation averted its eyes“.)

Then we are given the feelings of the characters gathered there, and then the POV stays with Sukhvinder, who first dwells on how the vicar is refusing to speak about who Krystal was, and then we are given another memory of her, this time from Sukhvinder. Krystal Weedon’s legacy is deeply rooted into this entire part, what people think of her and the person she was. What people think of her and how they remember her is the main theme that runs through the final part.

The final chapter does a very good job portraying the characters, and resolving their plots, and the characters’ plots were what this novel were what this book was all about, nothing more. This novel is basically “a story about nothing”. To describe what the story is actually about would be impossible, because it would mean describing all the characters’ plots and how intricately and cleverly they are intertwined.

Rowling stated that she wrote it for herself planning never to publish it, and this is easy to see. She clearly came up with these people and then she got caught up in their lives. It annoys me that the publishers have advertised this as a very high-brow book, when really it is just a silly comedy in the end, nothing more than a glimpse into life in this small town. The book is life in its essence, just a slice of life in this small town. Its ending continues this theme well, too: for some, the ending is happy. For others, it is sad. For Andrew, it is bittersweet. Rowling makes it clear to us both that he may never “get” Gaia and that Simon’s abuse has not ceased and that Andrew refuses to report it when given the chance. (All is mutable!)

This is not to say that it is a bad novel, though perhaps only due to Rowling’s motivations about writing it. But I will not say whether I think this book is good or bad. Whether you like this book or not ultimately does not prove that the book is either good or bad, but succeeds stupendously at proving the kind of person you are.  Any type of the typical critical review which aims to say whether the book is good or bad and such opinions presented by people in one’s life is entirely irrelevant and should be ignored.

Rowling does a good job portraying the morays of a small town in this part most notably but in the entire book, how the plot becomes town lore, how everyone in the “lore” develops a reputation from the people in the town, which, as I have said before, was also portrayed very well in the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Small towns and their ways seem to be a thing that Rowling is obsessed with, just like death.

There is significantly less death in this book than I expected and that critics had strongly implied there would be. Yet it is a theme deeply infused into the novel. Rowling was right that “the casual vacancy” would be the perfect title for the book, for it symbolizes death itself in many cases (Barry, Robbie, and Krystal’s).

But I can see the motivation behind naming her book “Consequences” as she had originally intended to, although they are less obvious than the reasons behind the final title. The book is largely centered around consequences:

. Simon loses his job and decides to drop out of the election in consequence of his criminal actions and abuse of his son. Sadly he gains a new job and does not receive legal consequences for his abuse. Rowling certainly does not claim life is perfect.

. All of the posts are of course in consequence to their subject’s behavior, but only Simon and Howard’s have any real effect.

. Gavin’s life is ruined in consequence to him being dishonest with Kay and then through being honest with Mary. And he is humiliated in consequence to attempting to reconcile with Kay.

. Dr. Jawanda is suspended from work in consequence of her outburst at Howard in the council meeting.

. Andrew too receives negative consequences for writing the post, in his beating by Simon and his brief sadness over leaving Pagford but also positive in his satisfaction over Simon losing his job and dropping out of the election.

. Sukhvinder cuts her wrists in consequence of Fats and her mother. Her parents become kind to her in consequence of discovering her cutting. The community views her as a heroine in consequence of her attempt to save Robbie.

. Howard’s affair is revealed in consequence to Patricia mentioning it to Andrew, who in consequence writes the post, also in consequence to Simon believing Howard wrote the post mocking him.

. The consequence of Howard’s unhealthy eating is that he has two heart attacks and closes the book in the hospital in critical condition.

. The consequence of Howard’s affair is that Shirley becomes resentful and tries to kill him. Another consequence of his heart attack is that he becomes unable to perform sexually and Shirley worries about him dying, thus she dwells no more on the affair.

. Same goes for Miles and Samantha for the latter.

. And the consequence of Fats’ lifestyle is obvious. His and Krystal’s irresponsibility caused a three-and-a-half-year-old child to die. And the consequences of Gavin, Samantha, and Shirley ignoring him are also obvious.

I could go on and on, but the justification has been proven, and really, when you think about it, all novels are about consequences. You can’t write a book without them!

And the symmetry of the novel is almost poetic. The most obvious is that the song “Umbrella”  is played at both Barry’s funeral and Krystal’s, and that Krystal does not attend Barry’s funeral and the children of Barry do not attend Krystal’s (as Mary disliked Krystal and dislikes that her grave will be near Barry’s). But there is more than that. The novel begins with a casual vacancy in a literal sense, and ends with a casual vacancy in a literal sense (though not in the final chapter). It also begins with a casual vacancy in the legal sense and ends with a casual vacancy in the legal sense, in the form of Dr. Jawanda’s resignation from the Parish Council.

It will be interesting to see what place this book has in history. Will it, in time, be remembered as a classic, genius work of literature, or as a mistake, an ungodly blemish on an otherwise dignified career? (Of course, the answer will be zilch if the Mayans’ forecast comes true at midnight!) And will my blog be discovered again? What shall become of it in history?

With these words, this blog is complete. To Daniel and any Internet dwellers lurking out in the darkness who dare not speak their name, I bid you farewell. I hope you enjoyed taking this trip with me.

Goodbye.

I Read “The Casual Vacancy – Part Six”

Yes, we have reached the penultimate chapter, so to speak. I’m actually afraid to proceed, because we are so close to the end and everything is happening. I know that this part is likely going to be more of the same: unbridled excitement and madness. And I don’t want to see poor Terri fall apart. Or Krystal, for that matter. I don’t know how the prospect of reading about Howard dying makes me feel. I mean, I know he was a lying, cheating, selfish, power-hungry, all-around disgusting human being, but somehow I grew attached to him, I don’t know.

But I have to be professional. I have to finish this. So I will take a deep breath. And onward we go!

PART SIX

This part has the strangest, most confusing opening Local Council Administration excerpt in the entire book, hands down.

Weaknesses of Voluntary Bodies

22.23 …The main weaknesses of such bodies are that they are hard to launch, liable to disintegrate…

It had me completely baffled at first, so I googled “voluntary bodies” and while I couldn’t find an exact definition I have ascertained that it is a group established by a private minority of people, or something similar. So it likely refers to the social services group set up to help Robbie, but it sounds like a clever double-meaning, because the first thing it brings to mind is Sukhvinder jumping off the bridge.

I

Many, many times had Colin Wall imagined the police coming to his door. They arrived, at last, at dusk on Sunday evening: a woman and a man, not to arrest Colin, but to look for his son.

Rowling, you do not disappoint.

Surprisingly, Colin is the most calm about the situation. As Rowling puts it, “Colin had rehearsed for calamity all his life. He was ready.“ It’s brilliant, really.

Isolated above the little town, no news of the calamities had yet reached Hilltop House. Andrew’s mobile rang in the kitchen.
“‘Lo,” he said, his mouth full of toast.
“Andy, it’s Tessa Wall. Is Stu with you?”
“No,” he said. “Sorry.”
But he was not at all sorry that Fats was not with him.

It shocked me how bad things have gotten between them. It’s very strange, considering they grew up friends and Fats admitted to himself that Andrew was the person he was closest with and wouldn’t be able to survive without him. But that seems to be his motivation for treating Andrew coldly: resentment for leaving him.

Rowling does a great job portraying Andrew’s feelings as he realizes where Fats is and that he needs to reveal it to Tessa: The Cubby Hole.

Seemingly, there isn’t much to the rest of this section. Tessa drives Andrew to the Cubby Hole, Andrew goes in and finds Fats, tells him that Robbie has died and calls to Tessa to tell her that he found him. But unlike Water for Elephants, where even during the climax when people were dying, I never felt the danger and anxiety because Gruen wrote it all in her typical bland lifeless style, and viewed the characters purely from the outside, here the panic, anxiety, and excitement in the realization that the book has reached its climax bleed through every sentence of the section and every character, and we feel it with them. It’s actually rather cinematic, though, in that we don’t need to know their feelings. We can practically see it in their every action, their every word. Indeed, the section plays out like a film at this point. We can see every bit of it in our mind’s eye.

II

The section opens with Sukhvinder at the house of the dog-walker who saved her. Her parents arrive, Dr. Jawanda so angry that she actually knocks over a table and smashes an ornament in the house, seemingly without thinking!

And again I spoke too soon in critiquing Rowling:

At the hospital, they made her undress again, but this time her mother was with her in the curtained cubicle, and she realized her mistake too late when she saw the expression of horror on Parminder’s face.
“My God,” she said, grabbing Sukhvinder’s forearm. “My God. What have you done to yourself?”
Sukhvinder had no words, so she allowed herself to subside into tears and uncontrollable shaking, and Vikram shouted at everyone, including Parminder, to leave her alone, but also to damn well hurry up, and that her cut needed cleaning and she needed stitches and sedatives and X-rays…

It seems that they believe that they are cuts from objects in the river, though.

In a brilliant touch, Vikram’s incredulous disgust at Miles for asking Dr. Jawanda to help Howard switches to Miles’ incredulous disgust at Dr. Jawanda for refusing to help Howard. So often in life people do believe the exact opposite things and state differing opinions as if they were cold fact that no one could dispute.

And the scene remains with them in the waiting room. Shirley’s emotions and worries are portrayed very well. The section is just full of the same character details and little details as the rest of the book, but I have to make a strong criticism about one thing: For most of the book, the characters react exactly how they would expect them to and their thoughts are exactly as you would expect them to, and this is the case for Shirley. But this is not the case for Sukhvinder. I wrote about how I thought that given her fantasies about drowning, Sukhvinder was jumping into the river believing she would die but in the way she wanted to and knowing that people would regard her as a heroine who died to save a young boy or die trying so it would be a dream come true for her. But Rowling never gave us those feelings from her. And if she only had, then the crushing sadness of the fact that absolutely no good was accomplished (when Sukhvinder is saved and Robbie is not) would be all the more apparent. It strongly disappoints me that this is not included, because it would have made the book so much more stronger. All the same, I cannot help but be impressed at how Rowling manipulates the audience with her writing: in every sentence, we feel the sadness and blunt acceptance and sheer finality that the panic and anxiety of the last section has given way to.

And she closes with the most dark, nihilistic, depressing writing I’ve ever seen, in which we are given a look at exactly who each of us really are: just a young body in a cupboard dead, just an old body being cut open on the operating table, alive, but what does it mean when the world is so fickle and flimsy as that?

In the theater upstairs, Howard Mollison’s body overflowed the edges of the operating table. His chest was wide open, revealing the ruins of Vikram Jawanda’s handiwork. Nineteen people labored to repair the damage, while the machines to which Howard was connected made soft implacable noises, confirming that he continued to live.
And far below, in the bowels of the hospital, Robbie Weedon’s body lay frozen and white in the morgue. Nobody had accompanied him to the hospital, and nobody had visited him in his metal drawer.

Alfred Hitchcock said, “I enjoy playing my audience like a piano”. Rowling is an absolute master at this.

III

Now the scene is with Tessa driving Fats home. Both of these characters’ emotions are depicted perfectly. This is the most emotional, subtle, best-written scene in the entire book. Fats is getting the consequences for his so-called “authentic” actions now. He wanted to go out and have underage sex with a girl and be cool, and now he has to deal with the agonizing guilt that he caused a 3-year-old boy to die because of that.

“So you ran away,” said Tessa coldly, over his tears.
She had prayed that she would find him alive, but her strongest emotion was disgust. His tears did not soften her. She was used to men’s tears. Part of her was ashamed that he had not, after all, thrown himself into the river.
“Krystal told the police that you and she were in the bushes. You just left him to his own devices, did you?”
Fats was speechless. He could not believe her cruelty. Did she not understand the desolation roaring inside him, the horror, the sense of contagion?

Readers may find her to be unbelievably cruel, and perhaps she is. But as she tells Fats the story of his birth the attentive reader realizes (once they have gotten over the more audience reactions to the revelations that he may be a product of incest or rape and that Colin attempted suicide shortly after they adopted Fats because he thought he had killed him) what emotions she is going through, how disillusioned and nihilistic she has become. She is disappointed with herself because she wanted so desperately to raise Fats and is deeply disappointed with how he turned out. She considers leaving him at the Fields to embrace his new life as a parent and to apologize to Krystal, but thinks over all her decisions in life and decides they’ve all been bad ones, Fats is a lost cause, so she just decides to drive him home.

Rowling doesn’t spell out these things. They’re left for the clever reader to discern and I enjoyed and appreciated that.

IV

Very noticeably, all throughout the three previous sections, we were never given the slightest hint as to what had happened to Krystal after Robbie’s death. This section answers that question immediately.

The police had picked up Krystal Weedon at last as she ran hopelessly along the riverbank on the very edge of Pagford, still calling her brother in a cracked voice. … Krystal had not noticed Fats melting away into the trees; he did not exist to her anymore.

Very heart-rending. And the story stays with her as she is taken home by the police. Terri’s reaction to the police at her house and Robbie not being with Krystal is in-character and the whole thing is portrayed well.

But then the scene randomly changes to Kay and Gaia without even any random break. Compared to what else is happening in the story, their problems are of very little consequence and it’s near impossible to care at all. The only thing of note is Gaia’s utter selfishness and childishness, but even if they move there’s only one chapter left and their moving is nothing compared to what has happened in the story at this point. So it was a good move by Rowling to have the Weedons’ plot come in (via Tessa’s call, meaning the story isn’t in chronological order at this point).

And then she switches the scene back to the Weedons.

Neighbors were coming out onto their doorsteps, a fascinated audience to Terri’s meltdown. Somehow the cause of it was transmitted through the watchers, from Terri’s incoherent shouts and the attitudes of the ominous police.
“The boy’s dead,” they told each other. Nobody stepped forward to comfort or calm. Terri Weedon had no friends.

This would be very effective writing to illustrate how Terri has isolated herself in her mistrust for everyone, but it isn’t actually true. She did trust Obbo and Obbo is her friend at least in her mind and he would likely fill that role if he were there, so it really just goes to demonstrate her horrible judgment.

We then (with absolutely no warning at all) switch to Kay and Gaia getting in the car to go to the Weedons’ to see what they can do. This only lasts two paragraphs, and then the scene changes to a 3rd-person perspective of Krystal.

But by the time they had reached the bypass, Krystal had found what she was looking for: a bag of heroin concealed in the airing cupboard; the second of two that Obbo had given Terri in payment for Tessa Wall’s watch. She took it, with Terri’s works, into the bathroom, the only room that had a lock on the door.

At first it seems that Krystal is going to give the drugs to the police out of anger and depression because they caused her to leave with Robbie, but then it’s clear she’s using it herself.

Robbie was dead, and it was her fault. In trying to save him, she had killed him.

It’s true, but I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing that Rowling directly and acknowledges it. I know what I said about not acknowledging the tragedy of Sukhvinder, but actually seeing her do that with Krystal makes me wonder. On one hand, it would seem that it was just another missed opportunity at drama if she acted like it was not intentional and she did not notice, but seeing here we think that maybe she should have left the audience to notice it and say it themselves. But people could accuse them of over-analyzing and seeing things into it that she didn’t intend, so it really is a difficult dilemma for Rowling, and it leads me to believe that she did recognize the observations I made about Sukhvinder’s fate and this was her way of compromising. But maybe I’m just overthinking everything, I don’t know.

But back to the story. Krystal injects the heroin, and right up until the final sentence of the chapter it seems like this is just showing Krystal tragically turning to drugs, thus entering the world of depression and madness that her mother inhabits, because of the ultimate tragedy which Rowling has just acknowledged: In trying to prevent Robbie from being harmed and rescuing him from Terri’s world, she caused his death. So now it would seem she has given up, much like Tessa.

But then one reads the final sentence and realizes that it was entirely different, that we didn’t understand what was actually going on. She had turned to the heroin out of depression over the ultimate tragedy, but her solution was more extreme:

By the time Kay and Gaia arrived, and the police decided to force their way in, Krystal Weedon had achieved her only ambition: she had joined her brother where nobody could part them.

It was to escape the world of depression and madness that her mother inhabits, and she succeeded. And in doing so, she created yet another casual vacancy in this topsy-turvy, crazed rollercoaster we call life.

(One chapter left. I must be strong.)

I Read “The Casual Vacancy – Part Five”

Well, I have only three parts left now. Shamefully I’ve found myself putting this off to delay finishing it, but no longer. So, without further hesitation, we will begin

PART FIVE

The opening “Local Council Administration” excerpt reads (I feel sorry for Rowling having to actually purchase a copy of this book and skim through it to find suitable opening excerpts) “Privilege”: “A person who has made a defamatory statement may claim privilege for it if he can show that he made it out without malice and in pursuit of a public duty.”

I can’t tell you how excited I was on reading that. Not only does it validate all my claims and annoyances with people ignoring this in the book, but the book itself is finally acknowledging this, and it means that the authors of the posts may be publicly revealed in this chapter. Which will really just make it more exciting. After all, think of all the game-changers and cliffhangers the previous part left us. Andrew is moving away, Krystal is going to get pregnant with Fats’s child, Kay has been relieved of duty as the Weedons’ social worker, Samantha’s shop is closing down, Gaia is planning on moving out, Gavin has ended his relationship with Kay and is going to pursue a relationship with Mary, and who will win the election, the results of which determine the closing of the addiction center and thus Terri’s newfound sobriety and whether or not the Fields shall be made a part of Yarvil?

I

NOW we get a proper, compelling opening. It’s really a very touching overview of Terri’s life and her experience with loss. I like that Rowling gives these backstories for her characters so that none of these seem like cardboard cut-outs or simplistic, which is something that it seems Rowling has always done her best to avoid.

And I think Terri’s feelings about Kay are portrayed very well, how she liked her but refuses to admit it even to herself.

I’m also glad Rowling gave us interactions between Terri and the original social worker, Mattie, so that she wouldn’t be just a pointless name. She tells Terri that the clinic will almost certainly be closed. But thankfully Terri has another option.

“…obviously, it will be different, but you can get your methadone from your GP instead,” said Mattie. She flipped over pages in the distended file that was the state’s record of Terri’s life. “You’re registered with Dr. Jawanda in Pagford, right? Pagford… why are you going all the way out there?”

We then get a scene with Krystal and Terri and their horrible, dysfunctional relationship. But both characters are very real. It annoys Terri that Krystal is playing the grown-up, but she is  the grown-up. Terri is barely taking anything seriously focusing on her immature emotions rather than what needs to be done, and Krystal knows this and is frustrated by it. So the clash between them is very realistic.

Krystal had been angry for days. The thing that Krystal had said about Obbo….
(“She said what?” he had laughed, incredulously, when they had met in the street, and Terri had muttered something about Krystal being upset.)
…he wouldn’t have done it. He couldn’t have.

I honestly thought that she would come around to believing Krystal eventually, and this aggravates me, particularly the lack of consequences of the rape, at least until Krystal becomes pregnant which can’t be much longer.

