Join hosts Ev, Irvin, and Sophia, as well as special guests Dr. Beatrice Grove, Dr. Louise Freeman, and Nick Jeffrey, as they discuss the parallels between Cuckoo’s Calling from the Cormoran Strike series and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Please be warned that there will be spoilers for the Cormoran Strike books in this episode, up to and including Hallmarked Man.
In this episode:
- Where is the Strike rock scene? What would the bands be called?
- Leda’s love is a more psychologically complex version of Lily’s
- You can come of age at any age!
- Strike is our Hagrid here, not just because he’s hairy.
- We all find where we belong on Charing Cross Road
- Does John have a Dark Lord in the back of his head?
- Tony was madly in love with Leda Strike
- Who is notably toxic to beef?
- Read what the stars are telling us!
- We’re looking forward to the Battle of Denmark Street
Resources:
- The Psychopaths – Bristow, Riddle, and Crouch by Irvin
- Reverse Alchemy in HP and Strike:
- Cormoran Strike and the Itch That Cannot Be Scratched by Louise Freeman
- Strike-Potter Parallels: Cuckoo & Stone by John Granger
- Literary Allusion in Cuckoo’s Calling:
- Part 1: Christina Rossetti’s “A Dirge” by Beatrice Groves
- Part 2: Tennyson’s “Ulysses” by Beatrice Groves
- Handfasting in “The Cuckoo’s Calling” and “Harry Potter”: A Discovery of a Walt Whitman Poem? by Beatrice Groves
For more from our guests:
- Louise Freeman:
- @lmf3b on Twitter
- Doc Thelma on Reddit
- The Farting Sofa Faculty Lounge
- The Harry Potter Academic Conference
- Queen City Magic
- Beatrice Groves:
- Nick Jefferey:
My Strike Rock band: Pat and the Fruitcakes.
Oh, that’s fantastic! 10/10, would buy your album.
Hello to all of you at the pub! it was a joy to listen to your cross-over episode. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for calling Matthew a flobberworm. Cuckoo’s Calling is one of my favorite Strike books, so your episode really cheered me up!
Irvin, on my last re-listen of the first three books, I realized we both have a chapter that we wish ended differently. You want Draco to lower his wand in the Lightning Struck Tower and I want Strike to NOT fire Robin for going after Brockbank at the end of Career of Evil. In the three or four re-listens of the series, I DESPERATELY want Strike to start firing Robin and then change his mind. I know she gets rehired pretty much at the start of Lethal White, but I wish she never got fired at all.
Whenever you get there, I will be looking forward to your predictions episode for Sleep Tight Evangeline.
If I had to come up with a fan rock group name, it would be The Horrible and Sacked Subcontractors.
Maybe the Sacked Subcontractors will form a band in the actual Strike universe! I imagine Strike and Robin will be less than impressed at their musical stylings.
And yeah, Jo is so good at writing those tantalizing what-if moments that you so desperately wish would end differently! I kinda got my version of Draco lowering his wand in the Ickabog with Roderick Roach, I hope you’ll get yours too one day!
I suggest they do their own version of the Johnny Paycheck classic:
All: Take this job and shove it; We ain’t working there no more
Strike and Robin canned our butts and kicked us out the door.
Nutley: I was pure incompetence
Morris: And man, my nose is sore.
All: Take this job and shove it; We ain’t working there no more
Littlejohn: I was spyin’ for Patterson, then I blackmailed Pat.
Thought I’d earned another chance but Strike was having none of that.
Nutley: When the bad guys sent the bomb, I resigned and ran away.
When I tried to come back this was what they had to say:
All: Take this job and shove it; You ain’t working here no more
Strike and Robin canned our butts and kicked us out the door.
Nutley: I was pure incompetence
Morris: And man, my nose is sore.
All: Take this job and shove it; We ain’t working there no more
Kim: Well that Strike man, he’s a sexy dude
Morris: And Rob’s a sexy dame.
Both: Both declined to sleep with us and man, that was a shame
Morris: Sleeping with key witnesses and sending dirty jokes by text
Kim: At least no sick Lord Pervert got to film you having sex.
All: Take this job and shove it; We ain’t working there no more
Strike and Robin canned our butts and kicked us out the door.
Nutley: I was pure incompetence
Morris: And man, my nose is sore.
All: Take this job and shove it; We ain’t working there no more
Why, I do believe you may have written the very first Strike rock song! Bravo! Looking forward to the Sacked Subcontractors dropping their first EP.
Dr. Freeman Davis, you are a delight! Love the song lyrics so much. I second Irvin’s comment that the Sacked Subcontractors have a hit on their hands!