A Response to "The Casual Vacancy"

J.K. Rowling tells stories masterfully.

When I read the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I was utterly and delightfully hooked. With each following chapter and book, I grew to know and love the characters and the world of Harry Potter more and more. Most people I talk to experienced the same thing.

When I meet people who have not read the series, I recommend it eagerly and with the same joy that I would feel while introducing a friend to someone whom I knew they would marry someday. I get wrapped up in the story of Harry Potter and fall in love with it, just as everyone does when they read it. Rowling weaves a beautiful, moving story, full of such detail and color, depth and history that when I read them I feel as though I'm simply learning about a world that actually exists somewhere. (Don't worry - I don't actually think it's real. Sadly.)

The Harry Potter stories are marvelous. J.K. Rowling is a marvelous storyteller. But I'm not here to talk about the Harry Potter books (though, clearly, I could go on and on about them).

Understandably, when Rowling finished the Harry Potter series, she wanted to move on to something entirely different. I would too. With seven unspeakably successful children/teen books, she moved on to the next genre. She wouldn't be put in the children's-author box. No, sir.

Enter The Casual Vacancy.

Many Harry Potter fans are grown-ups now, so they greeted the news of Rowling's adult novel with joy and adulation. Of course. I was among them. When the book came out, I put a reservation on it at the local library, and I was number 81 on the waiting list. Yikes. Weeks later, the library sent me an email: my time had finally come.

And... I was disappointed. Not because the story was uninteresting or the characters were lacking in depth. Not at all. The story takes place in a town called Pagford in which a city councilman dies, leaving his council seat open and making room for small town politics and scandal to rear their ugly yet strangely interesting heads. I hate politics, but I found myself inexplicably interested in the story, interested in the characters of the small town and the fate of the open council seat. Because really, the fate of the council seat determines the fate of the town and its people. It's very much about the characters.

It only took me a few hours to get a hundred pages in to the 500-page novel. And I could have kept reading, finished it within a few days. But I didn't. I couldn't.

Don't get me wrong. I really wanted to finish it. But I surrendered it back to the library two weeks before I had to.

I chose to stop reading the book because, when you hear that it's Rowling's first novel for adults, you should understand that it's Rowling's first "adult" novel. It took only a few pages for harsh cursing to begin. And I don't mean the "Crucio" kind of cursing from Harry Potter, although it was excruciatingly painful to read. The language was harsh, and while I've heard that the f-bomb is less offensive and less-taboo in Britain than it is in the U.S., Rowling being a British writer, that doesn't make it any less offensive to me. Even excluding that word, the language of several characters was absolutely filthy.

Sadly, the language was not my main problem with the book. Again, I refer to the description of the book as "adult." I won't say that The Casual Vacancy sinks into the disturbingly pornographic detail that I've heard 50 Shades of Grey wallows in. But it's close enough. Sex is not the pervasive topic of the book, but it's prevalent enough that I didn't feel right about continuing to read it page after page.

Thus, my disappointment. Rowling has already proven to the world that an incredible story with compelling characters can be written and enjoyed without all of that nonsense polluting it. Does she think that just because a book is "for adults" it has to overflow with obscenities and sexual encounters? That it has to contain those things at all? Did she forget that a truly excellent writer can portray filthy characters and lives without making the audience feel filthy for reading it?

So, after reading almost one hundred pages, I took it back to the library. I knew at about page 30 that I had to return it, but I let myself read more and more because I didn't want to stop reading. I wanted to give Rowling a chance, and I wanted to find out what happened. I cared about the characters and the story because, like I said, J.K. Rowling is a great storyteller. But the filth continued, and I had to put it down - that's not what I need to put into my mind and heart.

J.K. Rowling set out, so I've heard, to write something completely different than the Harry Potter books. Sadly, she succeeded. Harry Potter is about a boy in a world of adventure and magic; The Casual Vacancy is about adults (and some kids) in a world that is anything but adventurous or magical. Harry follows the growth of that boy and his journey to save the world and the people he loves; Vacancy is about small town politics and scandal. Those differences are okay. Authors write worthwhile, excellent books about both settings, both kinds of worlds. But the other differences are what make me so disappointed and disheartened.

Harry Potter is "for children," and The Casual Vacancy is "for adults." In reality, I recommend the books about a boy wizard to everyone, adults more than children. I wouldn't recommend Rowling's new book to anyone.

The Harry Potter books, though they get darker as the series goes on, are clean and redemptive, ending with good triumphing over evil. From what I read of Rowling's new book, it begins and remains dark and sordid, filled with disgustingly vulgar language and inexcusably overt sexual references and descriptions.

The books about Harry Potter and his friends are about love and sacrifice, about friendship and loyalty, about life and death, and about doing the right thing in the face of enormous obstacles. On the other hand, I couldn't justify reading The Casual Vacancy long enough to find out what it was really about.