But I like that Rowling gives an overview of Terri’s relationship with Obbo to explain why she trusts him but does not trust all the people she really should.

In a rage, because they were low on food, and she was out of cigarettes, and Robbie was whining for his sister, she stormed into her daughter’s room and kicked her clothes around, searching for money or the odd, overlooked fag. Something clattered as she threw aside Krystal’s crumpled old rowing kit, and she saw the little plastic jewelry box, upended, with the rowing medal that Krystal had won, and Tessa Wall’s watch lying beneath it.

It’s clear at this point that Tessa’s watch is going to be very important. Believing that Nana Cath gave it to Krystal and angry at her daughter for keeping it a secret, Terri sells the watch to Obbo for twenty dollars. And what in the world is going to happen next with it? I really can’t imagine. And I’m glad Terri has the will-power to tell Obbo not to bring over drugs, but the stubborn refusal to go to Pagford which closes this section makes it clear that a lot does depend on the clinic staying open. Terri, Obbo, and Mattie are certain it will be closed, but it all depends on who wins the election and I think that’s what we’ll find out in the next section.

II

“Brace yourself,” teased Howard Mollison at midday on Saturday. “Mum’s about to post the results on the website. Want to wait and see it made public or shall I tell you now?”
Miles turned away instinctively from Samantha, who was sitting opposite him at the island in the middle of the kitchen. They were having a last coffee before she and Libby set off for the station and the concert in London. With the handset pressed tightly to his ear, he said, “Go on.”
“You won. Comfortably. Pretty much two to one over Wall.”

Yep, that’s it. No real build-up. We are just abruptly thrown into a scene with the Mollisons, and then we are given the results of the election. A lot of people might like Rowling’s style in this, but it honestly frustrates me. I would like build-up and anticipation for these things. I mean, bang, the addiction clinic is going to be shut down. Terri is going to lose her sobriety and lose Robbie. The Fields will be given to Yarvil. All that in just a matter of seconds. No build-up. And it’s disappointing to me that we never got any debates and speeches between Colin and Miles. I had anticipated that we would, and was looking forward to it, but they didn’t do campaigning in person. Also, it disappoints me how the results are just as un-surprising as the real life election results. (Did anyone not know three years away that Obama would win?) The Mollisons are a respectable family who have a history in politics, and Colin is just a weird, creepy vice principal.

Still, Rowling does a good job writing this scene and the details, as usually.

But then the story abruptly switches to Samantha. She’s about to go to the concert with Libby and she’s excited, but then a wrench is thrown into her plans. Libby comes in and gives Samantha the phone, saying her friend’s mother wants to talk to her.

This really is a comedy, I can tell now, and it’s very fun to read how the friend’s mother takes away every reason in Samantha’s alibi for going, and as usual the conversation feels real.

There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

For crying out loud, her fears are only in her own mind. There’s no harm in telling her you wanted to see the band because you’ve gotten to like it yourself. Just look at all the “Twilight Mothers”.

But… Miles won the election. Yet there are two more parts and thirteen sections left in this part. This is the point where I have to realize the book wasn’t about the election at all. It was just about these people’s lives, and there are still a lot of unresolved plotlines relating to these characters and exciting things that have to happen in their lives before the book can end. This book was clearly building up to a resolution of the characters’ problems, not the election. Where do we go from here?

III

To Gavin, whose fate is still undetermined. Does Mary share his feelings? Will she be willing to start a relationship with him? It’s hard to tell. The text states that “she had been oddly flustered when he had turned up“, but that might have just been because she wasn’t expecting to see him. Who knows? Gavin actually takes it as a genuine sign that she has feelings for him. (Note: I originally did not know what “the Smithy” is, but upon making a Google search, I have concluded that it is a name for Gavin’s house.)

But then the story abruptly switches to Andrew. He hasn’t left for Reading just yet, and he’s getting ready to serve at Howard’s birthday party. I like that Rowling gave us insight into his feelings about writing the post now, as I wasn’t sure about them:

Andrew’s feelings about what he had done to his father changed almost hourly. Sometimes the guilt would bear down on him, tainting everything, but then it would melt away, leaving him glorying in his secret triumph. Tonight, the thought of it gave extra heat to the excitement burning beneath Andrew’s thin white shirt, an additional tingle to the gooseflesh caused by the rush of evening air as he sped, on Simon’s racing bike, down the hill into town.

His feelings upon learning of Gaia’s break-up with Marco surprised me. I had forgotten that Gaia’s father lived in Reading, so naturally his reaction was the exact opposite of what I expected.

This section is extremely long. The scene describing Howard’s party just goes on and on for a full ten pages, and I felt like Rowling was deliberately trying to foil people’s attempts to review her book like this. So I’ll just summarize it:

1. As usual, there are a lot of character details. As usual, Rowling does a very good job portraying the way the characters interact. As usual, it feels like it’s naturally playing out in front of us.
2. We meet Howard and Shirley’s daughter, Patricia. This one surprised me. I thought she would remain an unseen character. But no. The reason she is a black sheep in the family is that she is a lesbian. And one who is very resentful of her parents’ homophobia. She is a very well realized character, too.
3. Furthering of Gavin’s relationship plot. Although he tries to keep it a secret, Gaia exposes him in front of Shirley, so everyone will know by tomorrow. He also learns that Mary is considering leaving for Liverpool. Gavin will need to reveal his love quickly. I hope he has the courage to and does it right. (I think Rowling chose Howard’s favorite song deliberately in search of lyrics that she could find lyrics that reflected Gavin’s inner thoughts.)
4. Samantha’s flagrant sexual attraction to Andrew, and awkward conversation with him. Forget Colin, he’s only a mental pedophile.

The party scene basically ends with Andrew, Gaia, and Sukhvinder drunk in the kitchen after sneaking off and drinking vodka, because it sticks with their storyline from that point on. Bizarrely enough Fats shows up… through the window. ?????????? He and Fats go outside to smoke, where bizarrely enough, Patricia gives them cigarettes and lights them for them. ????????????

I like the insight we get into Fats that really makes him a more likable character. When Gaia confronts him over bullying Sukhvinder, he does not mock her or insult her but instead tells her “I never said there was anything wrong with [being a lesbian]. It’s only jokes”.

“Wonder what the Ghost’ll say next?” Fats asked, with a sidelong glance at Andrew.
“Probably stop now the election’s over,” muttered Andrew.
“Oh, I dunno,” said Fats. “If there’s stuff old Barry’s Ghost is still pissed off about….”
He knew that he was making Andrew anxious and he was glad of it. Andrew was spending all his time at his poxy job these days and he would soon be moving. Fats did not owe Andrew anything. True authenticity could not exist alongside guilt and obligation.

He’s making me anxious, too. I want Fats’ post attacking Colin to be the end. The election is over, and the council posts storyline has run its course. (And refer to my original definition of “authenticity”: “Be an asshole and do whatever the fuck you want.”)

But then Rowling throws us a shocker out of nowhere:

“Old Maureen and my father singing along together. Arm in arm.” Patricia took a final fierce drag on her cigarette and threw the end down, grinding it beneath her heel. “I walked in on her blowing him when I was twelve,” she said. “And he gave me a fiver not to tell my mother.”

WHAT WHAT WHAT? This this changes the way I look at both Howard and his relationship with both Maureen and Shirley completely and she just throws it at us just like that! I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

He could not see where she was at first: then he spotted them. Gaia and Fats were locked together ten yards away from the door, leaning up against the railings, bodies pressed tight against each other, tongues working in each other’s mouths.

NO NO WHAT THE YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!!!!

[Samantha's] mouth was chapped and warm, and her breasts were huge, pressed against [Andrew's] chest; her back was as broad as his-
“What the fuck?”

What the fuck?

Andrew was slumped against the draining board and Samantha was being dragged out of the kitchen by a big man with short graying hair.

This this this is just too much this is all so insane. Oh my god oh my so many things were just resolved and changed in just a fraction of a second before we have time to figure out what’s happening. After all that time Gaia ended up with Fats instead of Andrew, Samantha is a pedophile and Miles caught her in the act, and Howard had and is probably having an affair with Maureen. It’s like Rowling is playing a game: “What’s the most insane, shocking thing I’ll throw at them next?” WHAT’S THE MOST INSANE, SHOCKING THING SHE’LL THROW AT US NEXT?!!!!! I’m sorry I ever doubted the critics who said this was “endlessly surprising”. Rowling hasn’t lost her touch. She isn’t going soft with her age. But I wish she had. I mean, I do like it, but after I’ve had some time to relax and appreciate it.

I love how Andrew’s tired, drunken, confused thought process is portrayed. He’s in the same state of shock as the readers, only much, much worse, since it’s actually really happening to him. It really is convincing, and even the twists, shocking as they are, aren’t unbelievable.

And again I notice that as he goes up the hill and enters the kitchen and finds Simon there unable to sleep, we feel his emotions. We don’t need it to be stated how Andrew feels and the way things feel, because it’s all portrayed convincingly enough that we feel the same way.

For as much as people complained about how the book being depressing, this section ends in a very nice, happy way:
Shivering slightly, feeling old and shell-shocked, and immensely guilty, Andrew wanted to give his father something to make up for what he had done. It was time to redress balances and claim Simon as an ally. They were a family. They had to move together. Perhaps it could be better, somewhere else.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said. “Come through here. Found out how to do it at school…”
And he led the way to the computer.

I’d complain about not wanting another post but I can’t help but be overcome by the sheer joy of it. Ahhhhh.

IV

And the joy actually carries into the next section, too. It really is beautiful writing, and I read it in bed early in the morning just after I woke up*, which accentuated its quality to me.

The narrative goes from character-to-character, showing where they are and what they are doing: Miles doesn’t know what to think about finding his wife embracing a sixteen-year-old and what to do, while Colin is just a poor victim of his OCD, believing he killed Barry for no discernible reason. All are firmly in-character, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it shows a bit of where the characters are going. It ends with Dr. Jawanda, who the narrative remains with for the rest of the section. She is actually planning to resign the council, and I hope she doesn’t, because that would constitute another casual vacancy and I’m not ready for another election.

The narrative provides a great deal of insight into her, and makes her very sympathetic. Then there is a thankfully uninterrupted conversation between her and Sukhvinder where Sukhvinder is trying to get out of going to work, and surprisingly, given her earlier anger at her wanting a job, forces her to go because at this point she doesn’t want the Mollisons to have anything else to criticize the Jawandas for.

A lot of readers may hate Dr. Jawanda for her treatment of Sukhvinder, but this section does a lot to humanize her and I like how it closes with her actually realizing her faults as a parent and wanting to change them.

*I read II in a grocery store, from a copy on the shelf. It was right there, so why not kill two birds with one stone?

IV

And the joy actually carries into the next section, too. It really is beautiful writing, and I read it in bed early in the morning just after I woke up, which accentuated its quality to me.

The narrative goes from character-to-character, showing where they are and what they are doing: Miles doesn’t know what to think about finding his wife embracing a sixteen-year-old and what to do, while Colin is just a poor victim of his OCD, believing he killed Barry for no discernible reason. All are firmly in-character, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it shows a bit of where the characters are going. It ends with Dr. Jawanda, who the narrative remains with for the rest of the section. She is actually planning to resign the council, and I hope she doesn’t, because that would constitute another casual vacancy and I’m not ready for another election.

The narrative provides a great deal of insight into her, and makes her very sympathetic. Then there is a thankfully uninterrupted conversation between her and Sukhvinder where Sukhvinder is trying to get out of going to work, and surprisingly, given her earlier anger at her wanting a job, forces her to go because at this point she doesn’t want the Mollisons to have anything else to criticize the Jawandas for.

A lot of readers may hate Dr. Jawanda for her treatment of Sukhvinder, but this section does a lot to humanize her and I like how it closes with her actually realizing her faults as a parent and wanting to change them.

After Sukhvinder walked back to the house Parminder felt guilty. She almost called her daughter back, but instead she made a mental note that she must try and find time to sit down with her and talk to her without arguing.

V

Now we are back with Krystal coming home from her friend’s house.

A lot of authors only include the absolute essentials in writing. They just write the plot and describe the events as they unfold. Rowling is not one of those authors — there are so many subtle details that most people wouldn’t even think about that Rowling includes in this section. In fact, that’s really all the section is until Krystal gets home. And I like it because they come before the scene that we become invested in, and thus we have nothing to distract us from that scene.

Then it occurred to her that Robbie was not there. She pounded up the stairs, shouting for him.
“‘M’ere,” she heard him say, from behind her own closed bedroom door.
When she shouldered it open, she saw Robbie standing there, naked. Behind him, scratching his bare chest, lying on her own mattress, was Obbo.
“All righ’, Krys?” he said, grinning.

OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS INSANE Obbo is absolute scum. Did he actually rape Robbie? Is he bisexual? Of course Krystal is too terrified of Obbo now to say a word to him so she just grabs Robbie and goes downstairs. And things just get worse. She discovers that Obbo has given bags of hashish to Terri — and Krystal knows her mother could be sent to prison for having them. (Although you’d think she would be sent to prison for using the other drugs, too. I suppose if she were caught with them Terri would get a much shorter sentence, in the local jail.)

It becomes very clear at this point that Krystal is really the only sane, responsible person in her world. Barry is dead, Nana Cath is dead, Kay is gone, and poor Krystal has to deal with the insanity that is her life and try to stop the worst from coming to the worst, but it’s becoming impossible for her to succeed. To be honest, I don’t think Terri losing Robbie is such a bad thing at this point. Getting out of this environment is honestly the best thing for him, and I hope the novel ends with Krystal somehow managing to adopt him or at least with him in a good home. But I’m not sure that this novel will have a happy ending. There’s just no predicting Rowling, though.

VI

The story now goes to Shirley. The section feels like a rerun at first, character details, Shirley going to the computer out of habit, and we get an utterly gratuitous flashback to Howard and Shirley realizing Patricia had left, but at least it doesn’t interrupt any scene between the characters that we are meant to be invested in.

But then the monotony comes to an abrupt end as Shirley discovers the new Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother post father and son Price have uploaded onto the website:

Howard Mollison, First Citizen of Pagford, and long-standing resident Maureen Lowe have been more than business partners for many years. It is common knowledge that Maureen holds regular tastings of Howard’s finest salami. The only person who appears not to be in on the secret is Shirley, Howard’s wife.

I know I said so much about how I wanted the posts to end with the attack on Colin, but this feels like the right one to end with. A return to the first post, the original author apologizing for the first post by writing it with the subject of the first post.

And until this moment Shirley believed up until this moment that “the_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother” was on her side, attacking anti-Fielders. She had to realize eventually that the posts aren’t political, they’re just designed to attack individuals, regardless of who they are. And what a crushing blow to have your best friend stab you in the back like that. Just perfect.

Rowling does a great job portraying Shirley’s reaction. The prose is basically her erratic thoughts.

Surprisingly she runs and wakes up Howard to tell him.

“What?” he said, his face shielded.
“You and Maureen, having an affair.”
“Where’s he get that from?”
No denial, no outrage, no scathing laughter. Merely a cautious request for a source.
Ever afterwards, Shirley would remember this moment as a death; a life truly ended.

This is humiliating for me in retrospect, considering how many times I said how Howard and Shirley’s was the only perfect relationship in the book. And that’s one complaint I do make, that it seems like Rowling noticed their relationship had been perfect for most of the book, so decided to quickly remedy that by adding the affair storyline when she was all but through with the book. I think it would be proper to have just one happy couple, one flawless marriage, especially since it’s one that’s clearly existed for decades.

But I have to admit Rowling mainly does a good job depicting Shirley’s reaction. Going to tell Howard wouldn’t be my first response, but considering she trusted him so deeply that she doubted the post, it makes sense. I’m not sure about Howard’s response, though; you’d think he would try to act a little more shocked and outraged.

VII

We open with Krystal at a bus stop with Robbie.

She was not sure she had enough money for the fare, but she was determined to get to Pagford. Nana Cath was gone, Mr. Fairbrother was gone, but Fats Wall was there, and she needed to make a baby.

Just in case the first time didn’t work. I honestly thought she was already pregnant, and it disappoints me that that explosive change and drama is going to wait until later.

She calls Fats and he reluctantly agrees to meet her there. This section is less than two pages long, and there are only two other things of note:

1. I  like that Rowling is depicting the consequences of Fats’ lifestyle, first by stating in IV how numb his mouth is, and here stating how tired he is from staying up all night, to the point that he wanted to go to bed in the afternoon.
2. The conversation between Colin and Tessa is just as bizarre as Fats says, and it is hilarious (though I hope that Tessa did eventually convince Colin that he did not kill Barry).

VIII

I was very eager to see the consequences of Miles’ discovery of Samantha kissing Andrew, and Rowling doesn’t disappoint. The section opens with Samantha forced to leave her hiding place to go to the bathroom, and it describes her taking a shower and all she can to delay having to go out and find Miles. It’s written very realistically and in a very in-the-moment way.

Samantha’s feelings are portrayed well, and the only real disappointment to me is that it skips right from her about to leave the bathroom to “Miles was sitting in the kitchen when she entered“. No, no, no, describe Samantha walking down the hall, nervously, building up the tension gradually until we reach this moment. We had been going through Samantha’s experience with her, looking at this through her eyes, and we still do afterwards. So why does she slip up here?

But afterwards she does a good job building up the tension and creating the talk between Miles and Samantha, though.

“Last night,” said Miles, “at my father’s birthday party, I came to look for you, and I found you snogging a sixteen-year-”
“Sixteen-year-old, yes,” said Samantha. “Legal. One good thing.”

What? How can it possibly be legal? No, I checked. The legal age of adulthood in England is 18. In fact, the driving age limit is 17!

But….. oh, this is it. The shit has hit the fan now. This is the climax of Miles and Samantha’s relationship.

“What the hell’s going on with you?” said Miles.
“I’m…unhappy,” said Samantha.
“Why?” asked Miles, but then he added quickly, “Is it the shop? Is it that?”
“A bit,” said Samantha. “But I hate living in Pagford. I hate living on top of your parents. And sometimes,” she said slowly, “I hate waking up next to you.”

I was very surprised that Samantha actually tells Miles she isn’t sure whether or not she’s in love with him and admits to being glad he was alive on the day she heard of Barry Fairbrother’s death. It seemed that she was 100% discontented and disliking him, but then we realize that she had to have been attracted to him at one point. And Rowling sneakily shows us the real issue. Samantha lusted after Miles when he was a young man just as she lusts after Andrew and the boy band member now. But when he got older, she couldn’t stand him and wants to have a new man, a young man. And probably if she married Andrew or the boy band member she would grow tired of them as they lost their youth and lust after young men again. Many readers will probably declare her a pedophile as I previously did and unanimously declare their disgust for her, but to be honest I just think it’s unfortunate that she was born as a woman. This is basically the way practically every man thinks, and society doesn’t care. They’re allowed to be this way. Just think of it. When have you ever seen an old man marry a woman remotely close to his own age or have a relationship with a woman close to his age? When women are no longer young, a great majority of men simply lose their attraction for them and start relationships with young women, and they’re allowed to. Nobody cares. But when a woman does the same thing she’s a disgusting, despicable pedophile. Then again, Samantha was lusting after a 16-year-old, but the point still stands.

