As I wrote yesterday, The Rowling Library Magazine for January 2025 is out and can be downloaded here. For serious readers of J. K. Rowling, it is the Christmas present you wanted; informative, ‘instructing while delighting,’ challenging, and a reminder of what a blessing TRL is to Rowling’s global fandom.
Here are my homeopathic doses of each of this issue’s articles:
Cover Story: ‘The Daily Prophet Newsletters — Uncovering one of the most elusive Harry Potter writings: J.K. Rowling’s Newsletters from 1998 and 1999.’ In an article I want to assume was written by Ibid, the eccentric Go-To expert and unchallenged authority on JKR textual histories, the reader is introduced to perhaps Rowling’s most elusive and curious work, the four newsletters Rowling penned in 1998 and 1999 for a short-lived Bloomsbury fan club in the UK. Surviving copies of the mailed newsletters are rare, especially as complete sets, and Rowling, Inc., has forbidden their reproduction. The author of this piece lovingly shares how s/he came to read an original set and enough of the newsletters to communicate their value without violating copyright. The sports page excerpts are a delight.
‘Ghost Plots.’ I expressed my frustration yesterday with this article’s lack of source citation in my ‘Rowling’s Real World Inspiration for Leda Strike: Nancy Spungen? but my having been inspired to write that post I hope points to the remarkable value of this survey of Rowling’s abandonded or re-shaped original ideas for the Hogwarts Saga. I expect it will inspire serious readers everywhere, as it did me, to follow up on an intriguing name or plot point suggesting a link to Rowling’s ‘Lake,’ her post Potter efforts, or to both. It merits repeated readings in this regard and makes the absence of source citations that much more disappointing.
Publication Announcement: ‘The Phoenix or the Flame Set for February Release — Explore the release date, essays, and insights from TRL Books’ newest look at the original outline for The Order of the Phoenix.’ I wrote a chapter for this new Rowling Library (TRL) anthology and enjoyed every minute of my exchanges with The Phoenix or the Flame’s editor and the publisher, but I confess to not having an appreciation of its depths and breadth until reading this brief piece in January’s magazine. I can say as a relative insider that the textual history provided in the book of Rowling’s outline of the fifth Harry Potter novel is worth to Potter Pundits whatever they’re charging for the essay collection and I’ll admit to being delighted for the opportunity to write up at last my thoughts about the Department of Mysteries adventure’s chiastic structure, a jewel box for those sensitive to Rowling’s artistry and meaning. I’m excited by next month’s publication of The Phoenix and the Flame and I’m grateful to this article for re-igniting that flame of interest.
Media Review: ‘A Heart Too Big for the Screen — The BBC’s bold attempt at bringing Robert Galbraith’s The Ink Black Heart to Life.’ TRL’s anonymous reviewer congratulated the screenplay writer for his adaptation of Galbraith’s Strike 6 and tipped the hat to the principal actor and actress, but noted with kindness the near impossibility of adapting this novel so that its power was communicated into an alien medium. Really, Ink Black Heart has been Rowling-Galbraith’s most challenging book to read due to its extensive use of simultaneous online chatter threads and, as hard as it was to convey that internet experience in codex, the jump to screened images alone was virtually impossible. [I thought of the conversation that was supposed to have been had between the translator of Marx’ Philosophical Manuscripts of 1848 into English from the German with its author, in which he complained of the difficulty in moving from one language to another with this book. Marx is said to have shrugged and replied, “The ideas didn’t translate easily into German, either.”] An excellent review that actually made me more interested in seeing the adaptation than I had been.
Lead Article: ‘Why Christmas to Me is J. K. Rowling’s Old Website.’ This was far and away my favorite piece in this month’s magazine, an article that touched me as it might few others. First, it provides an inside-look at the remarkable person behind the curtain that makes TRL happen, Patricio Tarantino. I communicate with him regularly and my debts to him for the resources and tools he has created for Rowling readers grow ever deeper in depth. Yet I know very little about him, really, outside of his sterling character and fine judgment. This autobiographical episode was, consequently, a revelation on several levels and much appreciated.
Second, tonight is Christmas Eve to Orthodox Christians and I have experienced reading (and re-reading) this article, delayed from December when the great majority of TRL readers were preparing for their Nativity celebrations, as something of a personal present under my family’s tree, delivered by TRL House Elves dispatched from Buenos Aires.
Thank you, Mr Tarantino, for this gift and for all that you and the magazine contributors give to Rowling’s global fandom in these magazines!
