JK Rowling and Pagford

A recent blog article on ‘The Guardian’ by Robert McCrum discusses the setting of ‘Pagford’ in Jo’s new book ‘The Casual Vacancy’ and the mark it makes on literature.

It’s hard, reading about Pagford, JK Rowling’s imaginary small town and the setting for her new novel The Casual Vacancy, not to see it in west country terms, as an elision of two real places: (Newport) Pagnell and Chagford.

It seems that Rowling’s Pagford is drawn instead from her childhood home in the Forest of Dean. By the standards of the writer who dreamed up quidditch, Hogwarts, muggles and horcruxes, this is almost wilfully dull.

No doubt that’s calculated, but Rowling’s Pagford still sponsors thoughts of all those other imaginary towns and houses that form the landscape of the British literary mind – a rich, even exotic territory.

To read the complete article click here