Review: The Casual Vacancy

“A casual vacancy is deemed to have occurred: (a) when a local councillor fails to make his declaration of acceptance of office within the proper time; or (b) when his notice of registration is received; or (c) on the day of his death… (Charles Arnold-Baker, Local Council Administration, Seventh Edition.)”

     – The Casual Vacancy

When I first heard that J.K. Rowling was writing another book, I was ridiculously happy. I didn’t mind that it wasn’t another Harry Potter book; I just wanted to read more of her writing. She’s been a huge influence and inspiration to me. I waited as well as I could for several months, which meant I announced all-too-frequently that there were only X days until the release!

Here’s the blurb:

“When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils… Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking, and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.”

Sounds dull, doesn’t it? Then why did I get through 350ish of its 507 pages in a little over four hours? Well, I’ll admit it was mostly because I wanted to review the novel here and I also wanted to see if it would get any better.

So that blurb was horrid. What happens in the book? The story kicks off with Barry Fairbrother dying of an aneurysm. Barry had a seat on the parish council; now it is up for grabs. Pagford is divided by the issue of the Fields, a nearby housing complex with a very bad reputation. Some Pagfordians are more compassionate than others and don’t want to see the Fields ignored. Barry was one of those people because he grew up in the Fields. The election held soon after to decide the fate of the Fields splits apart the little town and unearths many secrets about its citizens.

The first part was definitely the best. I don’t mean Part I; I mean that I liked the lone section narrated by Barry Fairbrother. (I’m pretty sure I didn’t mistype Barry’s last name for the blurb, so maybe Rowling changed it for the final version.) That’s probably not a good thing, because he spends the rest of the book being dead, dead, dead, and more dead. The very last section was also decent, although not quite as good as the first. In between, it was something of a mess. It took me about three-quarters of the book to figure out what was really going on.

Speaking of sections, here’s how the book is organized, so that you don’t get confused during the rest of this review. The Casual Vacancy is divided first into parts – Part I, Part II, and so on. From there it is split into days – Monday, Tuesday; you get the idea. After that it is divided into smaller sections labeled with Roman numerals. When the novel starts, one character narrates an entire section; later there are far more narrators per section.

My mom, upon hearing that Rowling was writing an adult novel, immediately thought of the double meaning in the word ‘adult’ and said, “She’s writing… Potterotica!” That is now one of my favorite portmanteaus ever, but is the novel really stuffed with Potterotica?

Yes and no. Let’s start with no. It’s not really erotica. I probably just startled my parents, making them think I’ve read erotica and so would be able to judge what fits into the genre. Um, this is an awkward moment, isn’t it? Well, I haven’t read any. But I’m not stupid; I have a vague idea of what it is.  I want to keep my blog G-rated because I do have some younger readers, so I’ll just say erotica is like really, really advanced snogging. Blimey, as Ron Weasley would say. The Casual Vacancy is not another Fifty Shades of Grey. (Which, by the way, I have been forbidden from reading, but I heard about it and it just sounds ridiculous.)

On the other hand, there are some sexual references as well as plenty of swearing and violence in The Casual Vacancy. One review on GoodReads said, “Don’t read it if you are not comfortable with the fact that the woman who might have molded your childhood is writing about drugs and teen sex…” Another reviewer wrote, “Basically, this is a real world where a strange man showing up at your family’s doorstep at night is less likely to be a magical school groundskeeper but more likely your family’s drug dealer…” I would not recommend this book to anyone younger than fifteen or sixteen. There’s violence in Harry Potter, but it’s fantasy violence. Little kids who could handle reading about a man cutting off his own hand or another man being killed by a snake almost couldn’t handle this.

But – and this is a big but – this content fits with her theme because it fits with her characters. The characters of The Casual Vacancy fit into the story. What is the theme? I would say that it’s about the true nature of people and life. Sometimes people and life are wonderful. Sometimes they’re nasty and have horrible secrets. The Casual Vacancy is completely honest about this, showing us all that the characters would rather not have anyone seeing. Rowling’s characters are realistic so they fit into her theme. (Although she did make it seem like nearly all British men have huge anger-management problems, which I hope isn’t realistic.) They also sound realistic. I sound like Harry Potter in that I hardly ever swear, but most people aren’t like this. So the language fits with her theme. It does seem like she’s trying a little too hard to show people that this isn’t Harry’s world, but it’s not like she’s trying to use language that doesn’t work with the theme she’s telling.

Stylistically, what irritated me the most were the parentheses. (She uses them much more often than in Harry Potter. They’re also placed oddly, enclosing large spaces of text. My mom’s told me that if I have a lot of parentheses, then that stuff must be quite important, so why not take out the parentheses and just include it normally? Rowling doesn’t appear to think this way. I suppose it’s meant to differentiate what the characters are thinking from what they’re doing.) They’re weird.

