The Casual Vacancy

De: J. K. Rowling

Narrado por: Tom Hollander

A big novel about a small town...

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade 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...Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations?

A big novel about a small town, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults. It is the work of a storyteller like no other.

Excellent reader. Dark book

I'm sure, (in the way that someone who has never met or spoken with the author can be sure) that J.K. Rowling was trying to write a book that was as far from Harry Potter as she could get. She had to show that she could do something else. She has certainly succeeded. I don't think that this was supposed to be a light hearted romp at all. It is not. This book is dark and brooding. If you are waiting for the uplifting moment, it never comes. The other side of that is that she wrote this book very well. Part of what makes it dark and disturbing is that she is good at description and she is excellent and setting a scene in small towns in England. I didn't really like the book but I was engaged with it to the end.

The reader knocked this one out of the park! I think that part of what made the book so engaging was that he was reading it. I hope this book lands him a big stack of contracts to perform other books. He needs to do more!

I didn't like the story but it was well crafted.

it was just ok and not much more

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

not really - I missed the 'darkly comic' aspect, its was interconnected characters all mired in their own misery and downloading it onto others around them, I found none of the characters redeeming, at best you would pity one for a while and then just be frustrated with their actions, not one seemed to have a bit of common sense. It just became annoying.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The outline was interesting - it presented as a story with potential. What made me lose interest quickly was that chapter after chapter the events were circular and outcomes became predictable, its was like reading a documentry on the welfare system. The book was too long for the story to be told.

What three words best describe Tom Hollander’s voice?

He worked well with the material but the nature of the book lead to the narration coming across as flat and monotonous

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

no

Any additional comments?

I recoginze the author is out to break away from past novels that were fantasy based, but in all honesty I found this book devoid of life, there were more realistic characters, flaws and all in the Harry Potter books.

Abandon Rowling expectations: an ADULT masterwork

All is not right in the Muggle world. Or so I thought with annoyance as I listened to the first chapter. The gritty, profanity-laced small town England Rowling has created here and populated with bitter, ineffective, or downright destructive characters feels more like a screenplay by Guy Ritchie than a novel of the most beloved children's books of our generation.

But then I left my own prejudices behind and got drawn into the story. Those unpleasant characters have backgrounds, those angelic characters have nuances, that society of interlocking stories is bolstered by shared small-town history and weakened by private secrets. Once the politics of the "casual vacancy" - a vacant town council seat caused by a casualty, or death - is established, the story comes alive with concerns and machinations of myriad characters. Even the smallest characters are more than sketches, but fully fleshed out in a brilliant combination of internal monologues, regard by other characters, and external descriptions.

The politics of the small town serve as a framework for clashes and alliances among the factions fighting to either preserve or destroy the vision advocated by Barry Fairwater, the man whose death causes the vacancy, and whose shadow hangs over a surprisingly large portion of the town. Within this framework, Rowling explores the effect that grownups have on their children, and the lengths to which people will go to feel significant. Although I was put off a bit by the frequent, lacerating profanity, I have to concede that this book is a masterwork of fiction.

Rowling Conjures a Tale for Adults

No one can say that J.K. Rowling cannot conjure up a good story, and the Casual Vacancy is most certainly a good story. The plot is every bit as intricate and twisted as any of the Harry Potter books, the characters are fully drawn and believable, and the action keeps you in suspense, waiting for the multiple threads of narrative that Rowling lays out to align and spontaneously combust. You can feel that explosion coming early in the book, as layer after layer of the peaceful veneer of small-town life in the English countryside is peeled away to reveal the simmering cauldron of anxieties, neuroses, overblown egos, class and racial tensions, and suppressed rage that lies beneath.

This is most definitely a novel for adults, with sex, drug abuse, profanity, rape, suicide, and difficult adult situations replacing the wands, brooms, creatures, and spells of the Potter series, but I suspect that there is much here for the 18 to 20-somethings who grew up on Potter to dig into. Much of the action revolves around and is driven by several teenagers coming to terms with adult feelings and adult responsibilities while struggling to deal with adults in their lives who are at their mildest somewhat whacky and at their worst very dangerous. Guess who turns out to be the heroes?

This was an engaging and thoroughly enjoyable listen, made all the more so by the skillful and sensitive narration of Tom Hollander.

This could be called any small town in US or UK

Would you consider the audio edition of The Casual Vacancy to be better than the print version?

I cannot answer as I am too blind to read pint books.

Who was your favorite character and why?

This is difficult, but I suppose I really liked Teassa and Samantha and Andrew. Perhaps because they seemed to the ones with whom I most identified. It was easy to loathe some of the others.

What does Tom Hollander bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I liked the reading, but didn't like that the voice raised so much and that the sound was not uniform. Meaning, it would disturb my husband when there was shouting and I had to turn the volume down.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. I read it in two day.

Any additional comments?

Despite some negative and mixed reviews, I loved this book. It was also scarily real as the forces of development and gentrification are universal in these capitalist-driven times. Money and racism and class make for bad bed fellows. I thought the ending was near perfect. Would love a sequel.