John, first hats-off for the prodigious effort to organize this material into ring structures. I’ve read all of your posts and, while I can’t pretend to see all of the linkages you describe, you’ve helped me see many that clearly exist and make Rowling/Galbraith’s achievement all the more impressive.
A couple points where we may may not be in sync:
I don’t agree that Strike “all but kills” Charlotte by not reporting her suicide threats. He’s heard them before as, I suspect, most people in her life have. People with Borderline Personality Disorder, which Charlotte’s almost certainly suffers from, are among the greatest challenges for mental health professionals. They can be extremely unstable emotionally, are resistant to psychotherapy, unimproved by medication and may exhibit the following symptoms (from Wikipedia, for expedience):
* Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
* Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships, often characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation, also known as “splitting”
* Markedly disturbed sense of identity and distorted self-image
* Impulsive or reckless behaviors (e.g., uncontrollable spending, unsafe sex, substance use disorders, reckless driving, binge eating)
* Inappropriate, intense anger that can be difficult to control
* Transient, stress-related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms
Sound familiar? Tragically, up to 10 percent of those afflicted die by suicide. My wife, who treated many sufferers of this horrible condition, noted another distinguishing characteristic of BPD—that “they tend to make everyone around them crazy.” Suicidal ideation and actual threats of suicide are often part of the pathology for people like Charlotte and It’s not fair to hold Strike—who has been struggling to free himself from the La Brea Tar Pit of relationships—accountable for Charlotte’s almost inevitable death by her own hand.
I must also disagree with your assessment of JKR’s many gaffes and mistakes in Running Grave and that pointing them out reveals “limitations” or “failing[s]” among readers. It is possible to both appreciate her achievements and recognize her shortcomings, which I began to do in earnest with Ink Black Heart. Prioritizing structure and literary allusion over plausibility and internal consistency is certainly a valid academic exercise. But for most readers, I suspect, gaffes are simply distractions that interfere with a reader’s willingness to string along with the artist. For instance, when Robin is welcomed into the notoriously protective and suspicious United Humanitarian Church without so much as a credit card, driver’s license or FaceBook account to prove her identity, I had to pause. If JKR and her editorial team missed that basic impossibility, what else might readers be asked to choke down?
Criticisms aside, I actually love these books. The principal characters and their relationships touch me like few others in modern fiction. I only hope that the screenwriters for the TV series read the Hogwarts Professor’s section on gaffes and steer clear of the entirely avoidable mistakes that mar these otherwise wonderful works of art.
Thank you, Albus, for this kind and generous response.
I think Strike agrees with me that he could have prevented Charlotte's death, but that is beside the point (we're not talking about a real person or an actual suicide). Strike's embrace of Charlotte's death in the Aylmerton church conversation with his first great love is his farewell to erotic love and romance and his acceptance of anterotic love, what he feels for his partner, something selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional, whence the church setting. This is the love of Christ.
Strike would be culpable of willful neglect if he and Charlotte were real people. They aren't so he isn't. Instead Charlotte's death is allegorical for the death of a love that could not be more dead as he explains to Robin in the last chapter, the love that is physical and psychological rather than spiritual. Charlotte's death has to be read in the context of the series psychomachia, of which Running Grave is in several ways the finale,, a Morality Play of Will, Prudence, and Love.
I apologize, too, for not having communicated that I find the number of gaffes and Flints in this series incredible, frankly, and that these unforced errors must be and will be reckoned as a significant fault by future readers. I think I can be forgiven for trying to take a larger view about them in light of Rowling's structural artistry and achievement, the point of this ring reading project, because no one has spent as much time as I have detailing the gaffes and each work and providing a forum for Serious Strikers to do the same.
Again, thank you for reading these overlong posts -- I imagine they must have been almost as much a trial to get through as they were to write -- and for your kind assessment and critical comments today.