But the thing that really shocked me was how polite Samantha was in explaining her feelings to him. In fact, it’s Miles who is rude and drives her to the breaking point.

“-well, I meant what I said – you’re not fit to fill his shoes!”
“What?” he said, and his chair fell over as he jumped to his feet, while Samantha strode to the kitchen door.
“You heard me,” she shouted. “Like my letter said, Miles, you’re not fit to fill Barry Fairbrother’s shoes. He was sincere.”

This was a shocker. I mean, I know she didn’t think Miles was fit to take the seat, but Samantha didn’t seem to have any interest in politics so I wouldn’t expect her to talk this away about Barry! In fact, it honestly seems out-of-character for her when you consider her boredom and nonchalance during all the scenes where politics are discussed.

The look on his face unnerved her. Out in the hall, she slipped on clogs, the first pair of shoes she could find, and was through the front door before he could catch up.

Both Mollison marriages have been destroyed. Another relationship has come to an end. And unlike Gavin, this cannot end well for Samantha, and it will probably end up with her in prison. And Miles? Oh, he has the world. Unlike Samantha, he can have all the young ladies he wants.

IX

Now we are with Krystal on the bus into Pagford with Robbie. I like how we are shown more of Krystal’s mothering instincts toward Robbie and her dream of taking care of him and the baby she plans to have.

Then we cut to Fats waiting for her, who is trying to avoid Andrew seeing him. I get that he’s resentful towards Andrew for leaving, but when he’s admitted to himself that Andrew is his closest friend, you’d think he would try to cherish the last time he can have with him. It just seems very strange to me.

Rowling devotes so much time to the characters. She doesn’t have Fats just ignore the presence of Robbie so the plot with him and Krystal can go wherever it’s going. She portrays his thoughts and discomfort with having Robbie there.

At last, when Krystal had handed her brother the crisps, she said to Fats, “Where’ll we go?”
Surely, he thought, she could not mean that they were going to shag. Not with the boy there. He had had some idea of taking her to the Cubby Hole: it was private, and it would be a final desecration of his and Andrew’s friendship; he owed nothing to anyone, anymore. But he balked at the idea of fucking in front of a three-year-old.

I really like how Rowling portrays Fats and Krystal’s relationship. They are two teenagers who are a couple because they both feel it’s time to have a boyfriend/girlfriend. They don’t have any real attraction towards each other, and they don’t have any clue what to do when they’re together expect to have sex in any random place they can think of on the spur of the moment. I also like the brief revelation that Fats had realized Andrew’s crush on Gaia.

We get some introspection by Krystal about considering going to visit Kay at her house, but I don’t know how well this could turn out or if Krystal could even help them. Fats is reluctant to have sex with Krystal where Robbie can see, but he decides “Dane Tully would do it. Pikey Pritchard would do it. Cubby, not in a million years.“ Yes, I think if Dane Tully and Pikey Pritchard jumped off a bridge, Fats would do it, too. Which is of course the exact opposite of inauthenticity. Haven’t quite perfected the art yet, Fats.

Krystal slipped and slid down the bank toward the patch of undergrowth, hoping that Fats was not going to make any difficulties about doing it with a condom.

That’s how this section ends, and it’s clear at this point that Krystal’s bizarre scheme will come to fruition in the last two parts, and this really makes me anxious. That isn’t enough time for her to give birth, and this doesn’t seem like the kind of story that can have a happy ending. Krystal is going to have a miscarriage, Obbo is going to kill Terri or something, maybe she’ll overdose. I don’t know. Somebody’s going to die, horrible things are going to happen. And I can’t stand knowing this and having to wait for it.

X

We are now in Gavin’s third-person POV. I like the bit of continuity in how he tries to avoid Samantha after their awkward, somewhat rude conversation in III. He is going to see Mary, planning on how to reveal his feelings towards her.

Still keeping my options open, he thought, as he crossed the bridge on foot. There was a small boy sitting by himself on a bench, eating sweets, below him. I don’t have to say anything….I’ll play it by ear….

The small boy is Robbie. In an interesting detail, he is in the same area as Krystal, Fats, and Robbie at the same time. It’s a strange way of leading into the next section, but I like it and wish Rowling had used it more often. Even more strangely, the narrative abruptly cuts to Gavin at Mary’s house with Mary having just answered the door and inviting him in.

The narrative states that she “seemed pleased to see him” and she informs Gavin that one of her relatives has suggested she move back to Liverpool. These factors bode well for Gavin’s chances with her, but the reason behind her strong desire to stay in Pagford does not: She can’t stand to leave Barry’s grave. And Rowling does a good job portraying Gavin’s emotions spiraling up and downwards, as well as the brief look into Gavin’s thought process detailing his dislike for burial. I strongly suspect that this and Dr. Jawanda’s feelings against burial are Rowling’s own, and I can definitely see why people choose cremation now.

Gavin and Mary discuss Miles’ win and how it means everything Barry fought for is now ruined, and Mary can’t help but express her resentment towards her dead husband
(including mentioning Krystal’s refusal to contribute to Barry’s wreath, despite everyone else on the rowing team doing it, which was strange to me when I first heard it. Krystal is clearly saddened by Barry’s death. So why didn’t she contribute?).

“Mary,” said Gavin, leaving his chair, moving to her side (on the rope bridge now, with a sense of mingled panic and anticipation), “look…it’s really early…I mean, it’s far too soon…but you’ll meet someone else.”
“At forty,” sobbed Mary, “with four children…”
“Plenty of men,” he began, but that was no good; he would rather she did not think she had too many options. “The right man,” he corrected himself, “won’t care that you’ve got kids. Anyway, they’re such nice kids…anyone would be glad to take them on.”
“Oh, Gavin, you’re so sweet,” she said, dabbing her eyes again.

So, yes, it’s all going unbelievably well for Gavin. His prospects for marrying Mary are unbelievably high, and then he decides to ruin it all by blurting out “Mary, I think I’m in love with you.”

Just blurting it out at this point creates obvious resentment from her who does not think he realizes the state she’s in now. So he finds it necessary to abruptly leave, his chances with her completely ruined.

I know he told her because he was afraid someone else would tell her first if he didn’t, but it would be better if they did. He had every chance, every likelihood that she would eventually begin a relationship with him, and in his idiotic impatience he said it at the worst possible moment: when she’s recently widowed. If he had only let it develop naturally, he might have ended up with her. Then again, maybe not, considering Gavin believes and she almost did start to say, “even if I weren’t grieving” but this might have just been an excuse. She was willing to marry again some day, and she liked Gavin. The more he was there with her the closer they would grow over the years and eventually she might accept a proposal from him. Who knows? In any case, it’s all flushed down the toilet now. In one idiotic instant, their story ends happily for no one.

XI

And now we are back with Howard and Shirley, another relationship that is on the brink of collapse. Shirley is very resentful towards her husband and Maureen, though Howard now is making a larger effort to deny the affair.

I’m very eager to see what Shirley is going to do about it. She’s trying to prevent Howard and Maureen from communicating, but after leaving to go to lunch with her granddaughter she realizes she isn’t going to be able to stop this and she’s just given them the perfect opportunity to talk. (Howard is staying at home sick in bed. I’m not sure whether he’s faking it because he doesn’t want people to prod him about the post at the restaurant or if it’s genuine.)

And when Shirley gets to the restaurant, she doesn’t confront Maureen, she just has a casual, polite conversation with her. Rowling does a great job writing her emotions about the revelation of the affair, but I can’t figure out, what in the next two parts, she is going to do about it.

But that’s forgotten for now, because Maureen revealed a surprising bit of information: Gaia and Sukhvinder did not come to work. Gaia likely because she can’t face Andrew after kissing Fats, and Sukhvinder likely because she can’t face Gaia due to being angry over her kissing Fats. Indeed Andrew nearly left because he was afraid he would get fired for kissing Samantha. I think his inner thoughts about this are done well.

But the end of the section is very strange.

He went to fetch a napkin for Lexie and almost collided with his boss’s wife, who was standing behind the counter, holding his EpiPen.
“Howard wanted me to check something,” Shirley told him. “And this needle shouldn’t be kept in here. I’ll put it in the back.”

But why is this important enough to bother mentioning? It seems that Shirley doesn’t know about the incident with Samantha and Andrew, so she can’t be angry at him. And Howard didn’t tell her to check anything, as far as we know. And if he had, wouldn’t she say what it was? Is she going to use it to poison Howard or something? I mean, I know it’s insane, but it’s the only real reason for including that I can think of, and it seems like the only option for Shirley. But I… I don’t know.

XII

I had thought that the scene with Krystal and Fats by the canal had ended with IX, but surprisingly we’re back with them. It seems designed so that Rowling can do a very strange thing: write a section from the 3rd-person POV of the three-and-a-half-year-old Robbie.

Considering how developmentally behind and oblivious he has been shown to be, this would seem to be impossible. Rowling manages it mainly by portraying his emotions simplistically and childishly. The prose is a proper wording of the emotions Robbie experiences but could never express as eloquently. But it still feels like Robbie has aged suddenly, considering how oblivious he was in his first appearance. He seems too intelligent and aware of his surroundings, capable of rational thought.

And there’s another strange thing Rowling does: First Gavin walks past Robbie down the road, and Rowling goes out of her way to include a rationale of why in parentheses. (We get a good sense of how deeply he’s ruined his own life. He has basically no one now, and you feel sorry for him.) And then Samantha walks by across the football field, watched by Robbie, and we get some of her emotions and thoughts she’s going through. And then we get Shirley walking by and she is apparently going to use the needle to trigger some sort of attack in Howard, and then likely confront him over the affair and order him out. (Also, she spots Krystal and Fats having sex and is disgusted.)

This all happens between Robbie wandering around searching for water and Krystal, and it was obviously written to portray all of these characters’ emotions, which are written very well as usual, and to indulge her own cleverness in writing all the characters to be going by. But it comes off as very strange that she uses the 3-and-a-half-year-old child as the POV character for it. It’s very surreal and as much as I like seeing what all the characters are going through, I think it could’ve been skipped.

XIII

And now we switch to the third-person POV of Sukhvinder. Where did she go when she cut work? Just randomly wandering around Pagford.

She had waited for a while at the bus stop where you could catch a bus into Yarvil, but then she had spotted Shirley and Lexie Mollison coming down the road, and dived out of sight.

All right, Rowling is just having fun playing with the world she’s created at this point. But we do get interesting insight into why Sukhvinder didn’t go to work. Because she can’t face Gaia, yes, but her feelings about her kissing Fats are different from how I thought they were, yet they make perfect sense, and when you think about it, yes, that’s exactly what her feelings would be, and it’s nice to have an author who does think about it.

Gaia’s betrayal had been brutal and unexpected. Pulling Fats Wall…he would drop Krystal now that he had Gaia. Any boy would drop any girl for Gaia, she knew that. But she could not bear to go to work and hear her one ally trying to tell her that Fats was all right, really.

However, Gaia leaves her three texts which send a heavy implication to her that she only did it because she was drunk and doesn’t even remember it, yet she still is unwilling to go work and speak to Gaia, and randomly wants to spend her hard-earned cash on a hotel or flat: just some quiet place where she can stay and slit her wrists.
Her thought process is very strange and doesn’t make sense to me.

But then she crosses the bridge, so we know that she is in the scene with Krystal and Robbie. And sure enough she sees Krystal and Fats looking for Robbie and hides from them.

I really like this style and how cleverly it interwines the characters. I think it’s very clever, and I wish Rowling had used it more often to synch up the events together.

But then……

Sukhvinder caught sight of something in the river below.
Her hands were already on the hot stone ledge before she had thought about what she was doing, and then she had hoisted herself onto the edge of the bridge; she yelled, “He’s in the river, Krys!” and dropped, feetfirst, into the water. Her leg was sliced open by a broken computer monitor as she was pulled under by the current.

OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS ALL HAPPENED SO QUICKLY! Rowling was foreshadowing this with Sukhvinder’s dream of drowning. Sukhvinder is going to die, Robbie is going to be taken away and given to a foster family over this if he doesn’t drown!

XIV

And the madness just continues! Shirley is looking for Howard TO MURDER HIM WITH THE NEEDLE, but she can’t find him in the house so she assumes he has gone to the restaurant.

She half ran into the sitting room, intending to telephone the Copper Kettle. Howard was lying on the carpet in his pajamas.
His face was purple and his eyes were popping. A faint wheezing noise came from his lips. One hand was clutching feebly at his chest. His pajama top had ridden up. Shirley could see the very patch of scabbed raw skin where she had planned to plunge the needle.

And her first instinct is to run and hide the needle instead of GOING TO CALL AN AMBULANCE BECAUSE HER HUSBAND IS DYING.

She ran back into the sitting room, seized the telephone receiver and dialed 999.
“Pagford? This is for Orrbank Cottage, isn’t it? There’s one on the way.”
“Oh, thank you, thank God,” said Shirley, and she had almost hung up when she realized what she had said and screamed, “no, no, not Orrbank Cottage…”
But the operator had gone and she had to dial again. She was panicking so much that she dropped the receiver. On the carpet beside her, Howard’s wheezing was becoming fainter and fainter.
“Not Orrbank Cottage,” she shouted. “Thirty-six Evertree Crescent, Pagford – my husband’s having a heart attack…”

Oh my fucking lord this is completely insane.

XV

The next section picks up directly from the last, with Miles, informed of the news, running to Dr. Jawanda’s door to try to get her to help. She tells him she can’t because she has been suspended from work. It doesn’t seem like a callous act of revenge, it seems to be just her commitment to the rules. If it’s the former, it isn’t very smart, since Howard would likely do his best to get her back her job and fix the trouble he created for her.

I love how in this time of panic all personal grudges and issues are completely forgotten. Samantha comes by and Miles acts like he forgot about the kitchen incident and finding her kissing Andrew and begins treating her exactly as he would have the day before.

And the scene then abruptly changes to two passersby taking care of Sukhvinder and Robbie who are lying on the riverbank.

“No good,” said the man, who had worked on Robbie’s little body for twenty minutes. “He’s gone.”
Sukhvinder wailed, and slumped to the cold wet ground, shaking furiously as the sound of the siren reached them, too late.

I don’t know what to say. It’s just so…. sad. And yet it’s very clever writing. Sukhvinder spent every waking moment of her life yearning for death, her greatest desire to drown in particular, and she jumped into the river likely expecting she might not live and would die in a noble sacrifice. But she survived and the one who had yet begun to live, who did not intend to drown, did not even understand the concept of death, did not. And now Terri has lost the only thing that was keeping her from losing herself to drugs again. Now she has lost it all.

Considering all this and the fact that the part ends with Maureen at the door of the restaurant savoring the excitement of a disaster she has yet to learn the details of, it’s easy to see why people called this book cynical. But Rowling’s optimism for humankind is incredible. She clearly believes that in times of crisis people will simply forget their personal problems and do the best they can to help others out of pure selflessness. And yet, she reminds us, human nature is immensely mutable.

I Read “The Casual Vacancy – Part Four”

I felt such a degree in finality in the ending of the last part that I had wished to delay the beginning of this part for some time. However, I realized how shameful that is. This book has been out since September 27 and Daniel has finished his reading of it, and yet here I am in the middle of November with four parts to go. I had originally intended to put up a chapter a day and for a while I was doing that, but there is just so many sections and so long in the book’s parts now that I can’t. But my obligation is to be efficient as possible, and I need to take this job more seriously.

So, without further hesitation, we begin

PART FOUR

This part has the strangest opening Local Council Administration excerpt yet:

Lunacy

5.11 At common law, idiots are subject to a permanent legal incapacity to vote, but persons of unsound mind may vote during lucid intervals.

This sounded like a joke to me when I first read it, but this is a real law and this is going to be used somehow. But by who? Terri is obviously a person of unsound mind who has lucid intervals, but I would hardly classify her as a lunatic!

When we last left the citizens of Pagford and Yarvil, Simon had dropped out of the race for Parish Council, Colin was being accused of inappropriately touching Krystal and was hiding some horrible secret, Dr. Jawanda was being sued, Sukhvinder uploaded her mother’s secrets on the Parish Council website, and Krystal got raped and is planning to get pregnant by Fats so she can give birth and raise the baby. (Confused? You won’t be after this episode of “The Casual Vacancy”.) So let’s get started!

I

Samantha Mollison had now bought herself all three of the DVDs released by Libby’s favorite boy band. She kept them hidden in her socks and tight drawer, beside her diaphragm. She had her story ready, if Miles spotted them: they were a gift for Libby.

AARGH NO! WHY WHY PLEASE KILL ME NOW.  It really does seem like a joke by Rowling. After all that excitement, we’re pumped on the edge of our seats waiting to see the consequences and you’d expect such a compelling opening, but instead we get this. And once it’s done, we immediately switch to the immediate consequences of Sukhvinder’s post on the Parish Council website, with Miles reporting this fact to Samantha while attempting to get in touch with Howard.

I like the character detail how Samantha does not want to ask questions about the post because she doesn’t want to appear nosy like Shirley and Maureen, but also because she thinks she already knows.

After a moment or two, she asked, sounding vaguely amused, “Did you say your mother might be in the firing line?”
“Well, she’s the site administrator, so she’s liable if she doesn’t get rid of defamatory or potentially defamatory statements. I’m not sure she and Dad understand how serious this could be.”
“You could defend your mother, she’d like that.”

This is really starting to bug me. Why does everyone simply dismiss these statements as lies? They may likely be the truth, and any attempt to sue others for them would result in an investigation to determine whether or not they are lies! Samantha seems to believe they are real, and if they are real, then there’s nothing illegal about reporting them.

Miles stalked out of the room, but she did not care; her thoughts had already returned to chiseled cheekbones, winged eyebrows and taut, tight abdominal muscles. She would buy a band T-shirt to wear-and one for Libby too. Jake would be undulating mere yards away from her. It would be more fun than she had had in years.

The fact that she’s planning to attend a concert by this band seems to be implying the only plot progression this could possibly have. She is actually going to leave Miles for this boy band singer.

But now the scene suddenly changes to Howard in the delicatassen talking on the phone while Shirley and Maureen gossip. There isn’t even a break, we’re just suddenly there. Rowling has never done this before.

“Screaming at me,” said Shirley. “Screaming and swearing. ‘Take it bloody down,’ she said. I said, ‘I’m taking it down, Dr. Jawanda, and I’ll thank you not to swear at me.”
“I’d've left it up there for another couple of hours if she’d sworn at me,” said Maureen.
Shirley smiled. As it happened, she had chosen to go and make herself a cup of tea, leaving the anonymous post about Parminder up on the site for an extra forty-five minutes before removing it.

