A Casual Vacancy
by J.K. Rowling
(Little, Brown and Company, London, 2012)
This is J.K. Rowling`s first attempt a adult fiction, following the phenomenal success of her Harry Potter series meant for children (but enjoyed by many adults as well). It is set in the fictional small town of Pagford in southwest England`s West Country district. Despite its small size it is afflicted by all the problems of urban life: drug abuse, illiteracy, chronic and multi-generational unemployment, etc. In fact, so many problems beset the place that I divided them into two categories: 1) problems of politics and poverty, and 2) all the other social issues, including rape, child abuse, suicide and pathologic familial dysfunction.
When a beloved town councilor dies suddenly and unexpectedly leaving a vacant political post it sets off a lot of back-room jockeying by various rival factions in the town. At stake is the disposition of the community towards a particular neighborhood that is heavily dependent on government welfare and is portrayed by detractors as the source of everything bad. Of course, their position is framed as economic necessity and therefore as a capitalist virtue. The council vacancy tips the balance setting off big ripples in a small pond.
I think Rowling wrote a successful novel for adults. She doesn`t need to prove herself as a writer to me. However, A Casual Vacancy held a lot for me to get around. The social depravity of the residents of the poor neighborhood tried my patience to the limit. The majority of the characters cannot utter a single sentence that is not liberally sprinkled with the F-word, and there`s only so much cussing I can tolerate hearing or reading - unless it`s from my own mouth, in which case it`s okay.
Pagford is a gritty, dirty, grotty place occupied by a preponderance of grotty people. But that is not how I imagine England. When I think of England I do not think of awful people living in awful conditions in awful industrial cities like Liverpool, Manchester or Birmingham. I think mostly of cosmopolitan London and chic people, wearing good clothes, walking on broad scenic avenues lined by tree and spotted with historic stone buildings, eating and shopping at chic restaurants and shops.
When I think of the English countryside I think of low, rolling green hills occasionally spotted with stretches of flat, brown moor. And in the hollows of these low green hills I imagine little hamlets of stone cottages lining streets radiating from a central intersection dominated by an old stone church with a squat, dark pub nearby with a name like `The Slaughtered Lamb` or something. And the local fields are divided into pastures by old, crumbling stone walls. Sheep dot the landscape.
Obviously, I`ve never been to England.