I recognize we’re seeing the book through somewhat different—but not wholly disparate—lenses. These are far more than adventure/noir/private investigator tales and clearly have deeper meanings that transcend the genre. At the same time, I believe that employing a noir-ish structure places certain obligations on an author to strive for real-world plausibility and consistency. While JKR was able to reinvent the logic around time-turners to some readers’ satisfaction, that may have been because the underlying genre was fantasy where anything is possible. In my view, there are limits to implausibilities and logical contradictions—especially in noir detective fiction—that should be respected as guardrails. If not, at some point the reader is expected to “assume a can opener,” rendering the entire work suspect. Flawed as it may be, that did not happen for me in Running Grave, as I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As for fictitious characters vs real people, my ability to immerse myself in a novel depends on forgetting that I’m reading about imaginary persons.
That Strike believes he could have prevented Charlotte’s death is, sadly, a prevalent and misguided reaction for those left behind by Borderline Personality Disorder-induced suicide. In my earlier note, I left out that BPD sufferers typically crave attention and will create utter chaos among those closest to them to get it. Some will even kill themselves as a form of revenge against those they feel have wronged or abandoned them. It is ALWAYS someone else’s fault, as Charlotte detailed in her suicide note. So, while Strike naturally feels responsible and may indeed have been able to extend Charlotte’s life by a few days/weeks/months, he had to let go at some point. His detachment from her madhouse of solely erotic love had to be a clean break. The alternative for someone as seriously afflicted as Charlotte would be continual institutionalization. Strike had had 16 years of crazy. Enough was enough.
Getting through your posts was enjoyable and “no hill for a climber” as the locals say where I live. Thanks again for the opportunity to comment.
I think that we agree more than we disagree about the importance of keeping it real in fiction, Albus, from Fantasy to Detective mysteries. Northrup Frye in 'Anatomy of Criticism' spelled this out with his spectrum of realism to mythology; a writer has to create and maintain sufficient sense of material and psychological experience for the reader to slip into receptivity to mythic content. The gaffes and hilariously unlikely events of Running Grave, about which I am sketching a post, fail in this regard. I concluded my Ring Reading Index with the note that maybe Rowling's failure in this regard must be explained, even excused because of the obviously greater attention she has given to her subliminal structural artistry. I certainly understand if you do not accept that argument; the one needn't exist because of the other.
I'm grateful for your discussion of BPD and I expect Rowling as an amateur psychologist may have researched it. In terms of its importance with respect to the novel's depths and the reader's experience of them, however, I think it is relatively meaningless, forgive me, compared to the allegorical frame and content. These aren't real people. The Potter Pundits with degrees in psychology are not contributing much that is original, however important their derivative work can be.
Thanks so much for the kind words. I wish I could claim any insights into BPD as my own but my wife, who had a private psychotherapy practice for many years, deserves the credit. We independently read, and then jointly listened to, TRG and had similar impressions of Charlotte. I worry a bit that I came across as cold-hearted in defending Strike’s decision to detach from her as she played the ultimate trump card—the threat of suicide. While my wife never had a patient/client who took it to that level, it was always a tragic possibility for some and often made life hell for those closest to them. I also have some life experience with people who had personality disorders. While sympathizing keenly for anyone so afflicted, I also grieve for the people whose lives are ruined unless they are able to detach with compassion.
The Anomie/Waice mind control similarities hadn’t occurred to me, but they certainly seem to fit. For all my griping about JKR’s gaffes, she made the use of mind control in both books feel authentic and scary.
As always, John, masterful work and greatly enjoyed them as they became my “safe” entry points into the story.
Alas, I cannot say the same for this Strike novel and its plot/content, as I could not continue with the novel when it became apparent Robin was going undercover. Am sure it is my own personal issues, but I did not want to travel down the road of abuse/rape/cult that was being set up in the beginning, so just stopped and set it aside as it was too dark for me.
However, having read your posts, I think I might be able to continue on reading knowing that Robin makes it out--impacted, but at least not trapped in the cult being abused on a daily basis. I know that Robin and Strike both have to get through some s*%! in order to become their best selves, but I admit that I didn’t relish wading through it--especially when you did it so beautifully.
