The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

Before ever finishing The Casual Vacancy, I started a blog post that read:

“I don’t want to be a debbie downer, but I really, truly am not a fan of J.K. Rowling’s newest novel: The Casual Vacancy. A self-professed admirer of the Harry Potter Series (it’s the series that defined my generation…probably along with Twilight and the Hunger Games), I expected a miraculously uplifting, and utterly inspired story from Rowling. What I have discovered however is a novel riddled with unnecessary foul language and overtly sexual scenes.”

I’m here to tell you however, that my initial reaction to Rowling’s novel was (if not completely wrong,) certainly misguided and inadequate. Although I started out feeling a deep sense of disappointment, disgust and boredom with The Casual Vacancy, somewhere along my reading path, my views drastically changed (I’m talking a 180 flip here…).

I firmly believe that before beginning this novel (and indeed, even while reading), it is necessary to:
   1.     Let. Go. Of. Harry. Potter. (The Casual Vacancy is NOT Harry Potter, and bears no similarities to the series)

           2.     Remove all of your expectations; truly treat The Casual Vacancy as if you were reading a novel by a first time author

           3.     Push past the pain…You may find yourself asking many times: Where is this novel going? But keep chugging along! You can do it!

Although I do not believe that The Casual Vacancy is the world’s greatest novel, I can say with certainty that it is both a surprising and revealing story. Essentially, the plotline focuses on the small English town of Pagford, and the interactions of its citizens after the unexpected death of Barry Fairbrother. Fairbrother’s death leaves an open seat on the Parish Council and as the town jockeys for the Council position, Rowling reveals the more profound issues underlying small town Pagford life.

I must admit that although I love the intention and the purpose behind The Casual Vacancy, I didn’t always love the route the Rowling used to get her point across. Reading this novel, it seemed to me that Rowling tried a bit too hard to distance herself from the adolescent literary genre. Just because a novel is “Adult”, doesn’t mean that there is a need for an abundance of profanity and sexual themes. A vast majority of scenes and sentences, in my eyes, were needless and superfluous. Rowling often ran over what was meaningful and veered in a head-on collision into overly excessive descriptors, which made the novel seem overdone and cheap. As a prime example, Rowling’s first description of Howard Mollison, a key character in the novel, follows:

“Though Pagford’s delicatessen would not open until nine thirty, Howard Mollison had arrived early. He was an extravagantly obese man of sixty-four. A great apron of stomach fell so far down in front of his thighs that most people thought instantly of his penis when they first clapped eyes on him, wondering when he had last seen it, how he washed it, how he managed to perform any of the acts for which a penis is designed” ((32).

See what I mean? Just a little bit too much unneeded information.

In contrast to the unnecessary sexual references and foul language, there are gems of sentences sprinkled throughout the novel, which to me, showcase the real and tangible talent of J.K. Rowling. She is an amazing writer, who just seemed to get caught up in making her novel “Adult.” I’ve included three of my favorite quotes from the novel below:

“He tried to give his wife pleasure in the little ways, because he had come to realize, after nearly two decades together, how often he disappointed her in the big things. It was never intentional. They simply had very different notions of what ought to take up most space in life.” (3)

“Everything had shattered. The fact that it was all still there- the walls and the chairs and the children’s pictures on the walls- meant nothing. Every atom of it had been blasted apart and reconstituted in an instant, and its appearance of permanence and solidity was laughable; it would dissolve at a touch, for everything was suddenly tissue-thin and friable.” (39)

“Every hour that passed added to her grief, because it bore her further away from the living man, and because it was a tiny foretaste of the eternity she would have to spend without him. Again and again she found herself forgetting, for the space of a heartbeat, that he was gone forever and that she could not turn to him for comfort.” (63)

