![]() ![]() The only obvious parallels with the Harry Potter books are that, like them, it focuses on teenagers, and is animated by a strong dislike of mean, unsympathetic, small-minded folk. Set in the "pretty little town of Pagford", in the West Country, it is a study of provincial life, with a large cast and multiple, interlocking plots, drawing inspiration from such writers as Trollope, Gaskell and, perhaps most of all, George Eliot: the tone is empathetic, but censorious and slightly didactic, using the plot to show that wickedness rebounds on both the wicked and the virtuous, leaving us all sadder and wiser at the end. This is a traditional, somewhat retro English novel. ![]() But equally, it offers something that more stylish, highbrow fiction often doesn't or won't: a chance to lose yourself in a dense, richly-peopled world. Rowling relies on stock situations and verbal clichés if you're irritated by important episodes being telegraphed with phrases such as "But then came the hour that changed everything," then this is probably not the novel for you. ![]()
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