I’m still not sure if I hate or love The Casual Vacancy. Several times, I’ve thought that I’d rather read Twilight. And then I changed my mind, thinking about how The Casual Vacancy does a marvelous job of showing what people can really be like. But Harry Potter did that too, and I think it did a better job. It wasn’t as rough as this new book, but it showed the humorous, light-hearted, brave aspects of humanity. Chamber of Secrets is my least favorite book in Rowling’s earlier series, but I would much rather read it than her new book.

I like to have favorite characters and I don’t know that I have any from this book. I guess I liked Parminder Jawanda and her daughter Sukhvinder the most. Tessa Price, Kay Bawden and her daughter Gaia, Samantha Mollison and her sister-in-law Patricia, and Krystal Weedon were also decent. Yes, for some reason I don’t really like the guys in this book. I thought Barry Fairbrother was awesome but after his lone chapter he spends the rest of the book dead, unfortunately.

I detested Stuart “Fats” Wall because he’s frustrated that people aren’t “authentic”. He doesn’t like that people have morals and don’t just do whatever they want to do, so he does whatever he feels like doing. I wanted to throttle him. I also hated Shirley Mollison – her husband Howard is a little annoying, but she’s just conceited. She could nearly give Umbridge a run for her money. Actually, I think they’re sisters or something. I was pretty much cackling in delight when Shirley got her comeuppance from Miles & Samantha, Patricia & Melly, Howard & Maureen, and Andrew & Simon.

And yet, even the characters who make me feel something – love or hatred – don’t make me feel that strongly. I like Parminder and Sukhvinder compared to the other characters in The Casual Vacancy, but they have nothing on Harry Potter characters.

And now for the part that you’ve all been waiting for. When I wrote about the blurb and my expectations for The Casual Vacancy back in April, I threatened to sic one of Rowling’s own characters on her if it wasn’t good. Let’s see what she deserves.

J.K. Rowling, you have done so much for me. Your Harry Potter series is one of my inspirations to write. Those books make me laugh until I cry; they make me sad until I cry. They’ve caused me to think about so many things. They cheer me up when I’m sad. I love your writing. I had such high hopes for The Casual Vacancy, even though based on the blurb it seemed impossible for the book to be any good. I continued to hope because you’re a brilliant lady and I didn’t want to dislike your new book. Let me tell you what I disliked the most. I’ve already mentioned some things above, but there are still more.

Firstly, The Casual Vacancy is dull. It has none of the humor, wordplay, and creativity of Harry Potter. When I read your earlier books, one thing that comes across quite strongly is that you love language. You love to play with language. This is completely unrelated to plot or characters – it’s evident that you delight in words. The Casual Vacancy is missing this feeling. I alternated sections of your new book with chapters of Harry Potter in order to keep myself from drowning in the dreary words. And another thing – I would have loved to have you slip a Harry Potter reference somewhere in The Casual Vacancy just for fun.

Secondly, what happened to your plot twists? Oh, I suppose you had a few in your new book, but they weren’t very good. I could either see them coming or I wasn’t impressed by those that crept up on me. I’d wondered for a long time whether you would be able to duplicate the quality of your Harry Potter plot twists, and the answer is no.

Thirdly, those few so-so plot twists were mostly related to tragedies, but The Casual Vacancy doesn’t have decent tragedies. I know that “decent tragedies” is an oxymoron; what I mean is that I didn’t really care about certain characters dying. I cared a little bit but none of the deaths had me crying my eyes out like the deaths of Lupin and Snape and Sirius and Dumbledore and Dobby and tons of other Harry Potter characters.

Fourthly, the cover art is horrible. I really like the font that your name is in but I hate the rest. You can do better than that! Your earlier books had lovely covers!

For a long time I have thought it would be amazing to meet you. Now I’m not sure about that. Please don’t get me wrong; I don’t hate you. It’s just that, judging from what you wrote about in your new book, you seem quite different from the author of Harry Potter. I continually gaped at The Casual Vacancy, looking at my Harry Potter books on the shelf in shock, trying to make my mind accept that Terri Weedon the drug addict came from the same mind as Severus Snape did. But it’s something more than that. If you’re more like the characters of The Casual Vacancy, then I’m not so sure that I want to want to meet you. I want to meet an author with the kindness of Lupin, the intelligence of Moody, the wit of Dumbledore, the cheerfulness of Tonks, and the bravery of Snape. You seem to understand the characters in all your writing, but which ones are you more like? Are you a light-hearted person or rather depressing to be around?

It’s such a shame. If I liked The Casual Vacancy, I was going to have Dobby leap into your arms and hug you enthusiastically. I still love your Harry Potter books, but this new book was a disappointment. Now I shall use my questionably-obtained Dark Arts powers to punish you! Yes, I realize that siccing Bellatrix Lestrange on Rowling probably makes this post one of the strangest reviews of The Casual Vacancy yet. Oh well.

Get her, Bellatrix! Crucio!

Rating: 2/5