Philosopher's Stone-Lethal White Connections, Part 4: Rule-breaking, Catullus, asphodel and the ICU

The connections between Philosopher's Stone and Lethal White are becoming more and more tenuous as we move into the story proper: in which a bad-tempered government minister in charge of a major international sporting event gets murdered by the son that he had previously gotten out of prison. It is only natural that the many, many Goblet of Fire parallels start taking precedence.  Still, as I reviewed the part of the story between the Hogwarts/ Parliament arrival and what I consider the turning points of both books (the Great Troll Knock-out, Chiswell's murder), I saw a few points of connection.  

Philosopher's Stone-Lethal White connections, Part 3: The adventure begins with nightmares, open-sky ceilings and lots of corridors.

This section picks up with Chapter 6 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, "The Journey from Platform 9 3/4," and Chapter 12 in Lethal White. In the last installment of this series, I reviewed the similarities between Harry's trip to Diagon Alley and Strike's visit to Pratt's. What struck me in this section is how similar Harry's first view of Hogwarts is to Robin's first visit to the House of Commons.

It starts with a bit of domestic tension for both our protagonists. The Dursleys, of course, are furious that Harry is going to Hogwarts; Matthew is equally angry that Robin is going undercover in Parliament, considering it tantamount to treason. Both Harry and Robin wind up isolating themselves in their bedrooms as they prepare, Robin by practicing her disguise and reviewing Chiswell family trivia with Strike, and Harry by perusing his books. Both approach the big day with a combination of excitement and nerves. Robin has two panic attacks on her first day; Harry also gets a little panicky, first when he can't find Platform 9 3/4; second when he is thinking he would have to do magic for the Sorting. And, just as Robin awoke with a nightmare on her first day at Parliament, Harry awoke with a nightmare on his first night at Hogwarts. 

Philosopher's Stone-Lethal White connections, Part 2: Moving forward, looking back and why Sam Barclay is Hedwig.

One challenge in working through Harry Potter and the Philosopher's  (or Sorcerer's) Stone and Lethal White for start-of-ring connections is trying to figure out where to divide the book sections.  For the first post, it was logical to do the opening chapters, but that 1-to-1 obviously cannot continue, given how much longer LW is than PS. Just taking a guess, I'm going to next look through the part of the story that occurs after the time-jump, but before the major adventure (Hogwarts/Robin's undercover mission) begins. For Harry, this is Chapters 2-5: the zoo trip with the vanishing glass, the letters from no one, the Dursley's flight to the Hut-on-the Rock, Hagrid's rescue of Harry on his 11th birthday and the subsequent trip to Diagon Alley to prepare him for Hogwarts. For Strike and Robin, this is Chapters 1-11: beginning  with Strike's hiring of Barclay and going through Billy's arrival at the office, Robin's ending of her therapy and move to the new house, Strike's visit to the CORE meeting, Robin's housewarming party, Robin's return to the office and the unexpected calls from Billy and Chiswell, Strike's lunch with Chiswell in Pratt's, followed by his meeting with Robin, overnight with Lorelei and his delivery of listening devices to Chiswell's London House. 

A Return to Blogging with a New Test of the Double Wedding Band Model: Looking for connections between Philosopher's Stone and Lethal White.

 Greetings to my readers and other Strike/Potter fans! I am back from the longest blogging break I've taken in a while. I am happy to announce that I return with the new title of Granny to CJ, the, in my unashamedly biased opinion, the most perfect and beautiful granddaughter ever born. Since I have chosen to keep her full name private, and respect her parents' wishes not to display her face on social media, you'll simply have to take my word for it that she is absolutely and completely adorable. 

During my break, I've been mulling over what to blog about as we continue to wait for Sleep Tight, Evangeline. I finally drew inspiration from:

• first, the new series of Three Broomsticks podcasts I've been doing: looking at connections between the Strike books and the corresponding Potter books, so starting with Philosopher's Stone and Cuckoo's Calling and
• second, the Double Wedding Band model for the Strike series, which hypothesizes that tha last seven books of the series will form a ring structure, much as the first seven did, and as the seven Harry Potter books did. See here, here and here for more information. 

As I have noted before, one of the strongest arguments in favor of DWB is the fact that it predicted connections between THM and Order of the Phoenix, of which there were many. This gives me hope that the final three books of the Strike series will connect to the final three Potter books both alchemically and thematically.

But, what of the earlier books of the putative second ring? That's what I have decided to explore for the next few months.

Everybody raise a glass! Two new posts with insights into the past and future of the Cormoran Strike series.

 I'm spending lots of time with my butt planted on the Farting Sofa these days, trying to get both some work for my business and some needlepoint completed before the birth of my new granddaughter, now due in slightly over three weeks.  But I had to pop in for a couple of celebratory toasts. 

First, the latest installment of the Three Broomsticks Podcast has dropped, where I had the privilege of appearing alongside my good friends and fellow Strike Scholars Beatrice Groves and Nick Jeffrey to discuss character and thematic connections between The Cuckoo's Calling and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  Even better, my trademark nickname for Matthew made it into the episode title. This is the first in a series of podcasts that will look at each of the Strike books and their connections to the corresponding volume in the Harry Potter series. 

Second, "Mr. Galbraith" tweeted the above picture today, with a notation that Robin has one in Sleep Tight, Evangeline.  The drink is called "Churchill's Courage" and is a speciality of the Rivoli Bar at the Ritz. What we do not know is if Robin has her drink at the start of STE, when she goes to meet Ryan for his birthday/potential proposal, or later in the book. JKR/RG tweeted some weeks ago that STE was 2/3's complete, and historically, tweets have come from the part of the book currently in progress.  It does seem like a pretty powerful drink to have in front of a known alcoholic who is struggling with his sobriety.  But then again, we can't deny that Robin needs one after the events of THM. 

Repository: a list of all connections between The Hallmarked Man and Order of the Phoenix.

I realized as I was working on a recent alchemical post that I had never compiled all the connections between The Hallmarked Man and Order of the Phoenix in one place. So, I am setting this post up as a repository, and will update it if any others show up.  

Suggestions for links to other Harry Potter books are also welcome.  See here for the echoes to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

THM links to other even-numbered books can be found here. 

THM links to Career of Evil and Troubled Blood can be found here. 

Onto the full list!

The Freud Desk Follow-up: More wild ideas (with maps!)

As Freud might say, sometimes a desk is just a desk, but I'm going to feel pretty foolish if that turns out to be the case with Robert Galbraith's latest header, which is not just a picture of Freud's famous desk from London's Freud museum, but part of a Cathie Pilkington exhibit that made a notable substitution: Freud's alabaster Thoth baboon was replaced by one of Pilkington's own statuettes, the many-breasted El Shaddai. 

In the 24 hours since I first blogged about the header, I've done a bit more research, had some great online chats with other Serious Strikers, and was fortunate to pick up some information that Redditors Random-Occurance365, TheFamousWriter and thegiraffe7 provided.  It was clear there would need to be a follow-up post.