John, first hats-off for the prodigious effort to organize this material into ring structures. I’ve read all of your posts and, while I can’t pretend to see all of the linkages you describe, you’ve helped me see many that clearly exist and make Rowling/Galbraith’s achievement all the more impressive.
A couple points where we may may not be in sync:
I don’t agree that Strike “all but kills” Charlotte by not reporting her suicide threats. He’s heard them before as, I suspect, most people in her life have. People with Borderline Personality Disorder, which Charlotte’s almost certainly suffers from, are among the greatest challenges for mental health professionals. They can be extremely unstable emotionally, are resistant to psychotherapy, unimproved by medication and may exhibit the following symptoms (from Wikipedia, for expedience):
* Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
* Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships, often characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation, also known as “splitting”
* Markedly disturbed sense of identity and distorted self-image
* Impulsive or reckless behaviors (e.g., uncontrollable spending, unsafe sex, substance use disorders, reckless driving, binge eating)
* Recurrent suicidal ideation or self harm
* Rapidly shifting intense emotional dysregulation
* Chronic feelings of emptiness
* Inappropriate, intense anger that can be difficult to control
* Transient, stress-related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms
Sound familiar? Tragically, up to 10 percent of those afflicted die by suicide. My wife, who treated many sufferers of this horrible condition, noted another distinguishing characteristic of BPD—that “they tend to make everyone around them crazy.” Suicidal ideation and actual threats of suicide are often part of the pathology for people like Charlotte and It’s not fair to hold Strike—who has been struggling to free himself from the La Brea Tar Pit of relationships—accountable for Charlotte’s almost inevitable death by her own hand.
I must also disagree with your assessment of JKR’s many gaffes and mistakes in Running Grave and that pointing them out reveals “limitations” or “failing[s]” among readers. It is possible to both appreciate her achievements and recognize her shortcomings, which I began to do in earnest with Ink Black Heart. Prioritizing structure and literary allusion over plausibility and internal consistency is certainly a valid academic exercise. But for most readers, I suspect, gaffes are simply distractions that interfere with a reader’s willingness to string along with the artist. For instance, when Robin is welcomed into the notoriously protective and suspicious United Humanitarian Church without so much as a credit card, driver’s license or FaceBook account to prove her identity, I had to pause. If JKR and her editorial team missed that basic impossibility, what else might readers be asked to choke down?
Criticisms aside, I actually love these books. The principal characters and their relationships touch me like few others in modern fiction. I only hope that the screenwriters for the TV series read the Hogwarts Professor’s section on gaffes and steer clear of the entirely avoidable mistakes that mar these otherwise wonderful works of art.
Thank you, Albus, for this kind and generous response.
I think Strike agrees with me that he could have prevented Charlotte's death, but that is beside the point (we're not talking about a real person or an actual suicide). Strike's embrace of Charlotte's death in the Aylmerton church conversation with his first great love is his farewell to erotic love and romance and his acceptance of anterotic love, what he feels for his partner, something selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional, whence the church setting. This is the love of Christ.
Strike would be culpable of willful neglect if he and Charlotte were real people. They aren't so he isn't. Instead Charlotte's death is allegorical for the death of a love that could not be more dead as he explains to Robin in the last chapter, the love that is physical and psychological rather than spiritual. Charlotte's death has to be read in the context of the series psychomachia, of which Running Grave is in several ways the finale,, a Morality Play of Will, Prudence, and Love.
I apologize, too, for not having communicated that I find the number of gaffes and Flints in this series incredible, frankly, and that these unforced errors must be and will be reckoned as a significant fault by future readers. I think I can be forgiven for trying to take a larger view about them in light of Rowling's structural artistry and achievement, the point of this ring reading project, because no one has spent as much time as I have detailing the gaffes and each work and providing a forum for Serious Strikers to do the same.
Again, thank you for reading these overlong posts -- I imagine they must have been almost as much a trial to get through as they were to write -- and for your kind assessment and critical comments today.
Thanks, John.
