Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California, one of the most important churches in the United States right now. This happened mostly because of the success of his volume, The Purpose Driven Life. It is a simple book, expressing Christian doctrine in a self-help format that is truly positive. It sold millions of pies, made a bundle of money and grew his congregation to overflowing capacity.
But I consider what Rick Warren did immediately after that to be more significant. In the throes of his success and in the wake of his bestselling author status, rather than just building on that, creating an empire, he turned his focus to Africa, taught about the church helping the poor and poured money and effort into those who suffered in Rwanda. This isn't remarkably different from what Bono has done or Angelina Jolie, but it is so rare to be considered very rare. To turn the focus of one's attention, in the midst of one's hour of great praise and adulation, to focus on the poor and needy is both remarkable and truly worthy of praise.
But even rarer is what J.K. Rowling has done in her latest volume. Yes, she has produced the most popular series of books in the last century, and has written them remarkably well. She could have taken her ease, or written inferior works in the same magical, joyful and happy universe. Instead, she has written what could be seen as the opposite of the Harry Potter series.
There is still the remarkable character studies, and the tight, intricate plot. There is still the small community-- a small town instead of a private school-- she unfolds the secrets of. And it deals mostly with parents and their children, the parents having the authority and the children forced to clean up their messes or tasks left undone.
But instead of a fairy-tale universe, where the only problem is a single, evil mastermind, the downfall of this world is pettiness and hypocrisy, gossip and self-righteousness. Instead of the relationships between parents and children being loving and supportive (even Malfoy's parents love their child dearly, and partly causes their separation from Voldemort), in The Casual Vacancy the relationship between sires and offspring are full of anger, misunderstanding and animosity. In the Potter series we see the best of humanity: courage, wisdom, support and love. Rowling's latest volume is instead full of narrow-mindedness, and spite.
Why this change? Like George MacDonald and many other authors before her, Rowling uses her novels as a canvas to paint pictures of her moral universe. Harry Potter expressed her ideals of a community joined together to fight a great evil. The Casual Vacancy shows a community at a loss after their Dumbledore-like glue, Barry Fairbrother, suddenly dies, without preparation. How it falls apart at the seams, how it leaves the most needy, the most desperate out in the cold.
I have to assume that this work comes from her experience with disadvantaged children, and her learning of how children become disadvantaged in the first place. (
To read more about Lumos please read this short interview with Rowling.) I also think it comes out of her personal experience of a single mother on welfare, and how local politics and attitudes tear down those in most need, citizens of their own community. As much as I am sure she enjoyed her work on the Harry Potter series, I suspect that she considers this a more important work.
Both volumes are morally significant, however. Harry Potter truly works as an ideal, a utopia, almost. Yes, it is a fantasy, but we have spent seven long volumes in that glorious fantasy, longing to be in a place where, yes, you could do magic, but you can also be with people who care, a world where parents really love you, where justice is accomplished, where wise and experienced leaders win out.
But I am just as impressed with The Casual Vacancy. It lifts the covers on the seedy underbelly of "polite" life, and what it takes to make a town a refuge-- those it must leave out in the cold as well as those it might accept. Of how a lack of caring and compassion destroys children's lives, and so, in the end, the parents' as well. And most of all, how a life of "authenticity", of being who you really are, is ultimately a cop-out for hurting others, whether as an individual or as a community.
In a sense The Casual Vacancy is as one-sided as Harry Potter. It only views the destruction of life, and it is hard to read. But I am glad to have read it. I'm so happy to have met Krystal and Andrew, and I will remember them with fondness, even as I do Hermione and Harry.
Thank you, Ms. Rowlings. I hope that many will read your message and understand.
