Can we talk about The Casual Vacancy? I finished reading it last night so if you haven't read it and you want to know nothing about it I don't think I need to tell you to get lost. Having said that I'm not going to give away any spoilers, only what is necessary for you to understand what I'm talking about. I want to discuss why I think it hasn't received the good reviews I think it deserves.
In my humble opinion J.K. Rowling's first adult novel is a fucking masterpiece of writing. The way she creates such a huge variety of detailed characters is something I can only dream of ever achieving. She has a gift for getting inside of the characters' mind and personality and scrutinizing every action and decision they make bringing it back full circle so there is not a single question about their reasoning left unanswered. The vastness of every character in this book has left me awestruck, I'm not exaggerating. The diversity between characters too is something that must have taken so much time and effort. I imagine that before even starting the novel she wrote essays on each and every character to fully define their beliefs, fears and dreams and work out their personal development through the novel. I have already known from the extra writing released after Harry Potter just how much thought and work Rowling puts into her characters but this is more evident than ever in ACV.
Throughout reading it the main thought in my head was how 'real' the novel is. In many ways it seems the direct opposite the Harry Potter books. Where as HP is a very black and white, good versus evil story, ACV challenges what is good, what is right. It challenges the beliefs and empathy of the reader forcing them to accept the reality that everyone has both good and bad within them. Nothing is inherently evil.
It faces reality head on, leaving very little of our desperate world untouched. When I started reading it my first impression was that this was what a television soap would look like in book form. And in a way it is, dealing issues such as death, drugs, unloyalty, suicide and dead-end relationships, to name a few.
It's such a dense novel containing so many different stories, One would expect with so many lives compressed into a short space that they would be hurried and lose the effect they might have had, had they been in a novel of their own. But I didn't feel like this happened. Rowling has created what should be a timeless novel which is relevant to every age group from teenagers to a hundred-and-something year olds. It is clearly aimed at the older group but I, as a sixteen year old girl, can still relate to several of the characters.
There is no doubt about it that it's a dark novel and so far from HP that at times it's hard to believe the same woman wrote both. Rowling's writing still retains the familiar charm, however, that I've grown to love. Her style is such a simple, pleasurable read and I found myself staying up late almost every night transfixed by her writing skill. She took a straightforward story in a small village and turned it into a riveting tale of pain and injustice fired by a silent raging war, which all began after the death of one simple man.
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