Well, you know what I would have done? I would have NOT TAKEN IT DOWN AT ALL. I would have told Dr. Jawanda, “I’m sorry, Dr. Jawanda, but those are serious accusations. I’m afraid this is a matter that will need to be investigated to determine whether they are truly defamatory comments, and if it is concluded that they are not,
then I will remove them. I’m sorry, Dr. Jawanda. I’m only doing my duty as a law-abiding citizen.” If I were Shirley, of course.

But Shirley and Maureen’s gossiping is true to their characters and this is mostly character details, the characters doing what they would do. Miles tells Howard on the phone that he should look into the security of the site and he agrees, so it would seem there aren’t going to be any more posts.

And then we get a far more subtle and skillful transition.

The sound of a car in the darkening square outside went virtually unremarked by the three in the delicatessen, but its driver noticed the enormous shadow of Howard Mollison moving behind the cream blinds. Gavin put his foot down, eager to get to Mary.

Poor Mary having to deal with people abusing her husband’s legacy like this. Fergus guesses at the truth, as well, that it was written by a second person, and neither Mary or Gavin dismiss this theory, but Mary can’t stand hearing him recite the post. So it cuts off before we can learn Dr. Jawanda’s secret. I do enjoy how Rowling continues the suspense. (I wonder if she’s a Hitchcock fan?)

I like the subtle details: how Rowling humanizes Howard by having it acknowledged that he never did write defamatory lies about his enemies or look for their secrets, and how Fergus does not throw away the newspaper despite Mary telling to but merely takes it away.

And Mary and Gavin are growing closer and closer.

It’s strange Rowling didn’t separate this section into three parts. I suppose she wanted it to have a definitive point and exist as its own definitive entity, but I don’t feel she attempted that with any of the previous parts. And after all, shouldn’t the part be the definitive entity, or the book? To be honest, it’s like she’s doing it specifically for me, but even I’m just reviewing the individual parts.

II

And now we get an entire section devoted to Dr. Jawanda’s reaction to the post. It’s definitely all from her third-person POV.

It’s an interesting bit of character insight that she is attending a meeting to discuss Robbie Weedon’s case review on her morning off because she can’t stand sitting around the house with nothing to do. Although I often long for time to merely waste, when I get it I can’t stand it. I wish I had some sort of work to do, even reading would qualify to me.

I like how Rowling builds up the tension keeping information away from us and then finally she just gives it to us. Here is Sukhvinder’s post:
Parish Councillor Dr. Parminder Jawanda, who pretends to be so keen on looking after the poor and needy of the area, has always had a secret motive. Until I died, she was in love with me, which she could barely hide whenever she laid eyes on me, and she would vote however I told her to, whenever there was a council meeting. Now that I am gone, she will be useless as a councillor, because she has lost her brain.

I think Sukhvinder did a terrible job with this post. Andrew wanted to talk about his father’s emotional abuse but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to ruin his father’s reputation, it would just seem like immature spam by a troll, which is exactly what Sukhvinder’s post is like. I feel very stupid now saying that Shirley should have kept the post up to pursue these allegations. That would certainly work with Andrew’s post, but this? This is just idle, immature spam. There’s nothing she can be charged for. It’s easy to see how Fergus suspected the posts were written by different people. The first one was taking its job seriously.
The shock had been almost physical; her breathing had become very fast and shallow, as it had been during the most excruciating parts of childbirth, when she had tried to lift herself over the pain, to disengage from the agonizing present.
Everyone would know by now. There was nowhere to hide.

OH – MY – GOD DR. JAWANDA REALLY DID HAVE A CRUSH ON BARRY. It’s a bit strange since every other woman in town lusts after her husband, but now that no one can have Barry she’ll just have to appreciate what she has.

Rowling did a very good job writing this. The meeting is written very well. It feels like a real meeting with real people. I can’t understand how a person can be so talented at writing conversations like this. And I actually like how it’s mixed with Dr. Jawanda’s personal thoughts and worries, because this is from Dr. Jawanda’s 3rd person POV and she can’t concentrate on the meeting due to these thoughts. (Although she shouldn’t give the post any thought. No one is going to take it seriously. Even Vikram didn’t. He was clearly only joking.)

And I do love the subtle bits of character:

She meant it as an explanation for her attendance, because she hated sitting at home alone with nothing to do, but Kay seemed to think that she was asking for more praise and gave it.

III

Andrew had spent hours deciding which clothes he ought to wear for his first day’s work at the Copper Kettle.

I thought it was very surprising that he would care at all about how he looks, but then I remembered that he wants to look good for Gaia who is working there, so it fits with how he’s been established so far. I was also surprised that he hadn’t had his first day at work yet it seemed so long ago that he was hired.

And we get more of Andrew’s thoughts about Gaia and preparing for the first day on the job when suddenly…..

…when his father returned from work in a state that Andrew had never seen before. Simon seemed subdued, almost disoriented.
“Where’s your mother?”
Ruth came bustling out of the walk-in pantry.
“Hello Si-Pie! How – what’s wrong?”
“They’ve made me redundant.”

BANG! SUDDEN SHOCKING PLOT DEVELOPMENT! This seems to be Rowling’s style for this book, and it makes me nervous. Granted it always excites and shocks me, but I would like some preparation.

It’s interesting to see Simon for once not angry about something bad that has happened to him. He’s just in a state of extreme sadness, and Andrew even feels guilty about what he caused. Granted, it doesn’t last very long, but still…

I think Rowling does a good job portraying all their emotions, as usual. Andrew’s reasoning of who did it and why makes sense from his standpoint. I suppose he and Fats will both be baffled when Fats denies it completely. Or perhaps Andrew will be angry at him for keeping secrets. And again I wonder whether Andrew is actually going to attempt to find secrets Howard is hiding to give to his father. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The narrative shifts very suddenly to the next day when Andrew is getting up and going to his first day of work. It flows very naturally, I can’t say more than I have before.

It was very interesting to see Howard’s inner thoughts and see why he refuses to lose weight. I couldn’t quite comprehend the thought process of a person like that, and I’m very glad Rowling included that part.

Also, I criticized in my last review the implausibility of how no one has noticed Sukhvinder’s scars. Well, I shouldn’t have spoken so soon.

Gaia was already pulling off her jeans beside the staff toilet when she saw Sukhvinder’s expression.
“Whassamatter, Sooks?” she asked.
The new nickname gave Sukhvinder the courage to say what she might otherwise have been unable to voice.
“I can’t wear this,” she whispered.
“Why?” asked Gaia. “You’ll look OK.”
But the black dress had short sleeves.
“I can’t.”
“But wh- Jesus,” said Gaia.
Sukhvinder had pulled back the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Her inner arms were covered in ugly crisscross scars, and angry fresh-clotted cuts traveled up from her wrist to her inner arm.

It’s such a dramatic, shocking and sad moment. And I like the tenderness of how Gaia speaks to her. Sukhvinder is unwilling to explain how she got the scars, but Gaia clearly has figured it out since she comes up with a cover story for Sukhvinder: she has eczema. And I find it a bit implausible that your average 16-year-old girl would have known that this is a real life disease. There may have been some explanation in parantheses that Gaia had heard Kay speak of children with eczema, which Rowling cut out due to feeling it unnecessary. (On a side-note: It’s really annoying seeing them get mad at Andrew for doing what he was told to do.)

Pretty much character details, feels real, as I’ve said before.

I really like the part of the end where Andrew has his first real conversation with Gaia. It seems that his plan to develop a relationship with her is working. It’s interesting to see a bit of a rift develop between Andrew and Fats. Even Andrew doesn’t really understand Fats and is developing resentment towards him.

And the first time reading this I didn’t notice at all the subtlety that runs over this. The two people who posted as “The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother” are right there in front of each other discussing the posts and who they think wrote them. And Gaia insults them both unknowingly. I love it.

IV

This section starts off detailing Colin Wall’s panic and anxiety in his belief that soon a post will be written about him. And I really have to wonder: What is his horrible secret that is driving him this insane with worry that it will be revealed?

But this abruptly ends as Colin notices something surprising in Howard’s café. We have reached the immediate present, with the previous section again basically leading into this one. And again I note how Rowling creates abrupt drama and builds up suspense in not revealing to us all the details immediately.

But the drama just keeps coming.

Colin deposited the leg of lamb in the fridge and marched upstairs, all the way to Fats’ loft conversion. Flinging open the door, he saw, as he had expected, a deserted room.
He could not remember the last time he had been in here. The floor was covered in dirty clothes. There was an odd smell, even though Fats had kept the skylight propped open. Colin noticed a large matchbox on Fats’ desk. He slid it open, and saw a mass of twisted cardboard stubs. A packet of Rizlas lay brazenly on the desk beside the computer.

He calls Tessa up and for some baffling reason she actually begins defending Fats and persecuting her husband.

“I told you we should have sent him to Paxton High! I knew you’d make everything he did all about you, if he went to Winterdown! Is it any wonder he rebels, when his every movement is supposed to be a credit to you? I never wanted him to go to your school!”
“And I,” bellowed Colin, jumping to his feet, “never bloody wanted him at all!”

OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK WHO SAYS THAT! This is so epic. But how can you deal with a teenager like Fats? Will they finally punish him for once? The answer is….. no. No, they don’t. Fats comes upstairs right on schedule and finds them in his room. He doesn’t care at all, doesn’t even appear annoyed.

And I told you a while back that I was going to stop telling you when a conversation and scene felt like it was real and the way things really would happen, and that I would tell you if there ever came a point when that did not happen. Well, that point has come. Fats swears at them, admits to having sex with Krystal, and yells at Colin “I’d rather be a little bastard than be you, you arsehole!” Tessa then somehow feels it is completely appropriate to yell at her husband to leave, as if he should not be involved in the disciplining process and has no right to confront his son. Colin, who is obsessed with doing this, rather than defending himself, just backs down and leaves. Fats then proceeds to call her and Colin selfish and swear at her more, and she just leaves.

To clarify, two parents have found that their sixteen-year-old son does drugs, has had sex with a girl, and he swears at them and calls them selfish and an asshole and tells at his father that he doesn’t want to be an asshole. And his parents just leave, deciding that none of this warrants grounding, no, it isn’t a big deal at all and they should do absolutely nothing to punish him. Be honest with me, you’ve all seen this happen in real life, haven’t you?

Rowling is trying to portray Fats’ philosophy of authencity as working, but it really wouldn’t. She doesn’t show the honest consequences of what would happen in a situation like this, and I’m not sure whether she is not promoting and encouraging Fats’s attitude. I would like to see what would happen if they grounded Fats and took away his drugs and his cigarettes.

A lot of people might get mad at me for what I am going to say, but I don’t think Colin’s punching him was child abuse. I think it is completely justified punishment.  Fats wishes that he had punched Cubby back, but Colin is bigger than him. He could tackle Fats to the floor and hold him down to win the fight.

And then Fats has a flashback demonstrating his selfishness and his hatred for his father, remembering himself deliberately hitting Colin in the face with a football for absolutely no justifiable reason.

A lot of people said they couldn’t stand reading this due to the characters all being horrible and unhappy and that it depressed them. This is the first time I agreed. None of this is funny or enjoyable at all. It’s just horrible. I hate Fats, I hate reading about him, I hate the thought that teenagers might attempt to be “authentic” like Fats, I hate the thought that parents might give in to him like Tessa. I HATE THE THOUGHT THAT THERE ARE ANY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO LIVE LIKE THIS. Maybe that was the point. Maybe we were supposed to end up hating Fats and being disgusted with him. I don’t know. But that’s not the end, folks!

Fats’ fingers were clumsier than usual. Ash spilled onto the keyboard from the cigarette in his mouth as he brought up the Parish Council website. Weeks previously, he had looked up SQL injections and found the line of code that Andrew had refused to share. After studying the council message board for a few minutes, he logged himself in, without difficulty, as Betty Rossiter, changed her username to The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother, and began to type.

NO NO NO YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. Seriously, you would think that when Howard had someone look into the security of the website, they would have fixed it against SQL injections. And this is just all too insane. I think this is plausible, actually, but it just feels so ridiculous. It feels like a children’s book, but the rest of the book is so adult.

V

We open with an inner monologue by Shirley. She believes Miles and Howard are wrong about the danger of leaving the “Ghost of Barry Fairbrother” posts online. While it’s nice to see her question whether she could be prosecuted for them, she does so for entirely the wrong reasons. She believes that she cannot be prosecuted because the posts are harmless gossip, which would, in reality, mean she can be prosecuted for them, because if they appeared less than gossip, she could request an investigation be made by the police, and if it turns out they are false, she would remove the post. This would only have worked for the first post, though, since the second one doesn’t actually describe illegal activities, and it is harmless gossip, although it’s hard to see how Shirley considers Andrew’s original post to be that.

It was interesting reading about Shirley’s emotional connection with “The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother” who they now assume is systematically targeting “pro-Fielders”.
After the garbage that was the last section, I’m glad to see the book seems to be getting back on track. I enjoyed how this all set up Shirley discovering Fats’s new post. And as soon as she does she calls the café to report the post to Howard.

The book does really make you feel that its characters are real. I was very disappointed when Colin overheard Dr. Jawanda’s call and ran to the computer, wishing Tessa had kept him away and waited for it to be deleted. But Colin reads it right away, and the fact that we get to read it for the first time at the same time as him makes us share his hurry to read it:

Fantasies Of A Deputy Headmaster
One of the men hoping to represent the community at Parish Council level is Colin Wall, Deputy Headmaster at Winterdown Comprehensive School. Voters might be interested to know that Wall, a strict disciplinarian, has a very unusual fantasy life. Mr. Wall is so frightened that a pupil might accuse him of inappropriate sexual behavior that he has often needed time off work to calm himself down again. Whether Mr. Wall has actually fondled a first year, the Ghost can only guess. The fervor of his feverish fantasies suggests that, even if he hasn’t, he would like to.

I was disappointed to learn that this was his big secret. Fats didn’t really have anything on him. Why not actually accuse him of sexually harassing a student? That would be more likely to make people care. Andrew’s original post was detailing actual crimes, and Fats and Sukhvinder are just ruining the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother’s reputation!

And now for the first time in the story someone successfully realizes who has written one of the posts. As soon as Tessa reads the post, she immediately knows that her son wrote it.

Rowling really is back on track with portraying things the way they would happen. For the first time the author is the most obvious suspect. Andrew went out of his way to make sure his post wasn’t written in his post, and Simon has multiple people who he could have offended. Sukhvinder wrote hers flagrantly in her voice, but she’s such a nice girl no one would suspect her of doing that to her mother or of knowing how to hack into a website. Fats, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of authority-hating punk that would have written it, it was uploaded the day Colin punched him, and what’s more he flagrantly wrote it in his own voice. Read over that post again and see if it doesn’t have Fats’ voice all over it.

But then we go into Colin’s mind, getting a look at his thought processes. And

GOOD LORD THEY ARE DISTURBING, DEPRAVED, AND SHOCKING. Fats was right in his assumption! I liked Colin, I thought he was a good guy, and I still think he is actually but he IS a MENTAL PEDOPHILE! I feel a bit embarrassed saying that he had my vote for council, but the horrible thing is I’d still rather have him on council than Miles!

But then the scene randomly changes to Simon.

A few miles away, in Hilltop House, Simon Price was sitting at a brand-new computer in the sitting room. Watching Andrew cycle away to his weekend job with Howard Mollison, and the reflection that he had been forced to pay full market price for this computer, made him feel irritable and additionally hard done by.

How was Simon able to afford a computer if he’s out of work? And if it was from his last paycheck, Andrew basically has to provide for his whole family with the undoubtedly minimum wage he’s being paid, and Simon is spending the last money he has on A COMPUTER?!

He goes to the Parish Council web site to see if the post attacking him is still up and finds the new one attacking Colin.

He read it through twice and then, alone in the sitting room, he began to laugh. It was a savage triumphant laugh. He had never taken to that big, bobbing man with his massive forehead. It was good to know that he, Simon, had got off very lightly indeed by comparison.

Um, what? The post attacking Simon detailed criminal activities that cost him his job. The post attacking Colin doesn’t say that he actually sexually harassed any minors, and it just comes off as unfounded, childish allegations. How on earth does Simon think he got off lightly?

This whole scene with Simon is very strange. It doesn’t seem to have any point to it at all. Andrew isn’t there to overhear, and it ends with Ruth calling Shirley to tell her, despite the fact that Shirley already knows. It seems like it was written before Rowling decided Shirley would find out on her own but she forgot to cut out this scene later.

In fact, it cuts to Shirley telling Howard about the message. He’s angry at her for not taking it off, but the story doesn’t seem to be going anywhere with them, so it makes for an odd conclusion.

VI

The next Parish Council meeting, the first since Barry had died, would be crucial in the ongoing battle over the Fields. Howard had refused to postpone the votes on the future of Bellchapel Addiction Clinic, or the town’s wish to transfer jurisdiction of the estate to Yarvil.

Finally, we are reading about the politics section of the plot, which is really the center of the plot. Granted, it isn’t the actual council meeting, it’s Parminder, Colin, and Kay discussing their strategies for defending the Fields the day before the meeting. But this is still the exact kind of scene I was expecting and anticipating. Politics-centered drama, and I wish more of the book was like this. I like how it combines the discussion of the political matters and uses it to give us further insights into who these people asre.

And these political issues as they effect matters in the story are important and I, at least, am very invested in. Rowling does a good job making us worry about the clinic staying open by telling us about Terri’s resolution to stay clean so she can keep her son.

And it is a big surprise to Colin that there is no one angry mob outside his door and no one is “demanding his arrest and incarceration” for an internet troll saying that he worries that the students will accuse him of sexually molesting them. The worst I could see happening is an investigation to see if he has child pornography. But it just comes off as some kid playing a joke, because that’s exactly what it is, and unlike his friend, Fats made no effort to pretend it was anything different. No police officer would take it seriously.

One note: In the brief appearance of Fats, it’s clear everything is completely normal and he is not punished at all. To every teenager reading this, place drugs in your room in a place where your parents will see them, tell your parents you have had sex with a girl, swear at them, and yell “I’d rather be a little bastard than be you, you asshole!” and see if they just leave without punishing you and everything is just same old, same old. And report back. I’ll be very eager to hear the results.

And Tessa has some good insight into Colin:

There was, in her opinion, no conviction behind his words. He wanted to believe what Barry had believed, and he wanted to defeat the Mollisons, because that was what Barry had wanted. Colin did not like Krystal Weedon, but Barry had liked her, so he assumed that there was more worth in her than he could see.

I feel somewhat embarrassed, having publicly declared (http://danielisreading.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/the-casual-vacancy-15/#comments) my support for Colin. But I still hold that he is running for unselfish reasons. And let’s face it, at least he’s planning on upholding the beliefs of somebody. That’s hard to come by in politics.

