Shocking contrast

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling; Little Brown Book Group; Price: Rs.850; 503 pp J. K. Rowling, the 47-year-old British novelist best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, is a unique phenomenon. She failed to get admission to Oxford and had to settle for Exeter University. She was on social security in her thirties and as she put it later, as “poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless”. It says something about the type of personnel book publishing companies employ, that 12 publishers turned down her first Harry Potter book which she wrote on train journeys and in cafes. As Rowling recalls, she regarded herself “the biggest failure I knew”: her marriage had failed; she was jobless, with a child to care for, and at one time even contemplated suicide. Then, the eight-year-old daughter of the head of Bloomsbury publishing house was asked to read the first chapter of the rejected manuscript. She told her father that she couldn’t wait to read the next chapter. Cautiously, Bloomsbury published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies. Following several editions it became a huge bestseller. Other Harry Potter titles followed, and have sold a staggering 400 million copies internationally, making them the best-selling book series in history. Since then the seven Harry Potter books written by Rowling have been translated into almost every major language, indicating their universal appeal, and have been made into hugely popular films. Rowling is now the best-selling British author ever. Within five years, from being a virtual pauper, she became a multi-millionaire. Forbes magazine has estimated her net worth at an astounding $1 billion (Rs.5,500 crore). Before I take up the book under review, first an admission: I haven’t read any of Rowling’s runaway bestsellers. My acquaintance with Harry Potter is restricted to a film version of one of them which I saw together with the ten-year-old daughter of a close friend. She knew all the intriguing details of the plot and between delighted squeals, predicted what was going to happen. I couldn’t make head or tail of the procession of weird characters and creatures that floated in and out of the film. Clearly, despite the immense wealth and accolades she has received as a children’s writer, Rowling felt the need to prove herself as a story-teller for adults. Hence The Casual Vacancy described on the jacket cover as her “first novel for adults”. The book is centred around a provincial English town, Pagford, and its title refers to a vacancy in its parish council, after a parishioner — a journalist, Barry Fairbrother — suffers a stroke and dies in the parking lot of the town’s golf club. Although popular and admired in Pagford, it turns out that the 40-something journalist wasn’t above taking kickbacks to support dicey construction projects. Close to half the book’s length, revolves around his death and its impact upon his friends. The author deftly introduces her main characters and their children, and the schools they attend, into the…