It wasn’t really until I read the last page of the novel that I was able to comprehend the big picture perspective behind Rowling’s novel. The Casual Vacancy is a profound social commentary on the state of our world. Barry Fairbrother, although not a perfect man, was a man with a vision to make the world a little bit better; he was a man who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of those who lived in the Fields (a poorly subsidized housing estate that fell within Pagford Parish town lines). Having been raised in the Fields himself, Barry understood the complexity of rising above one’s environment; he understood the necessity of support and encouragement for families still living in the Fields. Controversially, other citizens of Pagford, did not feel the same, and deemed it an estate that drained town resources, with “nearly two-thirds of Fields dwellers liv[ing] off the state; and a sizable portion pass[ing] through the doors of the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic” (60). Not only did these anti-Fielders want to dismantle the Addiction Clinic, but they also wanted to vote the Fields into the Yarvil District town lines (in other words, they didn’t want to deal with or be responsible for the Fields any longer).

(Spoiler Alert coming up!!)

Barry Fairbrother during his life had a special connection with Krystal Weedon, a girl from the Fields, who attended school with his own children. While everyone else in the town seemed to write Krystal off as a truant, Barry was able to see her true potential. To Barry, Krystal was another “example of the successful integration of the Fields and Pagford” (62). Unfortunately, after Barry’s death, Krystal felt that she had no one to turn to for help or guidance; no one could truly understand her life. With a drug addict as a mother, Krystal raised her little brother Robbie, and discovered that she needed to depend on herself to keep her family together. However, throughout the novel, Krystal experiences a series of tragedies including rape and the death of not only her grandmother, but her brother Robbie in a drowning. At the end of the novel, Krystal decides to take her own life by overdosing on heroine.

The part of the ending that affected me the most as a reader was Robbie’s death. Only three years old, Robbie had wandered away from Krystal to subsequently fall and drown in a river. Surprisingly, any number of citizens in Pagford could have stopped Robbie’s death from occurring. Several people witnessed Robbie wandering around town the morning of his death, but surprisingly, not one of them stopped to make sure he was under adult supervision. One character, Shirley, states at the end of the novel to her husband’s business partner, Maureen: “The boy was right by the river when I saw him. A couple of steps and he’d have been in…I was hurrying…because Howard had said he was feeling poorly and I was worried sick…I was absolutely distracted, and all I could think was, I must get back to Howard…I didn’t actually realize what I’d seen until much later…and the dreadful thing” (488). And Samantha too saw Robbie, as she likewise explains to her husband Miles, declaring: “…Miles, I saw that boy. Robbie Weedon. I saw him, Miles…He was in the St. Thomas’s playing field when I walked across it that morning…He was all alone…I thought he’d come in there to play, but there was nobody with him. He was only three and a half, Miles. Why didn’t I ask him who he was with?” (493).

Almost every character in The Casual Vacancy shows the self-absorption that Shirley and Samantha reluctantly admit to in the final chapters of the novel. Any number of people could have saved Robbie that day, or even Krystal for that matter, but everyone was too absorbed in their own world and in their own problems to notice the bigger issues affecting those around them. Krystal lived with the mentality that she had to rely on herself and face the world alone; no one (besides Barry Fairbrother) took the time to reach out to her. Furthermore, many characters were too caught up in the politics (Pro-Fielders vs Anti-Fielders) of the Fields to understand the personhood behind the situation. To many, Krystal was a statistic instead of a person; she was a teenager who would wind up on the same drug addicted track as her mother.

It took the tragic death of Robbie and Krystal to make the citizens of Pagford look beyond their own self-interest (and political affiliations) to seek change and to want to make a difference for the betterment of those around them. (Unfortunately, in the case of some characters, tragedy didn’t move them toward action; they continued to remain complacent with the state of the world around them).

What I took away from The Casual Vacancy was two-fold: First, we must always seek to make the world better in both small ways and big ways (like Barry Fairbrother) without waiting for tragedy to propel us forward. And secondly, we must recognize the humanity in those around us, no matter their situation.

I vote that you take a shot and read this novel; after all, you might take away a different (life altering) message than I gleaned!