VII

Now the story is back to Andrew and his parents. In computer lab, Andrew can’t stop thinking about how his parents are going to move to Reading because Ruth’s brother-in-law has offered Simon a job. So yeah, Andrew will be out of the story soon. And he and Fats won’t be able to be friends anymore. And yet there is no mention of Andrew being sad about having to leave Fats and regretting that he wrote the post. But I still think his thoughts about his parents moving are realistic, and I like his bittersweet thought about how he has something in common with Gaia now though it doesn’t matter, and I think his general mood is conveyed well.

One of the major themes of this book is consequences for one’s actions to the extent that Rowling originally intended to title it “Consequences“. There have been great consequences to both Simon and Andrew’s actions, and neither one of them is happy about them.

It’s strange that we are given a brief conversation between Andrew and Fats in flashback with Fats discussing his worries about the post he wrote, without ever showing us Andrew finding out about Fats writing the post. I have a feeling Rowling wrote that originally, but cut it from the story. (She said she had to make a lot of sad cuts, including some of her favorite parts.)

I like how Andrew’s bond with Sukhvinder and Gaia is described, and how the story flows. The whole thing just has a bittersweet note and we can feel that not only is Andrew’s time in Pagford coming to an end, but so is the whole book.

And Fats’s reaction is so strange. He admitted to himself that Andrew is the most person he is most attached to, but he remains utterly casual and calm about Andrew leaving. I know that he is with Dane Tully at the moment, but he didn’t send Andrew any response to his telling him and you’d think a fist-bump and a “I’ll miss ya, Arf” wouldn’t be out of the question.

Fats was sure that Andrew would be nonplussed and hurt by his cool attitude, and he was glad of it. Fats did not ask himself why he was glad, or why a general desire to cause pain had become his overriding emotion in the last few days. He had lately decided that questioning your own motives was inauthentic; a refinement of his personal philosophy that had made it altogether easier to follow.

Well, that makes it so much worse. He was being authentic; it was his honest feeling to be calm and casual about Andrew leaving. His philosophy is just so self-centered it takes in absolutely no one’s feelings but his own. And we get more of his insight into his philosophy after he lies to Tessa about whether he wrote the post:

Perhaps it would have been more authentic to say yes, but he had preferred not to, and he did not see why he should have to justify himself.

So, to sum up Fats’s personal philosophy in one sentence: Be an asshole and do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t think Rowling is encouraging it, after all, which makes me baffled by her refusal to show the consequences in his fight with his parents.

(One small note: Fats thinks disdainfully about the victims of “The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother”, saying they brought it on themselves. This is certainly true for Simon, but Dr. Jawanda and Colin were exposed for emotions they hated having and couldn’t help.)

Fats is going to see Krystal at her house (Terri and Robbie are out). It feels natural how Fats and Krystal interact, and I like how Krystal’s attempts to make the house nice for him only made it all worse. And the part where Fats considers taking Tessa back her watch is a very important character moment for him. As symbolizing all his decisions about his life, he makes the wrong one.

But it’s noteworthy that it is six full sections into the part before we hear from her again. And it’s disappointing that we aren’t shown Krystal at Nikki’s house or indeed any immediate consequences of Obbo’s rape. But Krystal is planning on carrying out her plan to get pregnant by Fats by pretending to be using birth control.

He imagined Krystal pregnant with his child; the faces of Tessa and Cubby when they heard. His kid in the Fields, his flesh and blood. It would be more than Cubby had ever managed.
He climbed on top of her; this, he knew, was real life.

I don’t get shocked at these things. I’m just sort of stunned, unsure what to feel, just “this is happening”. I mean, these characters have become so real by now that this is shocking to see her plan actually being carried out and to anticipate the consequences.

VIII

Now it is the day of the council meeting. I like the little details and the character details, and I liked that Aubrey Fawley made his first appearance (not the one who started The Fields controversy in the 50s, who Rowling strongly implies is long dead). I liked the journalist who is suspicious of Howard about the council posts, and how Howard comes so close to guessing their author (he guesses one teenager instead of three).

And then the discussion of the issues begins. This is the section that I have been waiting for, the one I anticipated this book would be like before I bought it. I really enjoyed the “debate”. Even people who dislike politics should be interested in these issues, as Rowling has established them within the confines of her fictional universe, but this book is really about the people rather than their political ideas, and how their ideas come from who those people are. But we are clearly meant to side with the pro-Fielders and see the anti-Fielders as unpleasant, ignorant people, and this is a reasonable complaint to make against the novel.

But do I disagree with the side Rowling has indisputably taken? I don’t like to talk about politics at all. And to be honest, I regret ever deciding to do this. I don’t want to offend anyone with my take on anything.

I assume the clinic is helping people from the statistics Kay has shown and we certainly know Terri depends on it. And it would be hard to argue that Howard isn’t being ignorant about how people are by saying they should all just stop taking drugs. Yet it might make an inspiring catchphrase to get drug users to stop. “And, let’s face it. This is a problem with a simple solution. Stop taking the drugs.” But the Betty woman is wrong when she says “nobody makes them take drugs”. Obbo strongly encourages Terri, at the very least.

But as for the Fields movement, I don’t really see what difference it makes what city owns it, and the anti-Fielders actually make more sense than Dr. Jawanda in this one. To be honest, to me, it seems like a big deal over nothing.

“Oh, you think that they should take responsibility for their addiction and change their behavior?” said Parminder.
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Before they cost the state any more money.”
“Exact-”
“And you,” said Parminder loudly, as the silent eruption engulfed her, “do you know how many tens of thousands of pounds you, Howard Mollison, have cost the health service, because of your total inability to stop gorging yourself?”
A rich red, claret stain was spreading up Howard’s neck into his cheeks.
“Do you know how much your bypass cost, and your drugs, and your long stay in hospital? And the doctor’s appointments you take up with your asthma and your blood pressure and the nasty skin rash, which are all caused by your refusal to lose weight?”

OH MY GOD YOU DO NOT DO THIS. Epic, absolutely epic. And yet, one reflects, she didn’t actually prove Howard is wrong, she just proved he is a hypocrite and in doing so exposed the hypocrisy of his supporters, who in defending him defend the users of the Bellchapel Clinic though they would never admit it, not even to themselves.

(Note: It’s interesting that Dr. Jawanda ends this section experiencing the same emotions that her daughter always is.)

IX

I like how Rowling briefly summarizes the consequences of the meeting in the “omniscient narrator” voice before beginning a scene with Howard, Shirley, and Maureen in the Mollison living room, and how she sets the mood for the scene, and shows Howard’s worries and his attempts to have Dr. Jawanda suspended from work (which apparently succeeded; I would have not pursued anything against Dr. Jawanda just out of respect for her having the courage to say that).

“District Council’s emailed me,” [Howard] told Maureen, “with a bunch of questions about the website. They want to hear what steps we’ve taken against defamation. They think the security’s lax.”

And finally Howard, spurred by the Council, is concerned about the security to the site. I honestly thought that they had taken care of all the security issues after the second post, and annoyingly they haven’t even now, as Shirley does not want to lose control of her website and due to her extreme ignorance about technology, believes the hacker got into the site by using people’s passwords, so she just sent e-mails to everyone telling them not to change their passwords.

The reason this annoys me is because it seems to be setting up a fourth “Ghost of Barry Fairbrother” message, and I honestly want it to have ended. It’s lost its effect and has just gotten silly at this point. It needs to end.

Rowling does a good job giving us insights into the characters, showing their continued conflicts, both internal and external.

And then the scene randomly changes to a third-person POV of Miles and illustrating his worries and his thoughts, and it then changes to him at home with Samantha at bedtime.

This scene contributes two important things to the plot:

1. Establishes another incoming important change in the world’s continuity.

“How was work?” he asked, watching her undo her bra in the mirror.
Samantha did not answer immediately. She rubbed the deep red grooves in the flesh beneath her arms left by the tight bra, then said, without looking at Miles, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, actually.”
She hated having to say it. She had been trying to avoid doing so for several weeks.
“Roy thinks I ought to close down the shop. It’s not doing well.”

This is by far the least significant incoming change in the story. Samantha and her shop never played a big part in the novel, and Samantha herself’s role in the novel is basically unchanged. But Rowling thought it was worth mentioning, so I might as well mention it. I honestly think she should have cut it, though.

2. Furthering the “wives at war with their husbands” theme.

One of the major elements of this novel that Rowling listed in its offical blurb is “wives at war with their husbands”, and it is interesting to examine the relationships of the couples in this book. Mary was dissatisfied and still has issues with her now-deceased husband, Gavin knows Kay isn’t the woman for him and she’s angry that he won’t say it to her face, Simon sees his wife as a perfect punching bag and she mindlessly praises him, and Shirley and Howard, mutually horrible people and having been together for presumably a long time, have no apparent relationship problems. As with Colin and Tessa, but to a much greater extent, both Miles and Samantha find each other to be unsatisfactory spouses. First we get a look in Miles’s third-person POV where we see his dissatisfaction with his wife, wishing she would show him more support and comfort for him when he’s worrying about the election. And we get more of Samantha’s just general dissatisfaction with her husband, fantasizing about the young boy band singer.

She closed her eyes, climbed on top of him, and imagined herself riding Jake on a deserted white beach, nineteen years old to his twenty-one. She came while imagining Miles watching them, furiously, through binoculars, from a distant pedalo.

This is just physically disgusting to me at this point.

X

It’s the morning of the election, which is a very good place to end the part. So will voters go for the cunt, or the twat?

It starts with Dr. Jawanda going to Colin’s house to go vote with him. This scene does a very good job showing the consequences of the events that have taken place in their plotlines recently, and it does a good job conveying their emotions, true-to-character. Most of all, it feels like a scene written for a movie and conveys a very pleasant sense of finality. I like how skillfully Rowling manipulates our emotions. When they laugh, we share their general mood. And we somehow grow so attached to them that when they “left with the sense that they had got away with something“, we, too, somehow feel the same way.

And then we cut to Miles taking time off from work to go vote, and then the third-person POV switches to Samantha’s. We get her brief thoughts about the store (you really shouldn’t keep such information about a person’s job from them), then she and Miles go off to vote.

Samantha entered the booth and stared down at the two names: Miles Mollison and Colin Wall, the pencil, tied to the end of a piece of string, in her hand. Then she scribbled “I hate bloody Pagford” across the paper, folded it over, crossed to the ballot box and dropped it, unsmiling, through the slot.
“Thanks, love,” said Miles quietly, with a pat on her back.

Although most of the story is profoundly belonging to a novel by the multitude of internal monologues, as Rowling herself has stated, this and the scene with Colin and Jawanda really does feel like a movie scene, doesn’t it? And I can see how Rowling looks at this book as a comedy. But it comes genuinely from the characters, at least in this section.

We get a brief overview of our characters’ attitudes regarding the voting (whether they did it or not), which is very in-character for them, and in Gavin’s case, provides information about his character.

But then we stay with Gavin who is unwillingly going to dinner with Kay even and looking forward to seeing Mary to tell her that the insurance company is giving in. (It annoys me that insurance companies are  portrayed in this negative light, due to a Cracked article I read naming it as an unfair cliché. But I’m sure there are certainly people who have had these problems, and I don’t want to diminish them.)

From upstairs came the insistent crash of drums and a loud bass line. Gavin was surprised that the neighbors were not complaining. Kay saw him glance up at the ceiling and said, “Oh, Gaia’s furious because some boy she liked back in Hackney has started going out with another girl.”

If Andrew finds out about that on her Facebook page, he’ll certainly regret writing that post. Consequences, indeed.

Gavin sits at the table while Kay finishes dinner and tries to talk with him over the noise of Lexie’s drums. All my prior superlatives apply. And Kay really does a make good point about Parminder, which is exactly why no one would ever do that in real life. I like how Rowling realizes the ridiculousness of it and that Kay has become knowledgeable about the affairs of Pagford after moving there.

We also get a hint at a possible change in the book in that Gaia may be going to move to live with her son.

It all seems to be going well with Kay believing Gavin is interested in her, but then without any warning, conflict strikes. She realizes how much he isn’t interested in her. And he finally decides to be brave and do the right thing: be honest with her.

“I didn’t want this to happen,” Gavin said earnestly. “I didn’t mean it to. Kay, I’m really sorry, but I think I’m in love with Mary Fairbrother.”

This had to happen eventually. We knew it, and he knew it. And this was the best point. I like the way both of their feelings are portrayed, particularly the stating of how Gavin thought this would have happened.

On the pavement, he experienced a rush of elation, and hurried to his car. He would be able to tell Mary about the insurance company tonight, after all.

I can see this as a comedy. But I only hope this will end well for him, as it cannot for Kay.

This is an excellent place for the part to end, with the only way this storyline could have progressed. I think the entire final section is excellent in the degree of bittersweet finality it exudes.

And in the next part we shall discover the results of the election, I suppose. It is fifteen sections, but I will try to write it and put it up as fast as I can. Until then, goodbye.

I Read “The Casual Vacancy – Part Three”

Glad to be back with you, ladies and gentlemen. Obama won his second term and is still our President, which I could have told you three years ago if you wanted to know.

PART THREE

Now, as we begin the third part of The Casual Vacancy, we are given another quote from the Local Council Administration: the definition of “duplicity”. It reads “A resolution should not deal with more than one subject…Disregard of this rule usually leads to confused discussion and may lead to confused action….”

This seemed to me to be a clever double-meaning: while the passage is a quotation of British law, it also sounds perfectly as if it is describing the proper way to write a book. But this is too early in the book for it to contain the “resolution”. But it couldn’t be referring to that law being used in this book! How could such an obvious double-meaning be completely unintentional? But there are FOUR WHOLE PARTS LEFT AFTER THIS!

Well, let’s start reading. It’s the only way it’ll ever make sense.

I

“…ran out of here, screaming blue murder, calling her a Paki bitch – and now the paper’s called for a comment, because she’s…”

This is such an excellent first sentence. We begin in medias res, and our minds are immediately fixated on whether the last end of the sentence would have been “dead”. We are forced to read on, and (after another scene that feels like it being played out in real life, but you know what, I’m not even gonna say that anymore, I’ll say it if it doesn’t at any point) we learn that that is the case.

“Yeah, I- I wasn’t – Laura already – I was coming to give you this note. The Yarvil and District Gazette’s rung. Mrs. Weedon’s died and one of her granddaughters is saying-”

I anticipated it, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. And that we would be gripped immediately upon opening this chapter to wonder whether or not that is the case. It’s just fantastic writing.

But then we get a scene with Howard in Jawanda’s office, and apart from establishing how much Jawanda loathes Howard (which we already know), it doesn’t seem to have any purpose except to establish that Howard knows that he’s greatly overweight and he doesn’t care or want to do anything about changing that. The only reason this 2 1/2-page long scene would be here is either to foreshadow health problems by Howard and a further heart attack by Howard, or it is a complete red herring done to make us anticipate Howard’s death.

As pointless as it would render the majority of this section, I would actually prefer the latter, as that would make the writing very clever. Add on to Shirley’s recollecting Howard’s heart attack and her subsequent thoughts about him and you have multiple set-up for something that never ends up happening. Of course, that would also render all of the “foreshadowing” entirely pointless.

II

When I first read this section, I viewed it as very strong, but I was disconnected from Terri’s emotions. I am no longer. Later in the very day that I read this section I received a call from my mother informing me that my adoptive grandfather died. Like Terri, it was 2 days late. Like Terri, I was not particularly close with him and it was not all an unexpected death.

However, it was not nearly as similar to Terri’s experience as you might think, and in fact very different. I had never been very close with him. He didn’t talk much and I don’t think we ever had any lengthy conversation, and I knew him for a far shorter time than Terri knew Nana Cath, and his death was expected for far longer than Nana Cath’s.

Rowling does a very good job describing Terri’s emotions and her recollections, and showing how she’s viewed in the community and the hurt of that. That’s all I can say about it. I put off writing about this due to the fresh sting of my emotions, but I realized that it would be best for me to write about them now while I still have them. I recognize my emotions are far different from Terri’s. There are probably many people who can identify far quicker, and my sole complaint, which is a strong one, is that they are forced to re-live such emotions seemingly very unnecessarily. Rowling has admitted to be obsessed with death and all her works reflect that. And while Barry’s death has a strong purpose to serve in the plot, Nana Cath’s appears to be just a random death at the moment included due to Rowling’s obsession with death, and you shouldn’t force so many people to relive those emotions if you don’t have a strong reason for it.

III

I’m always glad whenever we see Mary, and her relationship with Gavin is very interesting and well-depicted. The differences between Mary and Kay are very interesting and true-to-character.

Rowling does a very good job giving insight into these characters and their situation, thinking them through and getting involved in them.

It’s clear from the beginning that she has read Andrew’s post on the Parish Council blog, and it was very exciting to read. I like that Rowling kept us in suspense with no reactions to the Parish Council post for the next section of Part Two and the first two parts of this. Mary’s reaction is very realistic. Both Mary and Gavin’s reactions are interesting to compare: Mary believes that it may have actually been Barry, and is either devastated by the thought of him being alive as a ghost or by the thought that someone impersonated her husband. Gavin just dismisses it at as a sick joke. Many readers might miss the fact that Gavin doesn’t actually read the post, and it’s unclear whether Mary did. So we still have yet to see how people will react to the allegations.

I like that Barry and Mary’s marriage wasn’t perfect, and that Mary still has resentment towards him for many things, because this is probably true for many couples. Also, I think I have an idea how the Gavin plotline is going to develop somewhere now.

“Are you staying for dinner, Gav?” called Fergus.
“Do, if you want to,” said Mary.
A surge of warmth flooded him.
“I’d love to,” he said. “Thanks.”

IV

We are now with the Mollison group (Howard, Shirley, Miles, Samantha, and Maureen) talking about Nana Cath’s death, which still doesn’t appear to serve any immediate purpose in the plot, as it isn’t mentioned at all in at least the next three sections. It also felt a bit forced that the Mollisons would care about it, but Rowling explains it well with Howard’s family connections and how he knows everyone in town (except for Simon, of course).

We get the typical mental clash between them and the displaying of their personalities that you would guess and that we have become accustomed to. Also, they talk about how the Weedons are planning to sue Dr. Jawanda for giving Nana Cath the wrong medicine. This confused me when I read it. I don’t remember it ever being mentioned before and it seems like a pretty important plot-point. But Nana Cath’s allegations were childish and unfounded, right? It’ll be thrown out of court. The thing that really surprises me is Maureen’s statement that she denied an asthma-afflicted boy antibiotics. Dr. Jawanda has always appeared as nothing less than a purely professional doctor who does her job well, so these allegations have to be unfounded as well, right? Right?

But then the council post plot comes in!

Determined not to return to the room until Maureen had finished, Shirley turned into the study and checked to see whether anyone had sent in apologies for the next Parish Council meeting; as secretary, she was already putting together the agenda.

