When J K Rowling’s new novel for adults - ‘The Casual Vacancy’ - hit the city book stores on Thursday, the scenario was nothing like the release of her previous books. There were advance bookings all right, but there were no long queues of young at hearts, or a mad rush to get their copies. The chill was conspicuous.
One among the first to lay hands on the book was Aneesh Sunil, a third year BTech student from Kaithamukku. Aneesh, who grew up on Harry Potter, landed in front of the Modern Book Centre, just as he did at all previous Potter releases. But he was informed that in India, the embargo was till 2.30 pm. He waited.
In two hours, he managed to glance through two chapters of a story set in the fictional village of Pagford. ‘’Compared to Harry Potter, I found the story really dark, but the beauty of Rowling’s language is still intact. The descriptions really catch your imagination. In short, it is like watching a film,’’ said Aneesh.
According to the author’s website, Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...
What Aneesh said about the darkness of the story seems to be what has kept readers away. There were not even any inquiries about the book at the Eloor Lending Library, that has a huge collection of Potter books. The first of many international reviews said that the violence, the cruelty and despair in the book were shocking. So were the descriptions of sex and rape, they said.
Justifying the shift away from the child-like world of magic, Rowling on her website said: ‘’As a writer, you have to write what you want to write; or rather what you need to write. I needed to write this book.”
The Modern Book Centre on Gandhari Amman Kovil Road had as many as 25 bookings for the book, that cost a whopping ` 850. Apart from the bookings, about five copies were sold on the spot in the two hours after the release. ‘’But this is nothing like the Harry Potter series. We used to open the shop at 6 am and in three hours, we would sell as many 170 copies,’’ said Chitrasenan of Modern Book Centre.
A similar number of bookings were recorded at TBS publishers too.
The book, tipped to be one of the best-selling fiction titles of the year, had just about 17 advance bookings at the DC Bookstore at Statue. The on-the-spot sales were just about two to three copies. The Technopark outlet had a few inquiries about the book, but they could get the books to the shop only by evening.
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