Arcadia by Lauren Groff

            Last month (January 2013), I attended the monthly Book Club gathering at my local library, where the discussion centered around a 2012 New York Times Bestselling Novel, by Lauren Groff: Arcadia. In much the same fashion as my previous post for The Cat’s Table, I am going to leave you rate-less for this novel (fun!!). But, I will tell you a little bit about how my fellow “Book Clubbers” (in addition to myself) reacted to Ms. Groff’s psychedelic new novel.

            Arcadia is a novel that chronicles the life journey of Bit, a boy who spends his childhood being raised on a commune in western New York. The commune, lead by a deeply appealing and magnetic man named Handy, is established on the grounds of Arcadia House, a dilapidated and ruined mansion (which is subsequently renovated to accommodate for the families of the commune). Bit, a sensitive and thoughtful young boy is raised in the world of Arcadia: a world of freedom, hunger, drugs, and communal working and living. His boyhood is filled simultaneously with hardships and blessings, and of course, the presence of the beautiful and profoundly disturbed, Helle who shapes his life in a plethora of ways. As a young man, Bit witnesses the commune predictably fall apart, and he is forced to begin his expedition into adulthood in our corporate, bustling, big-city world.

             Reading this novel, I wasn’t sure that I would have the heart to finish (but not for the reasons you might think!). Bit is loveable, and selfless, a character who loves unconditionally and truly (and I applaud Groff for her ability to write such a believable protagonist). However, at its center, Arcadia is a heart wrenchingly pensive and melancholy story. Some days, it was hard to pick up and read such a depressing novel (if you man up and finish though, there is hope at the end- a light at the end of the tunnel- I promise!).

            What I loved the most about Arcadia was Lauren Groff’s writing style. Ms. Groff’s writing was lyrical and fast moving; she was descriptive, and profound as well as perceptive and insightful. I am including two of my favorite Arcadia quotes below (you know how I love to include quotes- it gives you a taste of the story!). In the first, Bit uses the medium of photography in an attempt to capture the essence and the truth of Helle; he wants to help her find her way in the world and to find herself. In the second quote, a minor character named Sylvie relates how she sees the world when she is unencumbered by the presence of technology:

“He takes photograph after photograph of Helle, and she vamps for him, blushing under his attention, flaring her fingers like gills, moueing like a model. Every photo takes him a hairsbreadth closer to her, to the essential core of Helle, a purified Helle that he will one day hand back to her on a sheet of photographic paper. Here, he imagines himself saying. This is you. She will look at the print and know herself, at last, and she will wonder how she missed herself all along. Helle, seeing Helle as clearly as she sees the rest of the world: this is something to be dreamed of.” (125)

“It was strange to go outside without music in her ears. The city seemed so loud, and now that she could hear its regular noises, she could sense other things, too, the smell of the pretzels from the cart, the deep blue color in the folds of the stream from a grate. She sat for a long time in a park and watched the iridescent throats of pigeons. It seemed miraculous, this glorious color in such filthy birds. The people sped by, and she noticed how naked their faces were, as if they had become so used to nobody looking at them that they allowed themselves to be seen again.” (181)

Lauren Groff’s stylistic approach really resonated with me (although I cannot say the same for my other Book Club Biddies). Almost every Book Clubber surprisingly disliked the writing in Arcadia. The overriding complaint (writing-wise) was the lack of quotes throughout the entirety of the novel. I adjusted fairly easily to a novel without quotes to fence in the dialogue (to me, the narrative flowed more smoothly without quotes), but others said they found it overly distracting.

I think the biggest endorsement for Arcadia came from a Book Club Biddie who continuously doesn’t read the “Club Picks”; if she doesn’t like a novel within the first 50-ish pages, she typically stops reading. BUT, (dun. dun. dun.) she LOVED this novel (seriously!).  She couldn’t stop going on about how wonderful it is! If that doesn’t convince you to get out and read Arcadia, then I’m not sure what will!