Fats was a deplorable douchebag, but I found his POV entertaining/captivating/whatever, and his "authenticity" spiel reminded me of the kid from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man lmao.
HA, I said The Fountainhead. ;) I couldn't forgive his treatment of Sukhvinder, but he was certainly very very interesting. I was thinking of Kelly as well for Krystal, but then I switched to Mia from Fish Tank because I adore that movie and that character is so powerful (and there are some parallels & whatnot). I personally loved the 'nothing happened'-ness aspect of it--like, HP is so huge and fantastic [literally] and such big things happen, whereas in this very small things happen, and yet they have huge personal impacts. I thought she did an awesome job of communicating emotional resonance on, like, a tiny scale, if that makes sense. (And "Socialist tripe" would only make me love it more, lbr.)
Yeah he was one of those sort of love-to-hate characters at least. JKR is generally pretty good at those.
I didn't connect Krystal with Kelly so much as with the character Lauren Socha played in "The Unloved", which was about children in the British foster system so I suppose that makes sense lol. It was a bit weird because as it turns out Lauren Socha is a terrible person, but my left-over loyalty to Kelly meant that picturing Krystal as Lauren increased my fondness for Krystal.
I think the small scale worked quite well in this book. It didn't need to have huge international ramifications. The character drama said enough, I thought. And I like character driven stories, and I tend to find JKR's characters interesting, so it was intriguing enough of a plot for me.
Haven't read Portrait of an Artist, but it is one of the books on JKR's bookshelf in the photograph on the back of the British adult HP covers, so it possibly an influence
( ... )
ORLY. I did not remember that. Maybe I'm onto her! lol
I agree actually, my idea of what this book would be like was way off. For some reason I'd gotten to thinking it was a murder mystery? LOLLL. But yes, I was looking forward to that because I think JKR is quite good at plotting and foreshadowing and all that stuff. But I liked what we got in the end -- I like character driven stories and I think JKR is good at making interesting characters with interesting motivations, so I ended up quite invested.
Yeah, I once dedicated myself to trying to figure out the books on JKR's shelf from this hi-res picture in this journal entry of mine. The reason you thought it was a murder mystery is because Ian Rankin wondered whether it would be on his twitter and it became fact by fandom osmosis. Yeah, same, I ended up liking it, but it's not for everyone. It's pretty harrowing stuff.
I liked Sam. She was morally dubious but I sympathized with her I guess, I found her among the more likable adults anyway. I felt bad she couldn't go to the not-One Direction concert, lmao. I also had a more vivid mental image of her than almost anyone. Also I think of the middleclassers she's the one who might actually have learnt something, since she wanted to join the Council and protect Bellchapel.
I paid very little attention to Mary Fairbrother tbh, and in the end I don't really hold anything against her because she is a widow and she is grieving and, y'know, whatevs.
Yeah I think I really liked her. She was such a complex, believable character. And I liked how she would invite people over just to troll them (lol puck you Gavin). And oh my god when she didn't get to go to the concert I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I also liked the part when she was honest about her daughter sounding like Shirley. Fucking Shirley.
Yeah that's true. And like, I respect her grief but I kind of side-eyed her negativity towards a teenage girl but....I get it.
LOL her trolling Gavin and Shirley was gr8. Yeah I thought Sam was interesting and I felt bad for her and her situation. HER IN-LAWS WERE SO EFFING ANNOYING OMG. Poor Sam not getting to see One Direction, lol.
I spent the whole book wondering when/if she was going to introduce a gay character, so I wish we'd gotten to see Pat earlier. However I appreciated the role she did kind of play, emphasizing even more the really ignorant, narrow-minded attitudes of her family/Pagford in general, and how she was obviously like "FUCK THIS NOISE".
I am not really sure what about the synopsis of a small-town Parish council election led people to believe HUGE DOINGS would be afoot,
Lmao! Yeah that description is why I haven't really felt interested in reading it yet, I mean it's not like there was false advertising for this book...good to hear it was decent and interesting enough, however!
It's definitely a pretty small-scale story -- it is ostensibly about the election, but really it's about this group of people in the town and how all their lives are intertwined; most of the action just gets kickstarted by the "casual vacancy" and subsequent election for council.
