The Casual Vacancy

I've read The Casual Vacancy. In April, we found out the title of the book, leading to heavy speculation regarding what it would be about. "It's not for children!" was bandied about quite a lot.

And it's not. It's very much the anti-thesis to Harry Potter. 

But I'd be disappointed in anyone who says J.K Rowling can't write after reading it. I can see why it might not be everyone's cup of tea; it's brutal and bleak and distinctly non-magical. There are no miracles in this book. The lines between good and 'evil' are heavily blurred. But then, 'evil', in this context at least, is quite subjective. I suspect most evil-doers aren't consciously committing acts of evil, particularly the ones in this story. After all, everyone is the hero in their own story, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the shallow but idyllic village of Pagford. Beautiful, historic Pagford with its rolling fields and quaint cottages. And its poverty-ridden council estate. 


And there is the crux of the book; all of the action contained within boils down to the problem of the Fields council estate. Pagford, sadly understandably, doesn't want it. They don't want to pay for it, they don't want the children that live there in their schools, or on their streets. But then Yarvil, the neighbouring 'big town'  doesn't want it either. Barry Fairbrother, a former Fields boy-gone-good, thinks that with the right help, everyone from the Fields has a shot at a decent, educated and drug-free life. The Parish Council strongly disagrees. So when poor old Barry drops dead on his wedding anniversary, battle lines are drawn between those want to continue Barry's fight and those who want nothing more than to fence off the Fields from their beloved village.

It's a winding sort of book; I realised three-quarters of the way through that I'd been cleverly drawn into a web of deceit and anger, without even noticing it. Characters are introduced rapidly, at first it can be hard to keep up with the myriad of personalities and their foibles, but at some point it just clicked and I felt as though I lived in the village, and was watching the events unfold alongside the cast, albeit with a lot more foresight than they had. 

And then I realised I didn't particularly like any of the characters. There were a few I didn't dislike, as such, and a few I outright wanted to slap, but none I felt a true connection with and that phased me at first. I'd always believed that one of the first rules of writing a successful story was to create an engaging character, someone you could see with qualities similar to your own, a hero or heroine to connect with, if you will. I'd always thought that you had to see through their eyes to be able to endure their struggles with the appropriate amount of understanding. 

But there is no-one in this book I truly connected with and yet I really enjoyed it. It was bitter-sweet to watch these lives unfold, to see how it spiraled out of control, how little things added up to make big things. I saw it head, ever swiftly, towards disaster and observed the minutiae of the characters' worlds exposed, literally in some cases. Some of their struggles, their dreams seemed so petty, some seemed almost ludicrous in their ambitiousness. This book goes beyond the characters to tell a story and it's the first time I've experienced that. But I wanted more. I marathoned through the book, and had that sense of delicious bleakness at the end that comes when you've left a bit of yourself inside the world you've just left. There were tears, and most bizarrely, the tears stemmed from a sense of impotent guilt, that I'd seen this coming, I knew the whole story and yet could do nothing to stop it from reaching the inevitable climax. In that, I think for the first time I made some connection with the characters. That I stood with them, aghast at my inability to do anything. And equally, at the end I closed the book and walked away, relatively unscathed, just as a lot of them did too. 

It's an uncanny, honest and fairly ugly depiction of the human condition at its worst, exposing all of the pettiness and greed that people harbour inside themselves when they forget they're just a small cog in a big machine, when they become or try to become insular and independant. But there is also hope. The Casual Vacancy comes chock-full of hope, and that's what makes it so compelling, in my opinion. That each character, for all their faults, dreams of it getting better, in whatever way they can.

It really is a good book. 

Best of all, my copy is signed by the lady herself! I was lucky enough to have secured tickets to go to the launch of A Casual Vacancy at the Southbank Centre on Thursday 27th September. After falling down the stairs and nearly killing myself (Ha, like that would've stopped me) Jules and I made our way into London, said hello to the usual suspects and settled in for a giddy evening listening the woman who is mostly responsible, however indirectly, for me being the person I am.


I won't bore you with the platitudes of it, but I did get emotional, in both the teary and the beaming sorts of ways, and I did manage to blurt a very heartfelt 'Thank you', at Jo when she was signing my book (she was drinking white wine, we should be best friends. I knew it). I was also 'quoted' in an (ahem) Daily Mirror article about it. By 'quoted', I mean they used a tweet which said I'd got the book, and the accompanying photo, and tweeted back at me to say they'd used them. Ah, the wonders of journalism.

A video can be seen here of the event, which featured a short reading, Jo being interviewed about the book, another reading and then questions from the audience. I did wave my hand about a bit, but was sadly not chosen, so instead I asked my question to anyone who stood vaguely near me in the queue. No-one knew the answer. Or they didn't care because why am I talking to them when J.K-blinking-Rowling is just over there...

