To be honest to you, I have not read any of J.K Rowling's books. Because when the avalanche of Harry Potter books engulfed young readers world over in a blanket of sorcery and magic, I never turned a page of a book unless it needed to be crammed up for a deceptively pertinent exam.
So when I picked up A Casual Vacancy, I didn't burden the writer with any unreasonable or unjustifiable expectations.
For Harry Potter readers and J.K Rowling fans, if you are expecting a crime thriller and while reading the book, strive to join the disjointed events, unconnected dots you would be utterly nonplussed and disappointed. If you are expecting a book soaked in magic and sorcery where things, people undergo an alchemical metamorphosis, you would be uncompromisingly disillusioned. If you are expecting a book, which will catapult you in a distant idyllic future where you obtusely perceive yourself to be romancing with a voluptuous woman of your chimeric fantasises, in that case your romantic fancies would be unmercifully pummelled. This book is a novel which would nonchalantly promise you in the beginning political melodrama, a political thriller that will give you goose-bumps as you proceed, but then again you would be disenchanted.
This book initiates with the accidental death of Barry Fairbrother, a Parish Councillor of an idyllic town Pagford and the events precipitated by this ghastly, unfortunate incident, who is the bellwether of a cause very integral to the politics of Pagford. In the process, it strips off the unblemished masquerade of love, friendship, unity , loyalty which maybe conjectured and prejudiced due to the untainted, idyllic, unruffled exterior of Pagford; to reveal the scars and pockmarks of betrayal, politics, hatred , licentiousness within. It shows a town where children denigrate their parents, where the growing of children is a constant bereavement for their parents, where the thorns of adultery pricked the bouquet of marriage understood to be held together by love and honesty, where children are sailing in the turbulent waters of confusion, lasciviousness and depravity.
The book overwhelms the stereotype of J.K Rowling as a mere story-teller, she has proven with her mellifluous and intricate writing that she is a virtuoso in the art of writing. The main feature of this book is that it does't have any quintessential protagonist. It is a book where a lot of stories are intertwined together to form a thick braid of a manifested reality that we encounter in our daily lives but seem oblivious to it. The subtleties, intricacies and nitty-gritties of every character is impeccably explained. The unfathomable, complex relationship between characters are flawlessly explained which has the bittersweet spices of love, adultery, betrayal, honesty, belongingness, envy to form a khichdi, a labyrinthe of a world that we found ourselves in. None of the characters in this book is black and white but it has its kaleidoscopic shades of grey. The book clearly portrays the stupefying simplicity as well as the incurable clot of complexities and it's inevitable repurcussions on the circumstances surrounding them. It shows that J.K Rowling truly understands human behaviour.
However the book towards its end looks like an outstretched elastic band released abrubtly to contract at a preternatural speed to an asymmetrical ,anomalous shape. It looks as if J.K Rowling was overwhelmed and fatigued due to the monotony of writing and one day decided to bring an impetuous halt to the disjointed as well as interspersed events. It looks like a threadbare cloth was immediately parched with obnoxious, unmatchable threads. The end also looks too predictable, it looks like a philistine, obtuse Bollywood Masala film in the end.
In short, 4 stars for the immaculate writing 1star stripped off due to the impulsive close to the story.
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