Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is once again about the hilarious Christmas story for children of all ages, Christmas Pig. Nick discusses Rowling’s many interview statements about the Things which were lost and how many of them match up with things she has lost; he takes a deep dive into the Blue Bunny episode outside the Gates of the City of the Missed and Rowling’s embedding herself and her daughter Mackenzie in the story. John talks about the Blue Bunny and his being “found” or “saved” as an allegory of the human condition written in the Rowling shorthand-symbols for (and obsessions with) love, salvation, and what is real.
New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here’s what we’re doing:
On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth’ in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR’s Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling’s twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author’s writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphor. The ‘Lake’ is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed’ is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.
Tomorrow? Our second look at Christmas Pig with Nick explaining the history of the Murray Family and their beanie pig toys as well as a likely source for the defenestration of DP (in Esquire magazine, no less). John talks about the promise and the limits of reading literature through a biographical lens and then explains the anagogical meaning of the Power palace kangaroo court trial of CP and Jack. Stay tuned!
Links to posts mentioned in today’s Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:
* “For the Straightforward Path Was Lost”: A Few Starting Notes on The Christmas Pig(Evan Willis)
* The Rowling Studies podcast dedicated to Christmas Pig subjects
The Perennialist Reading of Christmas Pig Seriesof HogwartsProfessor posts:
* Part 1: John, Peter, and Jack Jones
* Part 2: Dante, Sacred Art, and the Symbolism of the Tree and Its Angels
12/22: Whence Holly’s Hatred in Christmas Pig? The Symbolism of the ‘Broken Angel’
* Part 3: The Quadrigal Reading
1/5: Rowling on Love, Hope, Happiness 2018
1/15 Rowling, Ring Writing, and Maternal Love
* Part 6: The Ring Composition
Post Publication Chritmas Pig HogwartsProfessor Pieces:
10/4: The Christmas Pig – The First Reviews
10/10: Beatrice Groves: Unlocking Clues to The Christmas Pig
10/13: “For the Straightforward Path Was Lost”: A Few Starting Notes on The Christmas Pig(Evan Willis)
10/13: The Christmas Pig and Old Rabbit
10/17: Alexandra Palace, JKR, Christmas Pig
10/18: J. K. Rowling’s Christmas Pig Interviews
12/14: Rowling Talks About ‘Christmas Pig’
12/17: The Original Christmas Pig was Blind Pig
12/26: The Faerie Queene and The Christmas Pig
12/27:The Christmas Pig: Amateur AudioBook
12/28: Christmas Pig’s Chapter Thirteen
1/2: Does Anyone “Really” Die in Stories?