“Howard – Miles – come and look at this!”

It’s so exciting to see how these people will react to the news that it really bothered me that Rowling suddenly begins devoting the time to Samantha’s inner thoughts.

Why are you always here? Samantha asked the older woman loudly, inside her own head. You couldn’t make me lonely enough to live in Howard and Shirley’s pocket.

The last sentence of this is very confusing. I can’t make any sense of it at all. What does it mean? Granted, her inner fantasy about disposing of the house and Maureen is hilarious in its outrageousness. But then we get back to the present of them discovering the post.

Maureen’s mouth was slack with anticipation.

So is mine, so stop distracting me, Rowling. But then we get their uninterrupted reactions, which are very well done and entertaining to read. Miles and Howard have read the post and they reveal its contents to the others, who are unsure whether they are true or not, though Howard seems to believe so, as he tells Miles that they can’t have anything on him or they would have told it. And that letter makes me very curious. Howard suspects it is from the same source, but it seems doubtful Andrew cares enough about politics to write it. So who did write it? And is it going to be important later on, or is it a red herring?

Also, I enjoy how Samantha is the only one who guesses the truth at who wrote the post (someone unrelated to politics who just has a grudge against Simon), which they mock her for and dismiss as ridiculous. But it seems odd Samantha merely thinks “Oh, fuck off, Shirley“. Shirley’s behavior is rude enough to merit it.

Also, I enjoy how self-aware Rowling is, in saying what many would probably have mocked in spoofs and derisive reviews of this book:
They were all perfectly ridiculous, Samantha thought, sitting here in front of Shirley’s commemorative plates as if they were in the Cabinet Room in Downing Street, as though one bit of tittle-tattle on a Parish Council website constituted an organized campaign, as though any of it mattered.

But then we leave the present to suddenly delve into Samantha’s fantasies about the boy band singer her daughter listens to. It feels very strange that we suddenly delve into this, but we have ceased the main conversation about the council post, so it’s not a distraction. I just don’t understand what it could be leading up to. Samantha isn’t honestly going to leave Miles for the boy band singer, is she? It might make more sense for her obsessions to fall upon someone in the community who she knows, but I guess we’ll just have to see what it builds up to.

And then Ruth calls and Shirley tells her to look at the post. I love the way this is done and how well it leads right into the next section.

V

This section picks right up from the other one, which I honestly believe is the best way to do it. Rowling must have edited this section many times, and it shows. It’s done so well, Ruth reading the news, her reaction, and then having to tell Simon. I was on the edge of my seat when I read this. I especially like the subtle details. This is similar to the way I read, though not quite so extreme:

He was not a quick reader. He read every word, every line, painstakingly, carefully.

I had always been looking forward to Simon’s reaction, and Rowling doesn’t disappoint here. It’s perfectly in character for him, reacting exactly as one would expect him to. But I was shocked at the extent of his cruelty, with him becoming so enraged that he viciously attacks his wife for almost no reason:

He ran at her and hit her in the face, exactly as he had wanted to when he had first seen her silly frightened expression; her glasses spun into the air and smashed against the bookcase; he hit her again and she crashed down onto the computer table she had bought so proudly with her first month’s wages from South West General.

This really felt like a J.K. Rowling novel again. I’ve always enjoyed Rowling’s descriptions of madness, and Simon reminds me very much of Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter novels. In fact, if you switch the names in places, parts of this scene could easily be from a Harry Potter novel:

“This’ll cost me my job,” said Uncle Vernon, staring wild-eyed around the room, as if there might be somebody there he had forgotten to hit. “They’re already talking about reducancies. This’ll be it. This’ll-” He slapped the lamp off the end table, but it didn’t break, merely rolled on the floor. He picked it up, tugged the lead out of the wall socket, raised it over his head and threw it at Harry, who dodged.
“Who’s talked?” Uncle Vernon yelled, as the lamp base broke apart on the wall. “Someone’s talked!”
“It’s some bastard at the drillworks, isn’t it?” Harry shouted back; his lip was thick and throbbing; it felt like a tangerine segment. “D’you think we’d have-d’you think we don’t know how to keep our mouths shut by now?”
It was like trying to read a wild animal. He could see the muscles working in his uncle’s jaw, but he could tell that Uncle Vernon was considering Harry’s words.

In fact, there is a passage nearly exactly like the last one in Prisoner of Azkaban or Goblet of Fire. I’m not insulting the novel by any means. I bought it because it was a J.K. Rowling novel but it’s so different from her other books I’ve forgotten that it is by her most of the time.

I enjoyed Simon’s ignorance about the Internet, too. It reminds me of that episode of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends where Mr. Herriman thought he could get rid of an embarrassing video of him uploaded on the Internet by disconnecting the computer and monitor it was uploaded on and throwing them in a garbage can.

I really enjoy all of this, including the insights into Simon’s mind (one difference from the Harry Potter novels is we would mainly get insights only into Harry’s mind) and how he suspects the forklift driver. It really does happen the way it would, right down to Simon immediately getting up to leave to dispose of the evidence.

VI

Things denied, things untold, things hidden and disguised.

I love the eerie way this begins, showing us the consequences of the previous section, and then going to the present with Ruth asking Shirley to remove the post. I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask because the post reveals illegal activities. But Ruth says they are silly lies, so what can Shirley do? I would hate to be in her shoes.

I like Andrew’s insights in to his parents, but I think he is being too harsh in thinking Ruth should demand the post be removed. This could easily result in Shirley refusing to out of anger, and it would be suspicious. It’s best to be polite. Still, these are interesting observations and insights. Ruth is a coward or lying to herself.

I don’t understand why Andrew is saying that she should take the post down: “Did you tell her she could be in trouble for leaving defamatory stuff on there, if she moderates the boards?“ Why does he so quickly dismiss the allegations as falsehoods when he knows they are/were true? Shirley is under no legal obligation whatsoever to remove the post. The police should investigate this matter to see if these allegations are true.

Ruth is deluding herself believing her husband has any moral code at all.

And then we basically travel in time to a lunch between Vikram and Parminder Jawanda and Tessa and Colin Wall. It is interesting to see how Dr. Jawanda suspects Howard of having written the post. It does seem likely, when you consider how those phrases Dr. Jawanda notes do sound like something Howard would say. It’s funny how no one suspects the true culprit. Samantha and Tessa guess at it being someone unrelated to politics who Simon offended, but even they don’t suspect Simon Price’s son. Life is like that sometimes, I guess. The most improbable answer is the correct one.

We get mainly character details and some talk about what’s going on with the election plot, which is good. Parminder’s attitude regarding Howard and the council is done very well.

One detail: It bothers me how Tessa thinks about it being unfair that Dr. Parminder, who works hard, is greeted with hatred and suspicion while her husband, “who rarely joined or participated in anything” is loved by the community, just a few paragraphs after we are told Vikram works such long hours that he hardly has any time to spend on social activities.

I do enjoy the insight into Howard’s character (Why doesn’t he try to get on the District Council?). I don’t know what the real point of this, though. The fact that it is interrupted with so many insights and distractions and appears to have no central point is at all is driving me insane. We get a brief mention of the malpractice controversy with Dr. Jawanda, but she just burhses that off angrily saying she doesn’t want to talk about it. And this part where Colin reflects on being called at school is just strange. Was he called to ask if he had touched Krystal, or if someone else had touched Krystal? I’m going to assume Colin, but… it’s so strange. We never heard about him doing that. He doesn’t seem the type to do it. What relevance does it have to anything? It’s so strange. And look at this.

Colin had often imagined how he would find out that the game was up: a guarded article in the paper; faces turned away from him when he entered Mollison and Lowe’s; the headmistress calling him into her office for a quiet word. He had visualized his downfall a thousand times: his shame exposed and hung around his neck like a leper’s bell, so that no concealment would be possible, ever again. He would be sacked. He might end up in prison.

WHAT ON EARTH DID HE DO? This revelation that Colin has some horrible secret he has to hide or he’ll get arrested is so sudden and so bizarre. This section is trying to do too many things at once to the point that I can’t focus on any individual thing and I don’t think I’m supposed to, either, yet apparently I’m supposed to care. About what? One second, this, and then the next second, something entirely different.

I suppose the point is to give us insights into Colin and Tessa’s minds and their marital difficulties (wives at war with their husbands) which is done well. The revelation that Tessa has diabetes made me cringe, because my adoptive grandfather (the one who died) had diabetes and this greatly contributed to his death. I would probably be able to laugh at Fats’ behavior if it weren’t for that. As it is, I just can’t stand reading this, and I’m sorry that I cannot be objective.

I do like how Rowling highlights the differences in culture with Sikhs: how Dr. Jawanda is angry at her daughter for working instead of just letting her parents provide for her and getting married. However, she does want her to have a job someday and manage for herself which is the opposite of Vikram’s belief. Many authors would probably just portray foreigners having the same opinions as the British in these areas, but Rowling does not.

Just one more note. There’s one point where Tessa is about to say that all Fats cares about is computer games and cigarettes, but stops because Colin doesn’t have to I really have to wonder: why is she keeping this a secret, and why is she okay with it?

I take it this section was really just to show the conflicts with these characters and their lives and to talk some more about the election drama, and I honestly enjoyed it when I first read it. But having to go over it here to write about was torture.

VII

And now we go right back to an inside look at the Price drama. I liked how the last three sections naturally led into each other, and I wish that the last section had simply left off with Simon and Andrew and gone straight to the beginning of this, but I guess Rowling felt that the audience needed a break from them, and maybe she was right.

In any case, I think this is a very good section and much better than the mess that was the last section. I like the insight into Simon’s inner thoughts and how he is reacting. It’s done very well. It’s a bit surprising the police didn’t search the house, though. I suppose that if Shirley hadn’t been Ruth’s friend, Howard would have demanded the police have Simon Price investigated.

Andrew’s thoughts are portrayed well, too. The characters all react in-character to everything that happens, exactly how you would expect them to. And I have to admit I share Andrew’s disappointment, and his feelings. Rowling does a good job creating this sad, dismal mood, and then suddenly making it a victorious mood, but a quiet, restrained victory.

Then, without warning or fanfare, came victory. Heading down the dark stairs in search for food on Friday evening, Andrew heard Simon talking stiffly on the telephone in the sitting room, and paused to listen.
“…withdraw my candidacy,” he was saying. “Yes. Well, my personal circumstances have changed. Yes. Yes. Yeah, that’s right. OK. Thank you.”
Andrew heard Simon replace the receiver.
“Well, that’s that,” his father said to his mother. “I’m well out of it, if that’s the kind of shit they’re throwing around.”

Without warning or fanfare indeed! This is a major plot development, yet it happens so quickly, so suddenly and quietly. Now it is just Colin and Miles in the running. It is disappointing that all those funny political mishaps Andrew imagined for Simon never ended up happening. But Simon never had a chance anyway. I hope we will get into the election in the next section with debates between the candidates.

It’s strange that Simon asks his son to put up incriminating facts about Miles on the council board, since he dropped out. I suppose it’s solely out of revenge, but I wonder whether Andrew will actually do it if he finds anything. He might, just out of fun, but maybe he wouldn’t, out of spite for Simon. I can’t see where this is going, but I enjoyed Andrew’s inner feelings portrayed. The flashback to Simon’s reaction to Andrew’s job is odd, though. I don’t know why Rowling felt it was necessary.

There is eerie foreshadowing at the end of this section:
He thought that it was all over, finished, done with. Andrew had never yet had reason to observe the first tiny bubble of fermenting yeast, in which was contained an inevitable, alchemical transformation.

Oh my God what is going to happen? Is Simon going to start running again? I have absolutely no idea.

VIII

I think this is the first time in the book we get a POV of Gaia. The insights into her life and how she felt being forced to move to Pagford are very well done and believable. I’ve said this many times already, so that’s all I’ll say. Insight into Gaia’s friendship with Sukhvinder, Sukhvinder’s life, all very interesting and perfectly believable. The racial issues that minorities are forced to deal with are very well-portrayed. And their conversation is done well, although Gaia is giving Gavin too much credit thinking he’d have the courage to leave Kay.

Andrew Price was staring almost constantly at Gaia through a gap in the white faces all around them. Sukhvinder, who had noticed this, thought that Gaia had not, but she was wrong. Gaia was simply not bothering to stare back or preen herself, because she was used to boys staring at her; it had been happening since she was twelve.

After all the time we spent in Andrew’s POV ogling her, I was very glad to see this from her POV and learn her feelings about it.

We get some insight into Gaia’s romantic history. I guess it’s to show she’s not a virgin, but again it feels gratuitous bordering on Gruen. Is it to make a statement about how today’s generation has sex too early? Is it to spoil her allure for Andrew once he discovers that she’s not a virgin? It seems as if she still wants them to remain faithful to each other because she’s planning on going back to him, so it’s probably a way of showing that she isn’t going to be willing to start a relationship with Andrew.

And then we get some excitement. Krystal and her gang spot Sukhvinder from across the street and threaten her, blaming her mother for Nana Cath’s death. The situation is mainly well-portrayed, but it seems odd that she doesn’t explain the situation to Gaia, so she can defend her or keep her hidden.

If she could have died…if she could have disappeared forever…but the solid surface of things refused to dissolve around her, and her body, her hateful hermaphrodite’s body, continued, in its stubborn, lumpen way, to live… ……. Or she could walk in front of a car. She imagined it slamming into her body and her bones shattering. How quickly would she die, broken in the road? She still preferred the thought of drowning, of cool clean water putting her to sleep forever: a sleep without dreams…

Rowling does such a good job getting in depth and portraying her feelings that you feel so sorry for her. It sends an important message to any teen readers: DO – NOT – BULLY. (One of my fellow bloggers has spoken about this a great deal, and I feel no need to upstage him.)

The following scene with Tessa is done well. Rowling especially does a very good job portraying the subtleties involved in these characters’ inner relationships, which she somehow manages to keep straight.

IX

We get a lot of good insight into Kay’s feelings. This really is a largely character-driven story, and I respect her for being able to create such characters and keep them in character, with hardly any exceptions.

Kay goes to Colin’s house to speak with him about the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic. She wants to forge an alliance with him. It’s good to see the election plotline coming into play, and the characters’ interactions are done very well. Tessa’s believing Kay to be having an affair with Colin is random, though, as she realizes she was wrong just 4 paragraphs later.

I do feel happy for Colin, having an ally come to him like this. To be honest, I think Colin would make a good councilor. He believes in the same things Barry stood for and what Kay believes in. He has my vote.

And I feel sorry for Tessa having to deal with a son like Fats and now worrying that he’s dating Krystal Weedon on top of that. But the italicized “Demean himself? Is that it? Is that what you think?” is very strange. It seems like Rowling herself is saying this, much like Esther Forbes’ impassioned pleading to Rab in Johnny Tremain.

I enjoyed the scene with Fats, too, especially Tessa’s line “You ought to be a barrister, Stu”. After googling it, I discovered this is the English word for “lawyer”. I think she’s right.

Many people have disliked this book because they claim that none of the characters are likable or sympathetic. Read this page and half of the next. It’s just three good people getting along well with each other. It’s strange Kay says “It’s astounding she’s as sweet as she is”, though, because they all know she’s anything but sweet. She was planning to beat up a girl for something someone else did! (I hope Tessa did talk her out of that.) The meaning would seem to be that it’s astounding she isn’t more less sweet, but then why does Tessa become annoyed with Colin for being hypocritical?

A lot of people would probably dismiss it as gratuitous and not revealing any important information, but I liked the flashback with Barry, even though it does disrupt the narrative for a full three pages, because not much important is happening to pay attention to there. I liked seeing what Barry was like in detail like this. Many will note Rowling has a knack for creating likable characters so they can be mourned after they die — Cedric Diggory, Barry Fairbrother — but Barry is a very real person, and I enjoyed his interactions with Krystal. (He didn’t realize the truth behind his line of “You’ll have to give up the fags, Krystal”, did he? And when you consider Nana Cath’s death it may become very sad foreshadowing far beyond this book’s completion.)

The final sentence of this section makes me wonder, though. Why is Tessa feeling sick? Is she going to be the next “casual vacancy”?

X

We are back with Sukhvinder now. The opening sentence saying that “today, each was absorbed in their own particular thoughts” makes me very curious, considering we only hear about Sukhvinder’s. But her siblings’ thoughts were probably about much less important things.

Rowling does a very good job giving us insights into Sukhvinder’s mind. We do feel her feelings.

The material about this farm seems very random, though. I can’t imagine how it will be relevant being introduced this late. It’s very strange, and seems like filler.

I do feel sorry for Sukhvinder being made to feel so horribly inadequate by her mother. She doesn’t even get the chance to explain how Krystal was planning to beat her up, although Dr. Jawanda was probably told of it by Tessa and just doesn’t care. Too often parents are too quick to get angry at their children and far too unwilling to even attempt to see things from their point of view.

What had she expected? Warm, encircling arms and comfort? When had she ever been hugged and held by Parminder? There was comfort to be had from the razer blade hidden in her stuffed rabbit; but the desire, mounting to a need, to cut and bleed, could not be satisfied by daylight, with the family awake and her father on his way.
The dark lake of desperation and pain that lived in Sukhvinder and yearned for release was in flames, as if it had been fuel all along.

I understand depression, I have experienced depression, but I cannot understand, and will never understand why anyone would cut themselves. I’m sorry, human beings are complex and it just doesn’t make any sense to me. And if Sukhvinder is this depressed, why doesn’t she cut deep enough to kill herself? And why doesn’t Dr. Jawanda or Vikram or anyone else notice the scars on her wrists?

But then…….. oh my God. Oh my God. Sukhvinder hacks into the parish council website using the SQL injection she learned after taking the same class as Andrew, and hacks into the “Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother” user on the site!

THIS IS SO EXCITING!I think it’s very believable, too. Sukhvinder had the information to do this, she had the motive. The only thing hard to believe is that she would think to do this, but it isn’t ludicrous.

It took Sukhvinder much longer to compose the message than it had to hack into the site. She had carried the secret accusation with her for months, ever since New Year’s Eve, when she had noticed with wonder her mother’s face, at ten to midnight, from the corner of the party where she was hiding.

Okay. As exciting as this is, it seems so strange to me. We don’t know what Dr. Jawanda’s secret is, and Dr. Jawanda isn’t running for Barry’s seat. So this could cause her political harm, but it isn’t related to the main politics-centered plot. I think it would have been a better move to have Dr. Jawanda running as a candidate, but maybe this will turn out to be a brilliant move. Maybe this will all make sense. I’m eager to find out what Dr. Jawanda’s secret is, and what kind of results there will be of this.

