Friday, September 28, 2012

It's JK Rowling's first novel for adults, so how is it being received? A mixed reception for 'A casual vacancy' so far, though with advance sales of a million copies, the author is doing pretty well already!

Several reviewers have pronounced the novel a dull read in places,[ despite sex, drugs and bad language!] and commented that Rowling's most vivid writing was on the familiar ground of children pitted against the power of adults.

The Daily Telegraph called the novel 'sometimes funny, often startlingly well observed and full of cruelty and despair'.

The Mirror tabloid labelled it "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Filth", warning that Rowling was "sure to face stern criticism" for its liberal use of obscene language.

Set in the fictional village of Pagford in southwest England, the black comedy deals with the fight to fill a slot on the parish council after the incumbent's sudden death, and hinges on the fate of a squalid housing estate.

It's expected to be Britain's top-selling fiction title this year.

"I genuinely think that it's a humorous book. It's life in a small town," Rowling told fans at an event in a London theatre to mark the launch.

"It's a realistic view of what that kind of community is like."

Rowling added that she was "drawn by spirituality and faith" and had researched Sikhism to create a family of Sikh characters who figure prominently in The Casual Vacancy, having used "Christian imagery" in the Potter novels.

Rowling, 47, has said she left "the door ajar" for a return to the world of Harry Potter, although she said she was not intending to write any more books about the young wizard.

"There's only one reason to write now: for me," she told the BBC.

She admitted it was "murder" saying goodbye to her most famous character.

"But truly, where Harry's story is concerned, I'm done. I just think it would be for the sake of milking it and that's just not in me.

"Now, having said all of that, I have always left the door ajar because I'm not that cruel. If I had a fabulous idea that came out of that world, because I loved writing it, I would do it."