J.K. Rowling's latest effort has left the world of Harry Potter behind, choosing instead, to explore the life of ordinary muggles in a small English town called Pagford. Although the Harry Potter series has generally been categorised as children's literature, Stephen King reminds us that, 'These books ceased to be specifically for children halfway through ... by Goblet of Fire, Rowling was writing for everyone, and knew it.'
However, The Casual Vacancy is specifically for adults. With sex, drugs and violence seemingly at every turn, younger readers will have to wait a few years before they can sink their teeth into this book.
Structurally, it's very much a traditional English novel - a modern version of Jane Austen or George Eliot. The reader is presented with a large cast and several interlinking plots which are all tied together by the sudden death of Barry Fairbrother, a local councillor. Barry grew up in 'the fields' - a rough council estate on the outskirts of Pagford - and spent most of his time fighting for those who came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Children from the fields have the right to attend a primary school in Pagford and the council also supports a drug rehabilitation clinic on the estate. When Barry's death results in a casual vacancy on the local council, several of his more conservative neighbours see an opportunity to rid Pagford of this obligation.
This is the central plot of the book, which allows Rowling to make some pithy observations about the class divide. On one hand, Rowling shows the common humanity we all share. Our flaws, hypocrisy and our staggering ability to delude ourselves. For example, during a council meeting, while discussing the rehabilitation centre, one of the local G.Ps - Parminder Jawanda - explodes in fury at Howard Mollison's (the delicatessen owner) hypocrisy,
"do you know how many tens of thousands of pounds you, Howard, Mollison, have cost the health service, because of your total inability to stop gorging yourself?"On the other hand, The Casual Vacancy conveys the importance of the environment in which we live. Although horrifying episodes take place in many of the well-to-do houses in Pagford, the most dire scenes concern inhabitants from the fields and seem to be directly linked to poverty. Research carried out by Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) suggests that the three most important categories of psychosocial risk for poor health are low social status, weak social affiliations, and stress in early life. Unfortunately, scholars generally agree that people who live in poverty and largely unequal societies are the most at risk of falling into all three of these categories. In short, being on the lower rungs of the social ladder does not make a life of suffering inevitable, but it does make it more likely.
Rowling highlights this point in one of her main characters - Krystal Weedon. Krystal comes from an extremely disadvantaged background. Her mother is a heroin addict and a prostitute. She also has no idea who her father is. Krystal constantly dreams of a better life away from her mother with her 3 year old brother, Robbie. She always finds herself in trouble at school and is incredibly impulsive. But she is a strong character. One of her friends describe her as,
"funny and tough, impossible to intimidate, always coming out fighting."Tragically, Krystal is unequipped to rescue herself, or her brother, from terrible circumstances. The Harry Potter ethos of 'love conquers all' is not found in The Causal Vacancy. Indeed, Rowling's decision to make each Potter book darker than its predecessor may not only have been due to a maturing audience but an inherent urge to write about real life. She portrays a shaded reality: sometimes there are no answers and people have to carry on the best they can.
Mental health problems are also dealt with in this book. Parminder's daughter, Sukvinder, is dyslexic, has poor grades and is bullied often. Moreover, her family do not take her seriously and her mother constantly berates her about her lack of academic achievement. A combination of all this leads to self-harming:
"With a slight shiver of fear that was a blessed relief in its narrow, immediate focus, she placed the blade halfway up her forearm and sliced into her own flesh."Rowling captures the anxiety a self-harmer may feel and the release most get by cutting themselves. Self-harm is sometimes misunderstood as attention seeking and is a taboo that most people would rather pretend did not exist. However, Rowling chooses not to shy away from it and tackles the issue well.
Rowling has admitted to having her own battles with mental health problems as a teenager. Particularly in relation to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Many people completely misunderstand OCD as being 'a bit obsessive about symmetry and/or cleanliness'. It even seems to be trendy these days to say 'I'm a bit OCD'. However, people who actually suffer from this disorder can experience an extremely poor quality of life and live in a state of constant anxiety spending hours completing bizarre rituals in an attempt to ward off their worst nightmares.
Furthermore, OCD can take many forms. It would have been easy for Rowling to create a character who obsessed about contamination. However, Rowling does her part to raise awareness of the crippling forms this illness can take in the psyche of Colin Wall, the deputy headmaster at Winterdown School in Pagford. Colin's fear is that he will be accused of child abuse, even though he has done no such thing. Many people will find this hard to grasp but it does happen. Imagine your worst nightmare, now imagine constantly thinking about your worst nightmare, now imagine constantly questioning if it was real (even though on some level you know it isn't). Sounds like a terrible life doesn't it? Moreover, there continues to be a stigma towards mental illness. This is slowly changing and hopefully The Casual Vacancy will help raise some awareness among its readers.
Some critics have suggested that Rowling has used unnecessarily graphic language in this book to overcompensate for the restrained nature of the Potter series. I disagree. Although you would be hard pressed to find a book with a more detailed description of pornography, domestic violence and rape, Rowling's writing rings true to me. She calls a spade a spade and I'm OK with that. It makes for compelling reading. For example, the tension she creates in the Price home, when Simon (the father) is on one of his violent tirades makes me physically squirm. When the teenage characters talk about sex the language suits the uncontrollable hormones that accompany adolescence. However, Rowling may have overdone it a bit when she wrote:
"With an ache in his heart and in his balls."The teenage characters in The Causal Vacancy are what make the book worth reading. The self-righteousness and the sense of hypocrisy abound. Andrew 'Arf' Price is at war with his father, is afraid to talk to the new girl at school and generally second guesses himself at every turn. His best friend, Stuart 'Fats' Wall, is an existential smart-arse who is constantly seeking 'reality' only to get what he asks for from the place he least suspects. I've already mentioned, Sukhvinder and Krystal. Finally, Gaia Bawden, Andrew's crush, who befriends Sukhvinder and is angry at her mum for making her leave London. All of this may sound very cliché, but Rowling manages to pull it off by injecting her own magic into these characters that will make the reader relate to their daily struggles.
Towards the end of the novel, the plot does descend into melodrama akin to what you would read in a Greek tragedy. This has been one of the main criticisms of the book and it is all a bit too far-fetched. Conversely, it has the same 'can't put it down' effect that the Potter series had. Furthermore, it reminds the reader of something important: most of us are far too self-absorbed. The main tragedy in this book could have been avoided if certain characters thought of others half as much as they thought of themselves (something that all of us could learn from). Will 'The Casual Vacancy' be remembered as fondly as the Potter series? The answer is no. The novel is far too real, something I think Rowling will be happy with. She has definitely managed to write an adult novel, but she has also managed to retain the same strength in her writing that she is famous for.
Rating 3/5
