Showing posts with label Casual Vacancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Casual Vacancy. Show all posts

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Platform 9 3/8ths: Rowling and The Book


I am going to go out on a limb and bet most anybody alive in the last week has heard that J. K. Rowling, author of You Know What, released a new book.  I got tired of typing her name after one article, so I started collecting everything I read and decided to make a little story about it.  Here you go:

Once upon a time, in the land of Eng Land, there was a billionaire author, J. K. "Joking" Rowling, who decided to write a new book that had nothing to do with the books for which she was known.  Feeling the burden of progress, Joking decided to write some sexy, drug stuff and would not apologize for it.

When The Book came out, the first viewers looked once, then looked twice and were turned into the dreaded "Reviewers," friend or foe a billionaire can never tell.  The First Reviewer cast down the mighty Joking.  Despite this, The Book was set to make history in the form of money.  Conservative Reviewers called The Book "leftist screed."  Then, The New Yorking Timers Reviewers gave their word, and it was displeased.  Finally, the Huddled Masses Reviewers said it was cool by them.

The Library began to set up shop to dispense the book to the public, expecting long waiting lists.  Moms were especially excited, tired of all that kid wizard shit*.

During the furor, Joking claims that the books that every loved may becoming back, probably to get away from the fact that The eBook was expensive.

Then, disaster struck.  eCopies of The eBook, given away to first buyers of The Paper Copy Book, The eBook was broken.  One assumes people were on that.

One also assumes the billionaire Joking went about her life.

*Kid Wizard Shit is my hip hop name.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

JK Rowling In A Master's Degree Slump?

After the New Yorker gave JK Rowling's new book "The Casual Vacancy" a "lukewarm review," I was forced to think of another term for "the sophomore slump."  While, yes, the previous term applies as this is her second outing in the land of fiction, when the first outing is an award-winning* seven book series, one can hardly call the author a "sophomore."  So, after being lauded with praise for nearly fifteen years, I grant Ms. Rowling a Master's degree in writing, getting her out of the undergraduate program entirely simply for the fact that she could buy and sell me ten times over and I do not wish to wake up with a chocolate frog on my pillow as a warning.

To comment on the article in question... What the hell did you think was going to happen?  She had years to get the Harry Potter books down, before when writing it and throughout the years as they were scrutinized by the world.  Anything thrown out, especially for adults, is going to be less than perfect.  The audience is less defined and expecting the whimsy of the original series.  I hesitate to say this, but her editor may have Stephen King disease, wherein the editor dares not edit the original manuscript of a literary god as he or she would for your average typewriter monkey.

*Did the Harry Potter series ever win any awards?  I say yes, in my heart.  It won my heart.

JK Rowling's 'The Casual Vacancy' gets a lukewarm first review - New York Daily News (blog)