One of the many connections The Running Grave has with Troubled Blood is the theme of water. Troubled Blood, of course, centered around the real-life Cornish floods of 2014. A Running Grave has its share of rain, including one real-life storm, but more of its water comes in the form of baptismal imagery, both traditional and macabre. How does this unite both the book and StrikeandRobin into a coherent whole? Find out after the jump.
I'm continuing my post of random bits I noticed in my second listen through The Running Grave. As always, spoilers ahead.
I'm midway through my favorite two academic days of the year, the annual Chestnut Hill College Harry Potter Academic Conference. The organizers were kind enough to be flexible with the deadlines and let me submit an abstract on The Running Grave. Here is my recorded presentation. Enjoy! Spoilers for TRG.
I'm going to be tied up with the Harry Potter Academic Conference for the next two days., but I wanted to share two resources for The Running Grave readers. Both links include spoilers, naturally.
First, Kurt Schreyer has a great new essay on epistemology in TRG published at the Strike and Ellacott files blog.
Second, there an interview with "Robert Galbraith" was released on Facebook today. It can be viewed here:
Despite Cormoran Strike's firm "team rational" position, spectral spirits seem to haunt his detective novels. For evidence, see these other posts on Charlie Bristow of Cuckoo's Calling, Freddie Chiswell of Lethal White, and Margot Bamborough of Troubed Blood. Is a similar ghost haunting Chapman Farm, without the aid of the Wace's smoke and mirrors? I am going to argue that there is a genuine ghost among the fake ones, one whose story could be considered a re-telling of a local Aylmerton ghost story, much like Jasper Chiswell's story is a re-telling of the Francis Rattenbury murder.
For background on Norfolk folklore, I recommend two excellent articles by Beatrice Groves (both written pre-TRG, so no spoilers): here and here. In particular, the story of the Shrieking Pits is most relevant.
Three miles from Cromer, five such pits are visible in Aylmerton in the wooded slopes close to the Gresham Cross, close to the pilgrims' path which heads towards the holy shrines at Walsingham– these are known locally as the Shrieking Pits.
Folklore tells of a ghostly figure wearing white that haunts the pits, weeping and wailing as she walks between each pit, endlessly searching the depressions in the ground, looking for her baby. The child was killed by her husband who was convinced the baby wasn't his and, after he had buried the infant in the pit west of Aylmerton church, he went back and killed his wife.
Which UHC resident connects to the White Lady? Find out after the jump. Spoiler warning.
Ever since Remus Lupin turned out to be a werewolf and Sirius Black a disguised big black dog. we've been trained to look for cratylic names (or sometimes, ironically anti-cratylic, like Fluffy for the savage dog and Fang for the gentle one)in the works of JKR/RG. The Running Grave was no exception. I have been making notes on names as I blogged my way through the initial read, but I wanted to compile a new list, now that we've finished the book. There are an unusually high number of family groups in The Running Grave, so I'm going to start with the major families in the story. Spoilers ho!
For me, the best part of a Cormoran Strike book is not the first reading, but the re-reads, knowing full spoilers. and seeing the hints you missed and the red herrings you fell for. Here's some thoughts.
Spoilers below.
You can find out more about the history of the conference and see past programs here.
This year's schedule is available here.
Tickets for this year's conference are available here.
In 2020, I spoke on the psychology of humor in the Harry Potter series.
I'm still hard at work on my cratylic names post, which is taking a while, given the number of names in The Running Grave, but I wanted to share a few bits of news that I am excited about. First, although The Running Grave and other Strike posts have understandably dominated here for the last few weeks, I never intended this blog to center exclusively on Strike, or Strike/Harry Potter connections. My first love is young adult literature and, while my scholarship into psychological themes in YA literature was triggered by Harry Potter, my interests spread well beyond that series.
I was delighted to see on Facebook that Veronica Roth's Divergent was the featured weekend pick on Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday page. If you teach YA literature or, like me, simply enjoy reading it, this page is well worth following. For Divergent enthusiasts out there, here are some links to some of my earlier posts on that series, as well as to some talks and podcasts I have done on the topic.
Two key posts on the Divergent Factions and their connections to Five Factor Personality theory. Part I and Part II.
Those posts became my first Hogpro material ever cited in in a scientific conference paper. That research was eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal.
I wrote about a few other Divergent-based topics, too:
The significance of the zip-lining adventure,
The movie screening with the Mary Baldwin psychology department.
Why Allegiant might have worked better with epigenetic rather than genetic experimentation.
Finally, for those interested in Divergent-Harry Potter connections, I will point you to:
My Mugglenet Academia appearance: Tris Transfigured!
And
My Chestnut Hill presentation on Tris Prior and Hermione Granger as twin personalities.
Speaking of the Harry Potter Academic Conference, we are only a week away! It is all online this year and, though I will miss seeing all my favorite Potter buddies in person, it is a great opportunity for anyone to attend, without the expense of travel. For $15, you can get two days of amazing Potter and Rowling scholarship. My own talk, which, I believe, will be the first-ever academic presentation on The Running Grave, is Friday morning.
