The Casual Vacancy
By J.K. Rowlings
As I began to read this book, I found myself searching for
the author of Harry Potter. When I finally
resorted to a crib list to keep track of the multitude of characters, I missed the
accessible writer who has led millions of children to enjoy reading with her
easily-followed plots. And as I
encountered a cast of unlikeable people, I missed the sympathetic, easy-to-like
Harry, Ron and Hermione. Is J.K.
Rowling really a mean-spirited woman who can tell us nothing but nasty secrets
about her cast of characters assembled in a seemingly idyllic English village
with the Black Cannon Pub and the ancient church grouped around the village
square? Is she on a vendetta to destroy
a stereotype? Is she tired of being nice? Is this the real her?
Nevertheless, I kept reading because Rowling is a master
storyteller and a skillful writer. And gradually I discovered the familiar
author.
She is there with the children in the village, much more
compelling characters than the adults.
She is saying that without magic, this could have been the life of the
orphaned Harry Potter. She is saying
that in real life, if children are not adequately loved and nurtured, challenged
and supported, they can get into big trouble.
She is saying that children can be horrible to each other, but they can
also be a support and provide personal growth.
As the plot grew ever more sprawling and the many characters
grew ever more complex, I began to wonder how Rawlings was ever going to bring
her tale to a conclusion. And then I
discovered the author of Harry Potter again.
Except that the exciting nail-biters which ended the children's books
sounded melodramatic in this book for adults.
Not that I don't like melodrama. I
was on the edge of my chair as I read the concluding chapters of this book. Once
again, the concluding events in the plot surrounding the children rang
true. Their paths were leading to
disaster, and it would take a momentous event to be a wake-up call to the adults
who were to blame in avoiding serious issues with their children. But the rip-roaring drunk of a party with all
proprieties broken, while fun to read, was too obviously a wrap-up event for the
miscellaneous sub-plots from which Rowlings needed to extricate herself.
The adults are not entirely unsympathetic. Rowlings cleverly ties the adult and child
plots together at the end when several of the adult characters pass by little
Robbie who is lost, dirty and crying.
Lest anyone doubt the theme of the book, it is here with these
self-absorbed adults ignoring the needs of the child and refusing to
acknowledge that all children are their responsibility. But guilt and compunction do visit these
adults after Robbie's death and we hope that the village will be a kinder, less
self-satisfied place after the horrifying ending of the book.
Read this book. You
will enjoy it, and you will find yourself thinking about its theme long after
you are finished. But it takes some
persistence to get into it and some sang-froid to follow the affairs of the
variously unlikeable adults who people its pages.
Esther