I recognize we’re seeing the book through somewhat different—but not wholly disparate—lenses. These are far more than adventure/noir/private investigator tales and clearly have deeper meanings that transcend the genre. At the same time, I believe that employing a noir-ish structure places certain obligations on an author to strive for real-world plausibility and consistency. While JKR was able to reinvent the logic around time-turners to some readers’ satisfaction, that may have been because the underlying genre was fantasy where anything is possible. In my view, there are limits to implausibilities and logical contradictions—especially in noir detective fiction—that should be respected as guardrails. If not, at some point the reader is expected to “assume a can opener,” rendering the entire work suspect. Flawed as it may be, that did not happen for me in Running Grave, as I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As for fictitious characters vs real people, my ability to immerse myself in a novel depends on forgetting that I’m reading about imaginary persons.
That Strike believes he could have prevented Charlotte’s death is, sadly, a prevalent and misguided reaction for those left behind by Borderline Personality Disorder-induced suicide. In my earlier note, I left out that BPD sufferers typically crave attention and will create utter chaos among those closest to them to get it. Some will even kill themselves as a form of revenge against those they feel have wronged or abandoned them. It is ALWAYS someone else’s fault, as Charlotte detailed in her suicide note. So, while Strike naturally feels responsible and may indeed have been able to extend Charlotte’s life by a few days/weeks/months, he had to let go at some point. His detachment from her madhouse of solely erotic love had to be a clean break. The alternative for someone as seriously afflicted as Charlotte would be continual institutionalization. Strike had had 16 years of crazy. Enough was enough.
Getting through your posts was enjoyable and “no hill for a climber” as the locals say where I live. Thanks again for the opportunity to comment.
I think that we agree more than we disagree about the importance of keeping it real in fiction, Albus, from Fantasy to Detective mysteries. Northrup Frye in 'Anatomy of Criticism' spelled this out with his spectrum of realism to mythology; a writer has to create and maintain sufficient sense of material and psychological experience for the reader to slip into receptivity to mythic content. The gaffes and hilariously unlikely events of Running Grave, about which I am sketching a post, fail in this regard. I concluded my Ring Reading Index with the note that maybe Rowling's failure in this regard must be explained, even excused because of the obviously greater attention she has given to her subliminal structural artistry. I certainly understand if you do not accept that argument; the one needn't exist because of the other.
I'm grateful for your discussion of BPD and I expect Rowling as an amateur psychologist may have researched it. In terms of its importance with respect to the novel's depths and the reader's experience of them, however, I think it is relatively meaningless, forgive me, compared to the allegorical frame and content. These aren't real people. The Potter Pundits with degrees in psychology are not contributing much that is original, however important their derivative work can be.
Hello, Louise!
Thanks so much for the kind words. I wish I could claim any insights into BPD as my own but my wife, who had a private psychotherapy practice for many years, deserves the credit. We independently read, and then jointly listened to, TRG and had similar impressions of Charlotte. I worry a bit that I came across as cold-hearted in defending Strike’s decision to detach from her as she played the ultimate trump card—the threat of suicide. While my wife never had a patient/client who took it to that level, it was always a tragic possibility for some and often made life hell for those closest to them. I also have some life experience with people who had personality disorders. While sympathizing keenly for anyone so afflicted, I also grieve for the people whose lives are ruined unless they are able to detach with compassion.
The Anomie/Waice mind control similarities hadn’t occurred to me, but they certainly seem to fit. For all my griping about JKR’s gaffes, she made the use of mind control in both books feel authentic and scary.
Albus
As always, John, masterful work and greatly enjoyed them as they became my “safe” entry points into the story.
Alas, I cannot say the same for this Strike novel and its plot/content, as I could not continue with the novel when it became apparent Robin was going undercover. Am sure it is my own personal issues, but I did not want to travel down the road of abuse/rape/cult that was being set up in the beginning, so just stopped and set it aside as it was too dark for me.
However, having read your posts, I think I might be able to continue on reading knowing that Robin makes it out--impacted, but at least not trapped in the cult being abused on a daily basis. I know that Robin and Strike both have to get through some s*%! in order to become their best selves, but I admit that I didn’t relish wading through it--especially when you did it so beautifully.