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| Galilee Chapel, Durham |
The J K Rowling phenomenon is beginning to take on aspects of the J R Ewing style of doing things; in other words, a lawyer lies at the heart of her empire and he sounds like a human rottweiler as he bludgeons critics and reviewers into silence. There have been embargoes on who can read the novel, let alone review it, and when they may do so, plus how many agreements they had to sign before they're allowed to do any of it - it just doesn't sound like the normal style of publishing in Britain. The more they want, the less you give them has been the PR maxim since the first word leaked that there was to be a new book.
If all that is said in the Mail Online is absolutely accurate, then it could be that publishing as we have known it for the last few decades is about to change, for the article reads like the plot of a big business thriller. To be fair to the publishing industry, it seems it's the PR side of things that is the driving force. The ad men have got a grip and they're unlikely to let go.
Perhaps earning all that money changes a person's personality; or the lure of power is too great to resist. If you can have things exactly as you want them, then why not? Maybe we would all go for that if we could. but I can't help wishing the publication had been just as it is for any other author. Then the lady might have received an honest and accurate assessment of her new book.
I read Harry Potter and loved the imagination that created the HP world. The writing, I always felt, could have been better edited, and I skipped over quite a few laboured paragraphs. The subject, theme, premise - call it what you will - of this latest book does not, for many reasons, draw me toward reading it. I wonder how many other Potter fans will feel the same way? And how many of them will hopefully sample the new work, just in case they might like it?
1 comment:
I watched the half hour interview with JK Rowling the other evening and I definitely won't be reading her new book. I loved Harry Potter, but this adult novel sounds too realistic and gritty for my escapist tastes! Hope none of her younger fans get hold of it.
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