I picked up J. K.
Rowling’s first non-Potter book from our local public library because my thirteen
year old daughter wanted to read it. Knowing
that it was more of an adult than young adult novel, and having heard that it
was filled with sex and violence, I thought it prudent to read it first before
allowing my daughter to read it.
The Casual Vacancy proves that Rowling isn't just a young adult
/children’s author. There is nothing of
the magical lovability of the Harry Potter stories; there is very little in The Casual Vacancy that is charming or
endearing. Where Hogwarts of the Harry
Potter novels was filled with endless wonder and courageous friends, Pagford of
The Casual Vacancy is filled with
drugs and prostitution and rape. It’s a
good book – but it’s a difficult book to like or to enjoy.
It’s not the sex or the
violence or the profanity that put me off.
It was the unrelenting noxiousness of the characters. The book is shorter than most of the Harry
Potter novels, but as I read it, it felt much longer because there are no
characters to root for. There are no
heroes. Liars, cowards, gossips, egoists, drug-addicts, and thieves – the only
seemingly decent character dies in the first few pages. It is his death that unleashes the submerged
and hidden fears and envies and prides of the community.
For all that, it is, as
I said, a good book; well written and even profound in places. Rowling is as capable a satirist as she is an
author of fantasy. But will I let my thirteen year old daughter read it?
My first instinct was
to say, “No.” I want to protect and
shield her from many of the things described in A Casual Vacancy. But three
things have caused me to change my mind.
One- I read Anthony Burgess’ A
Clockwork Orange and Stephen King’s The
Shining when I was thirteen. I don’t
think I was permanently scarred or damaged by reading them then. Two – My daughter has already read
(twice through) the entire bible. Plenty
of sex and violence in there… and Three
– I trust my daughter. She’s smart and
well grounded and able to discriminate between good and evil.
So, yes, I will let my
thirteen year old daughter read J. K. Rowling’s new novel. I don’t expect that she’ll like it with the
intensity that she has liked (loved!) the Potter novels. Knowing my daughter, I don’t expect that she’ll
like it at all. But I will let her read
it.
No comments:
Post a Comment