“The funny thing about myths is that sometimes they take on a life of their own”
Just a(nother) fairy tale from 2020? HART continues a sporadic genre of ad hoc literature reviews.
“What must happen for evil to get a grip on a person, or of a country, and what does it take to defeat it? Why do people choose to believe lies even on scant or non-existent evidence?”
In July 2020 — shortly after the societal short circuit that took place in the spring of the same year — JK Rowling penned the above foreword to The Ickabog. Putting the madness of draconian responses to respiratory disease to one side for a moment, this was a point in time at which the Harry Potter author was embarking on a new challenge. Having awakened the ire of gender campaigners by defending long-standing (and we would say reasonable) definitions of sex, she was about to achieve ‘peak cancellation’ status from the ‘be kind’ folk who prioritise some of the Equality Act’s legally protected characteristics over others. The lynch mob included those whose sole reason for having a platform was the success of cinematic adaptations of Rowling’s work. Consider this mind-bendingly inane advertisement from the New York Times:
We cannot imagine why anyone in their right minds would want to do this.
The combination of Rowling’s way of weaving with words and her ample sufficiency of independent wealth has made her a somewhat formidable adversary for the mobs wielding metaphorical pitchforks. Her dogged – and savagely droll – defence against the dark arts of evil men seeking to put women at risk has been greatly appreciated by those of us who have neither the voice nor the financial means to make a public stand. No April Fool she, her carefully crafted public statement on 1 April – the day that Scotland’s new hate crime laws were introduced – beautifully skewered sinister attempts to misuse the laws to further the ‘gender agenda’. The long arm of the law instantly caved and – having thus established a de facto precedent – Rowling extended a protective shield over those less able to afford to speak out by offering to publicly repeat any statement made by anyone seeking to defend women’s rights.
One should not underestimate the importance of Rowling’s stance here and its influence on the zeitgeist, putting the cancellation mob – who are probably regretting not having victimised someone their own size – on the back foot and hindering efforts to discredit the Cass Report which was published less than a fortnight later.
But what has all this got to do with our review of The Ickabog, a mythical beast in the fictional – yet allegory-rich – world of Cornucopia? Rowling’s yarn is a straightforward enough fairy tale of the traditional sort (albeit with a high body count), but has various ingenious plot twists that engage the reader throughout. The story canters along at a rapid pace in short chapters; absurdly amusing onomatopes abound. A rich feudal land is corrupted by greed and the lack of awareness of its ruling elite, allowing lies of convenience to escalate into a festering mess of gargantuan proportions. The ensuing totalitarian misery is perpetuated by the impoverishment and terrorisation of the previously comfortably well-off inhabitants of the now not-so-aptly-named Cornucopia. The evil psychopaths in the tale use a combination of guile, propaganda and brutal force to extend their doomed tyranny. Yes, there is a happy ending for those that survive the ordeal, but the impoverishment is very real, long-lasting and was utterly avoidable.
Sounds familiar… albeit we are still waiting for a happy ending.
Eventually published in hardback in November 2020, Rowling claims that she had started writing the parable many years previously, a half-written script having been banished to her attic only to be restored from cold storage during (or perhaps prompted by?) the extraordinary happenings of that year. She fine-tuned the story for her own children, and then released it online for free – chapter by chapter – during the draconian movement restrictions of spring 2020.
Perhaps The Ickabog is just a motherhood-and-apple-pie morality tale: be kind, don’t be nasty and watch out for bad people. But the uncanny ‘twenty twenty’ foresight gives pause for thought and suggests a deeper appreciation of the darker forces at play. What did she know, and what does she know? The title of the book is a reference to ‘Ichabod’ in the Old Testament, meaning “no glory” or the “glory has departed”. Ichabod was a baby boy born in hopeless circumstances – his father killed in battle in a doomed attempt to protect his nation and religion’s sacred relics.
Regular readers of HART’s output will empathise with this feeling of desolation and ‘departed glory’ at the destruction wrought by menacing leadership, callous cronyism and heartless bureaucracy.
The uplifting ending to The Ickabog comes about when several brave souls make enough of a stand and force a ‘narrative collapse’ where the malfeasant despots are unable to maintain their fictions and can no longer enforce compliance with their farcical rules.
Read the story for yourself, and let that be the lesson of this enjoyable book – given the current direction of travel, your children’s future depends on more people making a stand against those that wish them harm.
The likes of JK Rowling and Dr Hilary Cass will not always be there to save them.
The Ickabog, by JK Rowling, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2020.
