Pre-TRG Read-along: The Cuckoo's Calling: Part Two of Four

Today's reading includes both Robin's modeling at Vashti and Strike's McDonalds talk with Rochelle Onifade. This means readers of the first edition (and listeners, like me, of the audiobook) had a very different experience than those who read later editions.  JKR/RG made the most extensive corrections she has made in any book to date when the character of Aussie saleswoman Mia Thompson was added. 

For those of you who have seen the text both pre- and post-Mia, what do you think of the edition?  Was the "error" that she corrected worth the extensive revision, especially since she didn't wind up creating a valid will anyway?

Rochelle is also the first to quote Deeby Macc's "F*ck Johari" rap lyric, which Strike attends to enough to eventually ask about.  As Robin will explain, Johari's window is a psychological framework that encourages people to consider what they know about themselves, versus what others know about them. As relationships strengthen, the upper right quadrant expands through the processes of self-disclosure, self-discovery and feedback from others.

By the end of Part three, Strike is annoyed with Lucy, and, by extension, Robin, fearing (quite correctly) that Lucy has disclosed aspects of his life to Robin that he would have preferred to remain hidden.  "He had never wanted Robin to know about his mother, or about his leg, or about Charlotte, or any of the other painful subjects which Lucy insisted on probing whenever she came close enough."

Of course, by Part Four, Strike will have disclosed far more, with a little help from the 11 pints of Doom Bar.

But it is worth asking now:

• What parts of Strike and Robin's life are they clearly open about?
• What does it mean for Strike that so many details about his life can't be hidden:  he can't hide his debt or his homelessness from Robin, and the story of Leda and Rokeby is open to anyone who can google it? 
• What does it say about Robin that she is willing to behave as if some of these involuntary open aspects are hidden, by, for instance, not mentioning the camp bed or asking about Rokeby?
• What are they currently successfully keeping hidden from each other?
• What are their blind spots?

In a way, their entire relationship can be described as a gradual and mutual expansion of the Open window. 

I'll close with w few more random thoughts that occurred to me on the re-read: 

• Why does JKR/RG stick in interludes like this, which happened near the end of Strike's first meeting with Derrick?  

Is there any chance,” asked Strike, as they were momentarily impeded by a tiny hooded, bearded man like an Old Testament prophet, who stopped in front of them and slowly stuck out his tongue, “that I could come and have a look inside sometime?

• Is it just to keep a flavor of "weird things happen on the streets of London?" Or to keep us guessing about suspects/red herrings?
• Every time the ashtray is mentioned, the fact that he swiped it from a bar in Germany also comes up.  Will we ever see it again now that he's stopped smoking? 
• It's worth a quick look at Elbow, the CD that Strike listens to that isn't Tom Waits. It seems to be a very different type of music. 
• Strike "asked himself when he was going to kick the habit and set to work to restore the fitness that had slipped away along with his solvency and his domestic comfort." Five years, dude, five years. 

Comments welcome.  I'll be back on Monday for a look at Part Four of CC.