It was an amazing night. I'm still in the phase where I'm clutching it to my heart a bit, being a little cagey about it because I'm still not 100% convinced it happened. But it did. And I was there. And I've read the book and I liked it. I liked it very, very much. 

The Making of Harry Potter

It's been an action-packed few weeks. Lots has been done and lots is to come. Firstly... I SAW FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE!

I'm a bit in lesbians with Flo. By a bit, I mean COMPLETELY, UTTERLY AND IRREVOCABLY.

She has the most amazing voice, style and panache. She's beautiful. 'No light, No light' from her second album, Ceremonials, is the most perfect song in my world at the moment. Since buying the album on October 31st, iTunes informs me I've now listened to it 403 times... Reasonable until I explain that I don't listen to my iPod every day. Usually when I'm travelling. So the 3.8 plays daily average is a lot scarier than it first seems. Still, it keeps me happy.

Pris and I went to see her in Brum, meeting up with Fran, Kirsty and Beth there. We had to drink our wine out of plastic pint glasses but I did get to buy a tea-cup and she played 'No light, No light,' as her second-to-last song and I did some happy tears and it was perfect. 

After Flo and some much needed fun-times with Pris, I headed home for a few hours to repack a suitcase before heading off to Surrey for a night, followed by a road trip to The Wirral to celebrate Ellie's birthday. It was pure bliss to have so many of my favourite people together in one place, last time it happened was Florida last July, so this was a rare treat. Though I'm hoping it doesn't stay a treat and we get to do it more, so much so that I start to take those beautiful people for granted.


Last week saw me, SophieSoph and Kat venturing into the past (and there actually was a TARDIS, no joke) and going to experience life in the Blitz, at the Winston Churchill War Museum by London Bridge. Soph and I are native City of Villains kids, so we're quite WW2 savvy, popping a gasmask on and scooting under a table when the air-raid siren goes off is all in a days work for us. We followed up Victory by seeking out crushing defeat, heading to the casino. I popped my complimentary £10 chip on the roulette wheel... And lost. So we got cake and went to the pub.


A couple of days later, I was awake at 5.30am... Because finally, after almost 5 months of waiting, it was time to go to Leavesden to The Making of Harry Potter at Leavesden Studios.


The point of this isn't to give you a step-by-step guide to it, as I'm hoping you'll eventually go and see for yourself just how amazing it is. But if you're a fan of the world of Hazza P, you'll love it.


Most of all though, I think it's a beautiful standing tribute to the people we never got to see on screen. So often, we focus on the actors and their performances, occasionally bashing directorial decisions or script changes, but we fail to appreciate the other miracles happening on screen. Thousands and thousands of props were created for the series, hours spent designing and painting things which, at best, might only be seen on screen for a split second. 

Actual chocolate

Since visiting Leavesden, I've realised that for every complaint I've made about the films, I should have been making three compliments, making a note of objects in the background, or how realistic a puppet was. I'm really excited to watch them all again now, to better appreciate the costumes and the detail that was added to them. Hours and hours spent covering phone books in leather, embossing letters, adding labels to bottles for when a camera pans past them swiftly. Things which were made, like Lily's letter to Sirius, but never included. The chocolate feast, some items made from real chocolate. The hundreds and hundreds of little touches, that make the Harry Potter series really magical. 

We won't be crashing into the Whomping Willow
and that's why our insurance is lower.

At the same time as discovering things you've never seen before, you can't look anywhere without seeing something you recognise. By the end of the day, my stomach ached from all the pangs I had when I saw something I knew. Big things, like the door to the Chamber of Secrets, the Knight Bus, the basilisk skeleton. Small things, like Umbridge's amazing cat brooch, Scabior's scarf, Luna's Dirigible Plum earrings. It was a trip down memory lane...

Not to be confused with the actual trip down memory lane that is Diagon Alley. It genuinely bought tears to my eyes and not just because I'm an insanely sappy fangirl. 

But because it's so real. Despite numerous reminders that we were on sound stages, it didn't click until we'd left and were on the red carpet watching the actors go back inside. Then I remembered that I hadn't just been to Hogwarts, or Diagon Alley, but to a workplace, where the cream of the British film industry spent ten years making miracles. 

I'm so excited to go back, I've booked to go again on 31st July, for Harry and JK Rowling's birthdays. And, best of all, because we were rushed from the gift shop at the end, WB have very generously comped us free tickets to go back! I would urge all Harry Potter fans to go, it is expensive but it's so worth it. And they have Butterbeer. Actual Butterbeer. It was beautiful.


I know there's stuff I didn't see there, stuff I need to see again, stuff I want to spend hours staring at. At the moment, the exhibit will be there until 2013, when it may be expanded to include more things, or removed to make Leavesden operational again. Go, before that happens. You won't regret it. It's one of two places in the world where you can step inside a book. And that's kind of all nerds want.