XI

The final part centers around the Weedons. Nana Cath’s death wasn’t mentioned at all for three straight sections. But it has serviced the plot now, as it led to the furthering of Sukhvinder’s depression and the leaking of Dr. Jawanda’s secrets on the Parish Council website. And here in the final part it again comes into play, in what is probably the most final part of anyone’s death. The funeral. You go there, you cry, you remember them, you say goodbye, then you go home and you’re sad for a few days but you learn to live without them and it’s over. So it’s very fitting that this part opened with the beginning of this process and ended with the end. (Also, I assume they made arrangements to have Robbie taken out of school. This might cause trouble with Kay since he doesn’t end up going, yet stays home from school anyway.)

As she pulled up his least ripped trousers, which were a good two inches two short in the leg, she tried to explain to him who Nana Cath had been, but she might as well have saved her breath. Robbie had no memory of Nana Cath; he had no idea what Nana meant; no concept of any relative other than mother and sister.

This is very amusing to me because I do exactly this with my cat many times.

It was a bit surprising to me that Terri decided not to go. She seemed to be deeply mourning her and remembering the good things about her for the first time because of her death. But it is probably more realistic for her that she would bottle these feelings up and her anger would return.

I like Krystal’s bittersweet longing and mystique for Anne-Marie and what it adds to the story. (It’s a bit similar to my baby cousin Rosemary who was born last month and who I have yet to see a picture of but not nearly to this extent at all.)

It was good to get some background on how Krystal found out. Sukhvinder was right and very intelligent in her reasoning that it must have been explained to Krystal, and she even got the person right. (Dr. Jawanda does not give her enough credit.) I like that this is the only time that the narrative is interrupted. The main sequence of events which we are supposed to be following and invested in is left un-interrupted after this. Also good to know she’s decided not to go after Sukhvinder.

It’s disappointing she decided not to go to the funeral with Robbie. I assume they made arrangements to have Robbie taken out of school for the funeral, and the fact that he didn’t go might cause trouble with Kay. It is a very redeeming character trait that she feels so much love for her brother that she is this passionate about keeping her mother off drugs, but since Obbo doesn’t arrive until after the funeral is long over, she really should have gone. (Rowling probably didn’t want to write another funeral scene, though, because she was afraid of seeming repetitive.)

But this is where we get to Obbo. Obbo has been spoken of often in this book, but this is the first time we actually meet him.

Although she had told him to stay put, Robbie had followed Krystal downstairs. She could smell his shampooed hair over the smell of fags and stale sweat that clung to Obbo in his ancient leather jacket. Obbo had had a few; when he leered at her, she smelled the beer fumes.

Yeah, he’s basically exactly how we imagined him.

I like that Terri does genuinely want to get off drugs and is panicked when she believes the clinic is being shut down, and she isn’t angered by Krystal’s insistence to Obbo that Terri doesn’t want anything. In the end she just excuses herself to go to bed.

[Krystal] heard the front door close and felt triumphant. “See yeh.”

So it seems like it’s all over. Terri’s still clean, won’t lose Robbie, Obbo is gone. All is right with the world.

“You got a lovely arse, Krystal.”
She jumped so violently that a plate slipped off the heaped side and smashed on the filthy floor. He had not gone, but had followed her. He was staring at her chest in its tight T-shirt.
“Fuck off,” she said.

What the what the. Oh, no. No, no. No, no, ohhh noooo.

His hand was on her left breast. She tried to knock it away; he seized her wrist in his other hand. Her lit cigarette grazed his face and he punched her, twice, to the side of the head; more plates shattered on the filthy floor and then, as they wrestled, she slipped and fell; the back of her head smacked on the floor, and he was on top of her: she could feel his hand at the waistband of her tracksuit bottoms, pulling.
“No – fuck – no!”
His knuckles in her belly as he undid his own fly – she tried to scream and he smacked her across the face – the smell of him was thick in her nostrils as he growled in her ear, “Fuckin’ shout and I’ll cut yer.”
He was inside her and it hurt; she could hear him grunting and her own tiny whimper; she was ashamed of the noise she made, so frightened and so small.

Okay what what what just happened Krystal just got raped.

I mean, jeez, I can’t even say I was shocked by this. It just happened so quickly I was just like “Okay, this is happening. Yeah, yeah.”

Again, Rowling does not feel it necessary to describe the rape in graphic detail. She’s not writing porn. She shrugs it through it and focuses on Krystal’s feelings, so that no one could possibly enjoy Krystal’s experience or accuse Rowling of enjoying it.
She was shaking as she had never done in her life. She thought she might be sick; she could smell him all over her. The back of her head throbbed; there was a pain inside her, and wetness seeping into her pants. She ran out of the room into the living room and stood, shivering, with her arms wrapped around herself; then she knew a moment of terror, that he would come back, and hurried to the front door to lock it.

But how how what is Krystal going to do. This is traumatizing. And I love Terri’s reaction. She can’t believe Obbo would do this. She can’t accept it. And I can’t imagine what she is going to do next.

Krystal doesn’t know what to do next, either. She just runs out the door. Just has to get away.

Some people would have gone to the police, she knew that; but you did not invite the police into your life when your mother was Terri Weedon.

This is probably the most flawless section in the book. Rowling puts Krystal’s inner monologues in the place where they should be. It doesn’t distract us from the plot because Krystal doesn’t know where she’s going, and she’s trying to figure it out. I love how Rowling portrays her feelings, erratic, she wishes she had Barry to tell, Nana Cath to go to. Good people like Barry Fairbrother and Nana Cath die but scum like Simon Price and Obbo live on.

(Rowling writes that Terri “liked and trusted nobody“. The exception is Obbo, who is probably the only person she has met in the book who she shouldn’t like or trust.)

And then the answer came to her, as though Mr. Fairbrother had shown her the way.

If she got knocked up by Fats Wall, she would be able to get her own place from the council. She would be able to take Robbie to live with her and the baby if Terri used again. ……

She would lose Fats in getting pregnant; they always went, once you were expecting; she had watched it happen nearly every time in the Fields. But perhaps he would be interested; he was so strange. It did not matter much to her either way. Her interest in him, except as the essential component in her plan, had dwindled to almost nothing. What she wanted was the baby: the baby was more than a means to an end. She liked babies; she had always loved Robbie. She would keep the two of them safe, together; she would be like a better, kinder, younger Nana Cath to her family.

Oh my God oh my God this all happened so QUICKLY.My brain can’t even register this. Finally I have gotten to the point where I can see why this novel was described as “endlessly surprising”.

When I read the final section of this part, I felt an overwhelming sense of finality to it for the first time, like this was a big deal. (I went in the garage and into the car to read it and sat there in the dark with only the built-in car light to see by. And eventually that turned off at the end.) And Rowling certainly delivered. So much happened in this part! Nana Cath died, Gavin is becoming closer to Mary, Simon read the post on the parish council site and dropped out of the race, Colin is being accused of inappropriately touching Krystal and is hiding some horrible secret, Dr. Jawanda is being sued, Sukhvinder’s depression worsened and she uploaded some mysterious secret of Dr. Jawanda’s on the Parish Council website, and Krystal just got raped. Things really are happening. My brain can hardly process it. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE NEXT PART?

The Casual Vacancy

“Life, what is it but a dream?”

- Final lines of Through the Looking Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll

I am reading her first book about politics, but J.K. Rowling has always written about the casual vacancy. Farther back than any of us realized, with Quirrell. His death was sudden, announced by Dumbledore. True, he was a villain, but that didn’t make it any less so.

Goblet of Fire is the quintessional example, however. From the past to the present, to the middle, to the end, all throughout, there is nothing but the casual vacancy. We hardly ever get a break.

I am sure there are casual vacancies in the final three. I have been spoiled for them, though I have not read them.

This book is the first time, however, that Rowling actually named her book “The Casual Vacancy”, and spoke personally about the casual vacancy.

Barry Fairbrother was the first example, obviously. Though I have not completed it, in the chapter I am reading, Nana Cath, too, has died. It is not a casual vacancy in this case, but it is nevertheless a vacancy,and its suddenness has the effect in the characters of a “casual vacancy”.

Tom Riddle, Sr., Mr. Riddle, Mrs. Riddle, Frank Bryce, Cedric Diggory, Bartemius Crouch, Sr., Bartemius Crouch, Jr., Barry Fairbrother, Nana Cath. I read of all of these characters’ deaths without any special feeling. I read the characters’ mourning of them merely with thoughts that the reactions were realistic. I did not feel their suffering. Now, now I do. I knew how real Gavin’s reaction to his friend’s death was, but I didn’t feel his pain. Now I do.

I received a call not one hour ago from my father informing me that my adopted grandfather has passed away.

It isn’t much of a shock, really. Every time you looked at him you had the feeling he would be dead soon. He had diabetes, but he smoked constantly, and never quit as far as I know. Once he passed out on the floor and my grandmother had to give him an insulin injection. His memory was weak to the extent that he at one point forgot about the police coming around for some reason, or I believe it was kept for him. It was a confusing matter, and I was young.

And I didn’t know him very well, either. I just learned that he was born in 1955 and where he went to high school by looking at his obituary.

All he did was sit in his arm chair and watch TV and smoke cigarettes every time I went there. Occasionally he would hobble around.

I expected this to happen, really. I imagined it happening. I imagined many people’s deaths recently, and my being informed of them, and I wondered how I would react when they happened in real life. During my recent battles with depression, I told myself that I wanted to live to see everybody else die. I thought of this when my new cousin was born a few days ago. And now I’ve got a start on it.  I imagined going in to see them and asking Nana where he was. And she told me, “Papaw died.” And I would kneel before the chair where he so often sat.

I knew it would be reality some day. I wondered even today of the day when my grandparents’ smoking would catch up with them. Granted, I haven’t heard that he died from smoking yet, but it’s likely this is the case.

I thought  in the recent days about when do people die of smoking. I looked up the ages of the famous people who’ve died of smoking. Nearly all the cases are in 60s and 50s. The youngest I found were George Orwell at 45 and Jim Varney at 50. And my grandfather was 57, as I just found out now.

I imagined in recent days my sister saying that people act like smoking will kill you, but Mom, Nana, and Papaw are still alive. (She probably wouldn’t have said this in real life as she is very anti-smoking.) And I imagined that I told her to be quiet not to say that because she’ll jinx them and it’s very likely it’ll end up happening. And there, she laughed me off.
And I imagined that he would die, I wondered when it would happen, I imagined what it would be like when it happened, I thought even when I was looking at him he would die and I wondered whether he knew it. And today I thought that before I got the call, and I thought that he must think that he will die but at the same time be unable to take it seriously because he is alive, and I wondered when he would die. When the call came I wondered whether she would be informing me of his death. I had imagined her calling me to inform me of many people’s deaths, Nana’s, Papaw’s, and their dog’s (individually), and I wondered whether she might not call me at all, that she might forget, I worried. And I don’t know about the dog. I’ll ask.

I dreamed that my aunt had fallen on the sidewalk outside her house and broken her head a few weeks ago. Then I woke up and I went to my father and told him I wanted to see my aunt. He was awkward, and I knew it had come true. Then I woke up. I have seen her since then, she left a phone message, but she is almost seventy, and she is overweight, and her mother died at 77. I felt like it was real. I felt as if it had happened, that my dream had a premonition, and it has been. I imagined myself being informed of Papaw’s death, too, and I wondered what it would be like when it really happened, when I really got a call informing me that someone I know had died. And now it has happened. This is the real life. And yet I do not feel the suffering I did in my dream for my aunt! I feel like this is the dream, and I felt like that dream was real life when it happened! (My page quote is from Through the Looking Glass, a book which I will soon finish. And as all this lines up, I wonder is the afterlife real? Is there a higher power? I have suspected not, but I cannot be sure now.)

This may be because I was not close with him like I am with my aunt, and I will likely be equally grieved when she passes away in real life.

Yet I think, what little difference there is between the real world and the dream world, and your own imagination. And as I ran out down the road, across the pond and saw that it is all still there even as many died while I stood, how everything is exactly the same, as Pete Campbell on Mad Men did after his father’s death as I learned from TV Tropes and which I have been thinking about very much since then, and how nothing really matters, a theme brought up in Calvin & Hobbes strips I read before going to bed early that morning, which I had been thinking about before then, but which I had not thought of when I had read them the first time years before, and even two years ago. And I watched the new Big Bang Theory episode this week where, in a rare serious moment,  Leonard pondered whether the world is just one hologram flickering at the end of the universe. I don’t know, maybe. It’d make as much difference.

I won’t be able to read the book for a while now. Please don’t be angry at me that I’m not reading “The Casual Vacancy”. I can’t, because I am living “the casual vacancy”.

I Read “The Casual Vacancy – Part Two”

We have finished Part One now, and the rest of the book is divided solely into sections of Parts 2 – 7. The reason is clearly that restricting an entire chapter’s events to one day was becoming too confining, and this chapter goes through several days to allow for a faster pace.

This is Part Two. I know! Already, we’re so close to the end!

PART TWO

The new part begins with the term “fair comment” defined in the Local Council Administration.

A very important law. I wonder how it will relate to events in the story.

I

Now  we get the depressing, solemn, excellent, writing about Barry Fairbrother’s death that I expected from the last one! It’s as if she was deliberately playing with our expectations, although I wouldn’t go so far as to believe that’s the case.

This is a writing style I don’t think Rowling has used since the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. We abandon all perspectives now, and simply get the voice of the “omniscient narrator” writing about the town. It’s wonderful, beautiful writing, but then something related to the plot comes in very shockingly in its suddenness.

A copy of the Yarvil and District Gazette stuck out of Mrs. Catherine Weedon’s door in Hope Street for three days, until it became sodden and illegible. Finally, social worker Kay Bawden tugged it out of the letterbox, peered in through the rusty flap and spotted the old lady spread-eagled at the foot of the stairs. A policeman helped break down the front door, and Mrs. Weedon was taken away in an ambulance to South West General.

WHAM. Barry’s isn’t going to be the only death, is it? However, this vacancy doesn’t appear as if it will be very casual. As human nature is mutable, so is human death, I suppose.

And after this we get yet more brief description of the Square and then the perspective goes to Howard in his study. We get some interesting material about the election that furthers the plot and then more material about Nana Cath’s collapse.

I’m glad to see the election plot being furthered. We are getting ever closer.

II

We now go to Miles and Gavin at their legal firm. Again, these events don’t feel scripted. It feels like things naturally playing out as Miles excuses himself and goes to Howard’s deli and waits in the back room to speak with Howard. Their conversation feels natural, too, well written. But… there’s not much of a point to it, and it’s kind of a drag to read. I don’t know. I like to see more of the political plot forming, and it’s good to see some of it being set in motion.
III

But we have completely abandoned the politics plot as we go to Gavin and Kay in Gavin’s kitchen. I suppose the logic was that we had just seen Gavin at the beginning of work and followed Miles, so now we should go with Gavin.

The psychological insights are very good and interesting. This relationship is depicted very well, but I just can’t see where it’s going. You can’t do much with it except write this scene over and over again.

Also, I thought Gavin was having an affair with Kay, but he doesn’t appear to have a wife, and Kay doesn’t appear to have a husband, since

Gavin appears to have an ex-girlfriend or an ex-wife named Lisa, but what’s the problem? It’s just that Gavin doesn’t want Kay, I guess?

I really like how intricately connected all this is, but… well, what do I say? Blah blah blah, good psychological insights, good relationship depicted, nice to know more about Barry, it’s like a real conversation, but where can it go, everything I’ve said before, let’s move on.

IV

Now we are firmly in the 2nd-person POV of Samantha. Rowling is giving us a lot of insight into the female mind and dysfunctional relationships. I didn’t really think Samantha was such a petty person, though, but I wouldn’t say it’s out-of-character.

Miles goes off to dinner with the Fawleys and his parents, and Samantha is home alone. The scene is done well, and then we get more insight into problems in Samantha’s life with the shop. And then in parenetheses we are given the full story of how Samantha married Miles, why. It provides a good explanation for her dissatisfaction with her marriage. She, too, is in a relationship just as bad as Kay and Gavin’s, and we can tell why and sympathize with her, though not as much as Gavin, since she isn’t as sympathetic a character. (In fact, Shirley and Howard are the only couple that don’t appear to have any relationship problems. They’re both selfish, horrible people, so I guess they get along fine.)

The subsequent conversation with Miles and Samantha is done well, with the reasons for her dissatisfaction seemingly complex. How does him being on the council cause this? But at the end it makes perfect sense.

The council: if he got on it, he would never get off; he would never renounce his seat, the chance to be a proper Pagford big shot, like Howard. He was committing himself anew to Pagford, retaking his vows to the town of his birth, to a future quite different from the one he had promised his distraught new fiancée as she sat sobbing on his bed.

When had they last talked about traveling the world?? She was not sure. Years and years ago, perhaps, but tonight Samantha decided that she, at least, had never changed her mind. Yes, she had always expected that some day they would pack up and leave, in search of heat and freedom, half the globe away from Pagford, Shirley, Mollison and Lowe, the rain, the pettiness and the sameness. Perhaps she had not thought of the white sands of Australia and Singapore with longing for many years, but she would rather be there, even with her heavy thighs and her stretch marks, than here, trapped in Pagford, forced to watch as Miles turned slowly into Howard.

And I have a feeling these feelings are going to lead up to something in the plot, too.

This is the best section in this chapter so far. I honestly enjoyed it, and think it is done very well. (Although the “Masionic handshake” comparison is very strange, as another reviewer pointed out. Perhaps it would be more familiar to native readers.)

I said starting this that every 9-year-old in the country was going to read this book, and I certainly hope not, because they will be very disappointed. The target audience for Rowling’s Harry Potter  novels will likely find this book very boring, and I imagine many of them have and will simply toss the book their parents foolishly bought them under the delusion that it would be “just like Harry Potter” in the garbage in anger. This is subtle writing for adults, and is written to be appreciated by adults, and mature teenagers.

V

Alison Jenkins, the journalist from the Yarvil and District Gazette, had at last established which of the many Weedon households in Yarvil housed Krystal.

Glad to see Krystal’s interview isn’t going to be abandoned, after all! But unfortunately Krystal isn’t home when the reporter arrives and Terri doesn’t trust the reporter and doesn’t confirm that Krystal lives there, so Krystal has an argument with her and goes off to the mall with her friends.

As you would expect, someone (her aunt Danielle) then calls to tell her about Nana Cath in the hospital. She had a stroke, but is still alive. All the same, I have a feeling she will be the next vacancy.

Sara Gruen would have taken us to the hospital in a paragraph with a one-sentence line about how sad Krystal is or how she can’t believe it, and then we’d just walk through the rest without any actual human insight. Rowling is about as far from that as is humanly possible. As Krystal takes the bus to the hospital, we are told how she feels about the idea of Nana Cath dying, a history of death in her life, and her relationship with Nana Cath. With the exception of the first, all were shown previously, but it is good to get elaboration. This is very interesting, compelling writing. I like that she gets in depth, and lets us know what she’s experiencing.

