Starting tomorrow over at the HogwartsProfessor substack, Nick Jeffery and I will begin our Lake and Shed reviews of the twenty-one stories written at least in part by Joanne Rowling Murray, who writes under the pseudonyms of ‘J. K. Rowling’ and ‘Robert Galbraith.’ We have taken on this month long project to celebrate Mrs Murray’s 60th birthday which falls on the last day of the month of July.
Nick and I are both Nipponophiles and want to observe JKR’s Hanreki, or ‘calendar return,’ the second-birth celebration made by those who observe the five cycles of twelve years in Chinese astrology, each cycle of the twelve animals having the quality of one of the five archetypal elements. Rowling was born in the year of the Wood Snake or Tree Snake, 1965, and this year on her birthday she will once again enter into the cycle of the years that she did as a newborn.
We are taking this occasion to make a romping roll-through review of most everything she’s written with Nick making one point from the Lake side of the house, Rowling’s metaphorical place for her inspiration from her biological history and unconscious mind, and my making one point from her Shed, a point about her deliberate artistry, i.e., her tools, the Golden Threads, and her most pronounced themes. It promises to be something of a marathon exercise but still a lot of fun — and, I hope, an engaging introduction to the Fourth Generation of Rowling Studies in which, per Rowling’s Lake and Shed writing process metaphor and invitation, her biography and bibliography are both given their due.
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See you there!