"When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes"- Desiderius Erasmus 1466-1536

Books are brilliant, aren't they? Where else, how else, can you travel through time and space and walk alongside the great and the good? Where else can you stand next to a hero as they battle to save the world? Where else can you learn arcane secrets and long forgotten recipes?

Right now, I'm in mourning. I've just finished The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and it's one of those books where I've regretted finishing it, because I'll never again have the pleasure of reading it for the first time. I'm looking at the cover and I know all the secrets now and I wish I didn't. I wish they were still ahead of me.

I didn't read this book, so much as have an affair with it. I started it and quickly realised that it was something very special. And my behaviour altered accordingly. Instead of sitting reading it nicely, with a cup of tea, I became secretive and sly. I've always been the kind of person who's happier doing stuff once the sun has gone down, but this book turned me nocturnal.

For three nights, I didn't even try and pick it up before 2am. Then, when the house was quiet, when the world was quiet, everyone else in bed with lovers, husbands, teddies or dreams, I'd pick it up. I'd sit in bed with chocolate cherry liqueurs and read it. Devour it. Over three nights, I sat in the dark, in The Night Circus. I watched Celia and Marco's battle, knowing how it had to end, willing it not to. I became a rêveur, following the Circus around the world, my metaphorical red scarf floating behind me on a caramel-apple scented breeze. I marvelled at the Wishing Tree, The Ice Garden, The Contortionist.

And now it's over. And I miss it.

The point of this blog isn't to introduce you to my sordid night-time habits, though I assure you I have many. The point is... Well, books.

When I was little, I genuinely thought I was Matilda. Not least helped by the fact my granddad called me Matilda (whether he thought that was my name or was just being funny is, as yet, undetermined). But I was her! I lived in a bookless house for years! My parents saw no value in reading! They found it amusing when I got lost in a book. 'Ah, she's reading,' they'd say, in the same way someone might say 'She doesn't speak English,' or 'She's in a coma,' when I didn't respond to a request. I had a lovely teacher at school and she encouraged me to read AND join the library. I had an evil headmistress whose sole joy in life seemed to involve reducing children to tears.

Uncanny, isn't it?

All the pieces fit. And never, never did a child spend so much time as I did trying to levitate a piece of chalk. No child ever invested so much mental energy into trying to develop telekinetic powers. I'm not going to lie, I still try it now. Sometimes, I'll look at a pen and will it to come to me. And I still reckon, one day, it will happen.

Books are everything. K-Rob once gave me a pen with 'She found her family in a book,' on it (and I bloody well did). SophieSoph gave me a brooch which reads 'She has read too many books and they have addled her brain,' on it (and it's bloody well true). Books bind people in a way that no other form of media can do. Because no other form of media gives you the freedom to create a world that a book does. A book gives you a little detail and then demands that you imagine the rest. It nudges you towards a place where you can let your mind loose with possibilities. To have a book is to have infinite, glorious potential, the potential to step entirely into another place without ever leaving your home. They are waking dreams.

I'm not, by any stretch, some kind of literary voice of authority either. While I'm a prolific reader, I'm not especially discerning. I like fiction. Pure, whimsical, intangible fiction. When I read, I don't want to learn anything other than what it's like to be somewhere else and see through someone else's eyes. It's a form of escape, a break from my own life when it's not appropriate or convenient to take a nap.

My whole life, I've prized books above almost everything else. I had to stop going into charity shops for a while, because seeing the copies of Harry Potter on the shelves made me sad and I'd be compelled to buy them. I couldn't understand who didn't love them enough to keep them.

I worry about people who don't read. That's not to say I judge them, any more than I expect to be judged because of my point-blank refusal to indulge in sports (I don't do sweat). But I worry they're missing out on a part of the world that they could so easily have, if they would open themselves up to it. I think readers dream bigger than most people, because we're exposed to the idea that the impossible is, in fact, eminently possible if you have enough nerve. Because if you can take some words, a few letters, and arrange them in the right way, you can make magic happen. And in that sense, every book is a spell.

The next book I expect to captivate me is Ali Shaw's 'The Man Who Rained'. I'm actually scared of this book, because I loved his first book, 'The Girl With Glass Feet', so much. Probably too much, if I'm honest. I bought a copy for K-Rob for her birthday last year but didn't feel as though I could part with it. She got her own one, in the end.

There is so much pleasure in books. The smell of new pages, the feel of them in your hands. I fold the corners down on mine, sacrilege to some, but to me it feels right. I don't get sad if I spill tea on them, or open them to find my lap suddenly covered in biscuit crumbs. I use my books and it shows and I love them more for it. I like to see them wrinkled, it feels as though we've grown together. I'm leaving my mark on them, in the same way they've left their marks on me.

We're battle-scarred, me and my books and I wouldn't have it any other way.

For the love of all that's good and great in the world, please don't ever stop reading. Because, to bastardise a popular quote, 'to tire of reading, is to tire of life'.