It definitely has bigger themes -- the most obvious and important one is classism but there's also addiction, abuse, etc -- and I would say in that sense it has implications about wider society, but it all takes place on a small scale in a small town and people who seemed to expect some kind of action-driven plot with like... idk, international conspiracy or explosions are going to be disappointed.
The people claiming it wasn't about anything need to re-examine their priorities. And, in all likelyhood, git themsleves some life experience (a request that is mostly unrelated to biological age. At times, pleasantly so. Overwhelmingly, disappointingly so.)
Also, was I the only one who felt punched in the everything by
"But who could bear to know which stars were already dead?[…} Could anybody stand to know they all were? "
ALSO, since this is the greatest thing I have yet seen rolled out of tumblr with regards to Casual Vacancy:
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HA, I said The Fountainhead. ;) I couldn't forgive his treatment of Sukhvinder, but he was certainly very very interesting. I was thinking of Kelly as well for Krystal, but then I switched to Mia from Fish Tank because I adore that movie and that character is so powerful (and there are some parallels & whatnot). I personally loved the 'nothing happened'-ness aspect of it--like, HP is so huge and fantastic [literally] and such big things happen, whereas in this very small things happen, and yet they have huge personal impacts. I thought she did an awesome job of communicating emotional resonance on, like, a tiny scale, if that makes sense. (And "Socialist tripe" would only make me love it more, lbr.)
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I didn't connect Krystal with Kelly so much as with the character Lauren Socha played in "The Unloved", which was about children in the British foster system so I suppose that makes sense lol. It was a bit weird because as it turns out Lauren Socha is a terrible person, but my left-over loyalty to Kelly meant that picturing Krystal as Lauren increased my fondness for Krystal.
I think the small scale worked quite well in this book. It didn't need to have huge international ramifications. The character drama said enough, I thought. And I like character driven stories, and I tend to find JKR's characters interesting, so it was intriguing enough of a plot for me.
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I agree actually, my idea of what this book would be like was way off. For some reason I'd gotten to thinking it was a murder mystery? LOLLL. But yes, I was looking forward to that because I think JKR is quite good at plotting and foreshadowing and all that stuff. But I liked what we got in the end -- I like character driven stories and I think JKR is good at making interesting characters with interesting motivations, so I ended up quite invested.
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The reason you thought it was a murder mystery is because Ian Rankin wondered whether it would be on his twitter and it became fact by fandom osmosis. Yeah, same, I ended up liking it, but it's not for everyone. It's pretty harrowing stuff.
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Whatever tumblr can bitch. JKR is a boss at writing complex, ambiguous characters.
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I paid very little attention to Mary Fairbrother tbh, and in the end I don't really hold anything against her because she is a widow and she is grieving and, y'know, whatevs.
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Yeah that's true. And like, I respect her grief but I kind of side-eyed her negativity towards a teenage girl but....I get it.
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I spent the whole book wondering when/if she was going to introduce a gay character, so I wish we'd gotten to see Pat earlier. However I appreciated the role she did kind of play, emphasizing even more the really ignorant, narrow-minded attitudes of her family/Pagford in general, and how she was obviously like "FUCK THIS NOISE".
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Lmao! Yeah that description is why I haven't really felt interested in reading it yet, I mean it's not like there was false advertising for this book...good to hear it was decent and interesting enough, however!
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It definitely has bigger themes -- the most obvious and important one is classism but there's also addiction, abuse, etc -- and I would say in that sense it has implications about wider society, but it all takes place on a small scale in a small town and people who seemed to expect some kind of action-driven plot with like... idk, international conspiracy or explosions are going to be disappointed.
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Also, was I the only one who felt punched in the everything by
"But who could bear to know which stars were already dead?[…} Could anybody stand to know they all were? "
ALSO, since this is the greatest thing I have yet seen rolled out of tumblr with regards to Casual Vacancy:
http://thiswontbebigondignity.tumblr.com/post/33050726730/2spookyinadalek-inside-of-the-casual-vacancy#notes
As you were.
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