Ever since JKR/RG confirmed that the Strike series would be ten books, I've been going over how Ring Structure and Parallel Series models can be adjusted into a a model that fits, especially since so many of the predictions made originally, like The Running Grave linking to Cuckoo's Calling and Lethal White and having lots of Deathly Hallows echoes., seem to still be coming true. I've also been scratching my head for something that accounts for the relatively simple observations that even and odd-numbered books seem to pair up with each other well, as well as the special connections and resets between Troubled Blood and The Ink Black Heart.
And, I think I have something that works, at least until Book Eight comes out. More information, and TRG spoilers, after the jump.
First, Book Six picks up right where Book Five leaves off: at Robin's birthday celebration at the Ritz. We have only seen this once before; after the cliffhanger ending of Book Three, Book Four pretty much had to pick up at the wedding. But, Troubled Blood did not explicitly end on a cliffhanger; the author didn't have to show us the drinks at the Ritz in the same way that she had to show the wedding. The inclusion of the Ritz ties Books Five and Six to each other in a more seamless way than any other two adjacent books in the series. Lethal White takes a year-long time-jump after the cliffhanger is resolved. The Ink Black Heart has no such jump, in fact, we are told about plenty of crucial events (Strike's birthday dinner, Robin's trip to Zermatt, New Years Eve at Annabel's) in the time between the Ritz and when the mystery proper starts with Edie's arrival at the agency.
In looking over various connections between the Strike books and structural models that have been proposed to explain them, onc thing has become very clear: so far, there is a strong pattern of even-numbered books connecting with even, and odd-numbered books connecting to odd. Some of these connections, like Book 2-Book 6 and Book 3-Book 5, are predicted by ring composition, but many are not. For lack of a better term, I'll call this the Leapfrog Model.
Some of the compiled lists are available among mine and others' writings the old Hogwarts professor site, more recent are on this site.
In the interest of having all connections in one place, I will compile a full set here.
Odds: Evens
Book 1 and Book 3 Book 2 and Book 4
Book 1 and Book 5 Book 2 and Book 6: See also here and here.
Book 1 and Book 7 ; see also here.
Book 5 and Book 7; see also here.
More after the jump.
Ring Composition predicts that there would be far few connections between The Running Grave and Books 2, 3 and 6 than seen with books 4 and 7. But, you never know. John Granger has shown that a simple turtle-back ring diagram does not explain all connections in Harry Potter (such as the many echoes between books 1 and 5 and between books 3 and 7); for explanation, see his asterisk model. There are multiple connections, such as the many already documented between Troubled Blood and The Running Grave, that, best I can tell, are predicted neither by ring structure or the asterisk. I myself fell into the trap of being so busy looking for connections between Troubled Blood and Career of Evil, that I missed many equally strong connections between Troubled Blood and The Silkworm.
I am working on a new, comprehensive model of how remainder of the series might be structured, now that we have seen Book seven and know to expect ten, but it will likely take a while to get that together. So, this is where we need sharp-eyed Serious Strikers, who are perhaps not as biased towards specific hypotheses as I am, to not be shy about identifying connections that come up. As I said, I am not expecting as many compared to the long lists already compiled for Books 1, 4 and 5, but I would be happy to be proved wrong. Given the connections seen between Prisoner of Azkaban and Deathly Hallows, we might expect more with CoE, but who knows?
Spoilers below.
Ring Structure predicts that the first and last books of a seven book series. John Grnager has written extensively on within- and between book rings in Harry Potter, producing an entire book on the topic. Given that is clear that Cormoran Strike is a parallel series to Harry Potter, Ring structure has also been an analytic tool for Strike and Robin's adventures. This post will collect links to Cuckoo's Calling and Lethal White, with a bonus section for three-way parallels. Spoilers in blue.
The Strike and Ellacott Files Podcast made notes of many connections between Lethal White and The Ink Black Heart and, accordingly, predicted connections between Troubled Blood and The Running Grave. There were certainly plenty. I've mentioned quite a few as I've blogged through, and I'm putting together this post to compile more. Spoilers below.
This is my master list of thematic echoes and connections between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and The Running Grave. Spoilers below.
Finally finishing this puppy, and looking forward to it so I can read/listen to other commentaries. Spoilers below.
For those of us that thought the mystery might be drawing to a close once Robin 's job at the cult was over, we were wrong. There's lots more to come.
Spoilers Below.
I'm still chugging away, putting together may own initial read-through commentary before reading or listening to anyone elses, but hopefully I will start partaking of others' in a few days. Both Evan Willis and Nick Jeffery have reviews up on Hogwartsprofessor Substack, and I am especially looking forward to theirs.
Spoilers ahead.
Though I have finished the book, I am intentionally staying away from podcasts and other websites that are discussing The Running Grave, because I want the opportunity to write my own first impression of the book, untainted by the opinions of others. Hopefully I'll finish this up in a few days because I can't wait to here what the Strike and Ellacott Files ladies have to say.
This post is dominated by Harry Potter echoes, specifically connections between The Running Grave and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Spoilers in Blue