There is one part that reminds me extremely of Gruen’s writing and bothers me a lot, though:
Krystal never knew whether she and her Tully cousins were supposed to be on speaking terms or not, and no longer bothered keeping track, but she spoke to Dane whenever she ran across him. They had shagged, once, after splitting a bottle of cider out on the rec when they were fourteen. Neither of them had ever mentioned it afterwards. Krystal was hazy on whether or not it was legal, doing your cousin. Something Nikki had said had made her think that maybe it wasn’t.

I’m sorry. What? WHAT? Many reviewers have said that this book felt like Rowling threw too adult material in just for the sake of writing an adult novel, and this is one of the first times I felt that way, too. Krystal had sex with her cousin, and this is just mentioned casually, for no reason, as if it’s no big deal. If this becomes important later on, I’ll apologize. But right now it is extremely glaring.

All the same I do like this section. Krystal’s experience is very well explored. I liked how we got to know so much more about her family. And the subtle detail that Rowling recognized the steps a journalist would have to take to locate Krystal and brought it up again in the logical place (Danielle mentions a journalist calling about her).

And the scene with Krystal in Nana Cath’s bedroom is very emotional, but I wish we got a little more of Krystal’s emotions in it. It’s very annoying how the action is cut to give us more family history, which should have been given before Krystal and her aunt entered the room. Nothing should disturb this emotional scene with Nana Cath’s bedroom or it cannot make its full impact. But once that stops, the scene does manage to be fairly moving.

“Yeah,” she whispered to Nana Cath. “Yeah, I goes rowin’, Nana.”
But it was no longer true, because Mr. Fairbrother was dead.

One brief remark: I thought it was strange when we were first told way back on Monday that the rowing team would be canceled because of Barry Fairbrother’s death. I can’t help but think that the rowing teacher would be replaced. I know it would take time, and maybe it was just a thing Barry set up?

VI

We are immediately swept into a scene with Andrew and Fats, where we learn how Simon reacted to Andrew informing him of his mistake.

He and his father had been in the woodshed, filling the baskets that sat on either side of the wood burner in the sitting room. Simon had hit Andrew around the head with a log, knocking him into the pile of wood, grazing his acne-covered cheek.
D’you think you know more about what goes on than I do, you spotty little shit? If I hear you’ve breathed a word of what goes on in this house—-
I haven’t—
I’ll fucking skin you alive, d’you hear me? How do you know Fairbrother wasn’t on the fiddle too, eh? And the other fucker was the only one dumb enough to get caught?

I found this very interesting to read. This is a perfect in-character reaction from Simon and I’m glad it was included. I thought Andrew might simply decide not to tell him for fear of this reaction, which would have been smarter.

And now excitement comes.

Sabotage. Andrew brooded on the word. He wanted to bring his father crashing down from the heights to which his dreams of easy money had raised him, and he wanted to do it, if at all possible (for he preferred glory without death), in such a way that Simon would never know whose maneuverings had brought his ambitions to rubble.

I love all of it. The story is finally going somewhere. The political intrigue is going to be excellent, I can tell. This is great writing setting up great writing. However, this theme seems to end so abruptly. Rowling writes “But then came the hour that changed everything“, and the story changes to telling about him going into town to stalk Gaia to Mollison and Lowe. The scene is portrayed well, again like it’s playing out rather than being written for a book, and I like how it cleverly kills 2 birds with 1 stone for Andrew: Simon can’t tell him to get a job anymore, and now he has a chance to get to know Gaia.

(Also It’s a bit odd how Howard seems to be almost attracted to Gaia. I get that he wants a cute teen waitress, but the way it is written is awkward.)

And we learned that Gaia actually does know Andrew exists. She has noticed him and identified him at least. The revelation that Andrew had a near-death experience was a bit odd, though. You’d think that would be a bigger issue for him.

The writing of Andrew going up the hill is very good. Things are going right for Andrew, and instead of how Gruen made us feel Jacob’s happiness with how things are going for him by simply having him tell us that was how he felt, we are told how things are going well for Andrew and coupled with the detailed description of his mood and the effect the writing goes us, we share his feelings.

VII

This is a character-driven story, and these are characters. Consistent characters, well-done characters (also well-done puns; but “Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders” isn’t really the name of their store, is it? It just can’t be!).

I’m glad to see Mary again. I think that this story should focus more on her. I mean we get a lot about how everyone else reacts to Barry Fairbrother’s death, but only a few short scenes and snippets of Barry’s family’s reactions. I suspect this was intentional on Rowling’s part, perhaps that this would be a challenge or unexpected to focus more on how everyone else reacted.

The problem with this book is I find that I really have no choice but to say the same things over and over again. These are good scenes that feel as if they are playing out rather than having been scripted, and these are very good characters.

And that’s what I think of this section, too. The dialogue especially is good, how the characters clash is good. Although I have to say it is very annoying that one whole page is given to a parenteses conversation between Kay and Gaia in the past. I know that it gives us insight into them and their relationship, but it’s so distracting from the situation that I vow I will never do anything like this again. (Seriously, that fanfic user couldn’t get through my short story because I wrote mere sentences of this. If he ever opens this book he will not be able to get anywhere close to the end.)

But once we get back to the situation it plays out well, very naturally and very in-character for all. And this was hilarious:
Kay experienced a powerful stab of fury: Mary might be recently bereaved, but Gavin’s solicitousness seemed unnecessarily pointed. She had imagined this evening quite differently: a foursome in which Gavin would have to acknowledge that they really were a couple; yet nobody looking on would imagine that they enjoyed a closer relationship than acquaintanceship. Also, the food was horrible.

Seriously, I laughed so hard at that. Then I read it again, out loud, and laughed again. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Hilarious. (I was in the garage, so I couldn’t be heard.)

This also serves to develop Kay and Gavin’s relationship, though. They’re in a horrible relationship and a horrible situation. And how is it going to develop from here? Gavin is too weak to tell Kay how he feels. So naturally Kay has to realize Gavin doesn’t want her and she has to instigate the fall-out, and then we’ll see where that leads.

Also, I like how naturally the argument between Kay and Miles starts. It is very well-written and it touches on social issues and shows why people like Miles are wrong, and the thing that annoys me is how it ends. This isn’t to say that I am annoyed because it is a bad ending to the argument, it’s a very good one and does a realistic job of showing how people in arguments act. For someone who believes that human nature is greatly mutable, Rowling portrays it here the way it is for the majority of the people.

Kay won. She obviously won beyond any doubt, and this gives a good example of what arguments are pointless in the first place. The vast majority of people will never accept that they have lost an argument. It is obvious that Miles has lost the argument. He cannot think of any flaw in the principle of Kay’s argument, so he argues that the very idea of principles is flawed. His behavior is so utterly childish it is hilarious. If this were so, he would simply have to pick a flaw with her principle! He argues that common sense is what is needed instead, yet he is unable to prove that Kay’s argument is not common sense! Even going along with Miles’ idiot logic, playing on his rules, Kay comes up with a comeback that destroys him and, again, wins the argument beyond any reasonable doubt.

And then their arrogant idiot 14-year-old daughter suddenly walks in and says this: “According to Neitzsche, philosophy is the biography of the philosopher.“

Where do I begin with this? Okay, first of all: NEITZSCHE – WAS – A – PHILOSOPHER. If this statement is taken as the truth, it is not prove that all philosophy is invalid. It’s actually a good defense of philosophy. Why on earth would anyone be crippled in thinking about philosophy by CONTINUALLY WATCHING IT PLAY OUT IN FRONT OF THEM FOR THEIR WHOLE LIVES INSTEAD OF JUST THINKING ABOUT IT IN PURELY PROFESSIONAL TERMS THAT CANNOT – BE – PROVEN?! Your personal experiences provide you with an excellent idea of what philosophy is!

I had never heard of Neitzsche before I read this, but he was clearly a very intelligent man. Lexie Mollison is anything but. She read this quote somewhere, memorized it, and decided to bring it up here in blind defense of her parents in the blind belief that it would deconstruct their argument perfectly so that she would look intelligent. I’ve talked about how Rowling’s characters are well done, and even this random one who we only meet for five paragraphs at the beginning of a page is, as well. I don’t know if this was Rowling’s intention or not, but if so, she did a masterful job of creating a character. We get a good idea of who she is in her opening sentence, and she only needs to be developed further in the next three sentences. And after we have read those four sentences, the reader and every psychologist knows exactly who this girl is. She is an arrogant, pathetic psuedo-intellectual idiot, and I want to punch her in the face every second I read about her.

Kay, on the other hand, is clearly a very intelligent woman, and she would no doubt have had many excellent retorts to that if she had not been shocked and taken off guard by the suddenness and randomness of it, and how quickly Lexie left.

But once she has made no response, once Lexie has left, the argument is over. Kay won, but the Mollisons childishly threw together idiotic reasons why she didn’t, and now they are happy in the belief that they won. Which demonstrates why arguments are futile in the first place. You cannot win an argument with idiots because idiots are too stupid to understand when they have lost the argument.

Now that I’m done with that no doubt annoying rant, I just have one more thing left to say about this section: I like how Gavin does exactly what Kay is telling him off for practically while she does it. I don’t know whether it’s as an expression of defiance or because he simply can’t help himself. Either one is consistent for him.

VIII

I really liked the intriguing way the last section ended. Is Gavin attracted to Mary? Is he going to leave Kay for Mary and in that case, is he going to repeat this horrible relationship with her at the same time he hasn’t ended his one with Kay and thus make things a zillion times worse? And I really like how naturally this section flows into the next. As far as I remember, Rowling has never done that until this point, and she does a very good job of it here.

As well as being a good lead-in and starter, it gives us a good insight into Colin’s character, but at the same time we wonder if he’s right.

Rowling also did a good job developing the political plot in Colin’s case. It’s in character for him, and it’s interesting to see how the political intrigue is being developed.

I liked that he went down to talk to Tessa as I thought he had decided against it. The following conversation is done well and it is in-character. And then we get a 2nd-person POV of Tessa. It gives us a little more insight as to Mary’s relationship with Gavin and furthers the details of her dislike of Colin. I thought that was interesting when it was first mentioned at Barry Fairbrother’s funeral, and I thought it was equally interesting here. (Again, I think that it is a good way of giving us this information when there is no immediate situation that it is interrupting. We get only a brief 3-paragraph return to Colin and Mary from the “omniscient narrator” perspective.

But Colin’s only understanding of love was of limitless loyalty, boundless tolerance: Mary had fallen, irreparably, in his estimation.

Not only is this beautiful writing, but it develops Colin’s character and his conflict with his wife (“wives at war with their husbands“) and Mary. This may have solved Tessa’s problem now, too. Colin doesn’t seem to like Mary very much any more, either.

IX

I’ve said Rowling spends a lot of time telling us about the characters that distracts from the situation, but here I think she does it well. We’re given a situation that furthers Simon as a control freak and Andrew as hating him but doing everything to avoid offending him. And I know this is far from the first time she’s done it, but I felt it deserved mentioning.

And we’re kept in the situation without any distractions except for a brief sentence giving us insight to Ruth, which we can read quickly, absorb, without being taken out.

Also, Andrew’s anxiety is done very well. He has a piece of paper in his pocket that he is going to use to bring down Simon somehow. It’s so exciting. I love that the plot is really beginning to take off.

I know that this insight disrupts the plot and there should have been a better place for mentioning it, but at least here no real situation has begun. And I found it very interesting:
Andrew accepted the convention that Fats’ parents were laughable. Tessa was plump and plain, her hairstyle was odd and her dress sense embarrassing, while Cubby was comically uptight; yet Andrew could not help but suspect that if the Walls had been his parents, he might have been tempted to like them. They were so civilized, so courteous. You never had the feeling, in their house, that the floor might suddenly give way and plunge you into chaos.

The page-long flashback sequence to illustrate why Tessa dislikes Simon is very annoying, but I don’t see where the better place for it is. Maybe it will become essential later if Tessa discovers Andrew’s scheme.

Also, this seems out-of-character for Fats:

Fats courted Simon these days. Whenever he came up to Hilltop House, he went out of his way to make Simon laugh; and in return, Simon welcomed Fats’ visits, enjoyed his crudest jokes, liked hearing about his antics. Still, when alone with Andrew, Fats concurred wholeheartedly that Simon was a Grade-A, 24-karat cunt.

But that’s so disgustingly inauthentic. Maybe that’s the point of giving us the flashback, though. Fats is so frightened by Simon he can’t help but be inauthentic?

The build-up to what Andrew is planning is done  very well, and it is only interrupted by insight into Simon’s campaign, which is interesting to know to compare how he is doing with Colin. The answer is: a lot better, but that may be about to change. And then we get conversation about the campaign. This campaign is beginning, and I’m glad to see this.

Also, I thought this was funny:

“Miles Mollison’s wife got gigantic tits,” said Fats.
An elderly woman sitting in front of them turned her head to glare at Fats. Andrew began to laugh again.
“Humongous bouncing jubblies,” Fats said loudly, into the scowling, crumpled face. “Great big juicy double-F mams.”
She turned her red face slowly to face the front of the bus again. Andrew could barely breathe.

This reminds me of Fred and George in the Harry Potter series. In fact, I have a suspicion that Andrew and Fats do all the things that Rowling considered too adult for Fred and George to do.

And then…. I got very invested in this. I was on the edge of my seat. And thankfully none of it is interrupted by flashbacks or insights. This is the political drama right here, that I expected from this book. And it is excellent. I love it all. Andrew hacks into the city council website in an Internet café and creates this post on the board under the name of “The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother”:

Aspiring Parish Councillor Simon Price hopes to stand on a platform of cutting wastful council spending. Mr. Price is certainly no stranger to keeping down costs, and should be able to give the council the benefit of his many useful contacts. He saves money at home by furnishing it with stolen goods – most recently a PC – and he is the go-to man for any cut-price printing jobs that may need doing for cash, after senior management has gone home, at the Hartcourt-Walsh Printworks.

This is as exciting to me as it is to the characters, because this situation is done so well and realistically and believable. I can’t wait to see how everyone reacts to the post, especially Simon.

X

As was done in the previous two sections, the last section leads right into this one. I like that method a lot and how Rowling does it. In fact, I wish she would do it for all of them, but I suppose that’s hardly possible.

I like that the last section was from Andrew’s POV following him, now Andrew leaves and we get Fats’s POV following him.

It was a good decision to begin by showing us Fats’s inner thoughts about the situation. They’re thoroughly in-character and interesting, which is essential to making us care about the story, and which Rowling has done a good job at both here and in the four Harry Potter books that I have read.

Yes, Simon was a shit, but he was undoubtedly an authentic shit; he did what he wanted, when he wanted, without submitting to societal constraints or conventional morality. Fats asked himself whether his sympathies ought not to lie with Simon, whom he liked entertaining with crude, crass humoe focused mainly on people making tits of themselves or suffering slapstick injuries.

YES, EXACTLY. Fats should highly respect Simon. I don’t understand why he would mock him or dislike him at all. He’s probably the only other person in the story who is “authentic“, as Fats is.

And I really like how both Fats and Andrew wish they had the other’s parents. Maybe it’s just that you want what you don’t have, but they do appear to be mixed up for their children’s personalities:

Fats often told himself that he would rather have Simon, with his volatility, his unpredictable picking of fights – a worthy opponent, an engaged adversary – than Cubby.

And the ending of Fats’s second-person inner monologue leaves me with a strong feeling that Fats is going to post an attack against Colin on the council forum, which he already tried to do.

The following scene between Fats and Krystal’s friends is done well and in-character, and it is not interrupted by anything. Unfortunately, once Krystal leaves with Fats, it is nothing but interruptions. For crying out loud, Rowling, just write a companion book where you explain all these things! This is enough to drive any human being insane!

Granted the first one does touch on an issue that is very important to touch on in this situation. I could not understand why Krystal didn’t realize that Fats was just using her, and it’s still difficult to figure out because it’s so obvious that he is. I guess the reason that Krystal just wants to experience this. She wants to have a relationship. And Fats did a fairly good job here to make her believe that’s not the case. Before he takes her off with no idea where they’re going just to find some place to have sex. But he does attempt with conversation with her, and their conversations are good and in-character.

Unfortunately, they keeps getting interrupted by these annoying, intolerable flashback sequences, so we keep being jerked from one plane of consciousness to another. Insight about Krystal’s school life (where she learned a false fact about Vikings; they did not have horned helmets. Seriously, why would they? It’s a lot of weight and it looks silly), Krystal’s home life, her social life, Fats’s opinion on weapons, his random imagining how it would feel to have a glass bottle broken on you. A lot of it is interesting, but I highly doubt that all of it is necessary. I have to agree with the critics who have said that this book needed an editor who wasn’t afraid to make drastic editing suggestions just because it was written by J.K. Rowling.

But soon comes a very shocking revelation:
“I’m adopted,” [Fats] said, after a while.

I love how this comes so naturally and that this shocking piece of information is delivered with practically no build-up at all. I had assumed that Colin had been accidentally rendered infertile after Fats was born, but no, Fats was adopted, probably as a result of Colin being rendered infertile. And this bit of information does a lot to justify his dissatisfaction with his parents, as well.

I think the point of this section is just to give us more insights into Krystal and Fats’s families. That’s all they talk about and think about, so I guess she’s giving us this information the right way here, because it’s all we have to focus on.

I read an article that was just listing the top 10 most profane parts of this novel. It turned at least one of the commenters off of the book entirely, thanking the author for letting them know not to spend their money on it. But all of those parts were taken completely out of context. The reason I say this now is because we have a sex scene that, if it was quoted there, would make the novel come off as being nothing but forcefully vulgar. But that’s who these characters are. Fats and Krystal are teenagers obsessed with having sex, and that’s what they came there to do. Of course the novel comes off as nothing but vulgar when these are the only parts of it you quote!
What’s more, this sex scene isn’t graphic. She graphically describes the preparations for it and Fats’s feelings during it, but the sex itself only gets one sentence. “She was drier than before; he forced his way inside her, determined to accomplish what he had come for.“ That’s it. The focus is more on how Fats feels than the sex itself.

And I liked that we got a solemn part at Fairbrother’s grave. Their emotions facing it were done well. The final sentence makes it clear what the point is: Teenagers want to be cool and treat everything like a joke and mock those who would get affected by such a thing, yet they are human beings and have emotions. These characters are not cardboard cut-outs. They have depth.

This section did a good job beginning the political drama, and I am really looking forward to seeing how the town reacts to the post on the town hall forum. The rest of this section focused on the characters’ lives and relationships, and it did a good job on that, too. I have a feeling that this is all building up to something, though, and I can’t really judge it until I see what it is.

(NOTICE: You might have assumed that the reason there were no posts last week was because I had planned on waiting a week before I started the second part. However, that would be false. It just took me that long to read this chapter and finish writing about it.

The following three parts are very long, as well, so I can no longer promise daily posts. However, once I have got those three parts written and uploaded, I feel confident I will be able to upload the final two two days in a row, though I make no promises.

I will attempt to write and publish the third part as soon as reasonable. For now, this is where I leave you.)