The Casual Vacancy released in Ukraine

Ukrainian translation of the first “adult” novel by J.K. Rowling from the publishing house A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA, which also published the series of books about Harry Potter, has been released. The translator of the novel was traditionally Viktor Morozov. The book was released in Britain in late September of 2012. Before the book was published Joanne Rowling announced that the novel was written for adults and had nothing to do with magic.

From the first pages the reader is immersed in the life of a small English town Pegford (with neat cottages, the river, and the ruins of an old castle) and it seems so beautiful at the first glance. However, the more you read the more you see the unpleasant side of the characters that seemed funny and distinctive at first.

The knotting of the plot is the sudden death of a young member of the city council. That’s how this casual vacancy appears all of a sudden (casual vacancy is a special legal term in England which means “a place to be taken”). Respectable citizens sympathize with the grief of the widow and children, but… The next day after the funeral there appeared three candidates for the vacancy of the deceased. Then begins the fight of backstage confrontations, gossips, secret relationships…

British anthropologist Kate Fox in her book Watching the English called her nation “the nation of gossip.” J.K. Rowling confirms this thesis the best in her novel. Gossip in her novel is spread not only in an old way by word of mouth, but also with the help of the Internet, which, despite the traditional character of the town, is well mastered even by elderly people.

While reading this novel you pay great deal of attention to such modern and realistic attributes. Because, on the one hand, remembering who the author of the book is you expect something extraordinary to happen, or at least a hint at the connection to the magical world… In fact, J.K. Rowling wrote about our time and did it no less vivid or bizarre than the Hogwarts everyday life. Despite drastic change of genre, the author’s style and manner of writing is recognizable in every paragraph.

Provincial society that seemed to be forever locked in their everyday lives, habits, patterns of behavior. In several interviews the writer noted that she got fascinated with the idea to write a novel about a small town closed community like in her favorite English novels of the 19th century. Because such communities still exist. However, Pegford consists not only of neighborhoods with decent estates, it also includes the Fields district, inhabited predominantly by poor, marginalized, and even antisocial elements of society: drunkards, drug addicts, and criminals, whose children go to school together with the younger generation of the respectable part of the town. The intrigue of who would occupy the place in the council is faded against the conflict between these two layers of Pegford community.

The writer raised a ton of issues. Exactly a ton, since some of them are, in fact, forever conflict and deep. The most prominent place is given to the problem of parents and their children. Almost a third of all the characters in the new adult novel by J.K. Rowling are teenagers and some of them could become friends with Harry Potter. They also reflect on life, argue with their parents, and fall in love. In their lives a lot of interesting things happen on Facebook and they are not as innocent as the heroes of Potter series.

The author also presented the relations of married couples well to the point: an elderly woman above all respects her ridiculous husband, who cheated on her nearly all her life, husband of another lady is a despot, but she also loves him dearly, yet another man in a married couple is mentally ill, and some older lady, bored in her marriage, dreams of her daughter’s young pop idol.

Many people are concerned with what is essentially unimportant – who will take the new position, while acute social problems, that lead to tragic denouement, are unfolding and raging right before them.

Rowling is a gifted storyteller. Nearly half of the book seems ironic, fun and very close to real life. And only later the reader gets the depressing feeling of “impending doom,” turpitude of everything that happens, double meanings, insincerity and anger. Almost no positive characters are left by the end of the novel, maybe except for some young people – they still have a chance.

It should be stressed that this novel is for adult readers only. Some scenes may actually be too explicit even for advanced modern teenagers. In The Casual Vacancy J.K. Rowling demonstrates her vision of the dark side of the moon (meaning British society) through this novel. The world is not as beautiful as it may seem, just like the fictional town of Pegford. But it is sure very interesting!