JK Rowling, you are not afraid

This article is published in number 42 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until October 19, 2021

Christmas it begins when the fairy tales begin. Because Christmas is the time of dreams and desires, memories of the past and hopes for the future, which come together in the collective ritual of exchanging gifts. Time for stories to be read with joy or restlessness at the intermittent flashing of colored lights (starting from Dickens’ evergreen Christmas Carol), time for promises, great happiness and small melancholy.

But it is above all the time of the children. And those who have been in constant and affectionate dialogue with children of all ages for over 20 years know what the most awaited gift can be: a beautiful story.
And it chooses precisely the Christmas atmosphere JK Rowling to return to the bookstore with a brand new novel, available at the same time all over the world starting from Tuesday 12 October and set in the course of the most magical night of the year. “Writing a Christmas story has always been my desire,” confesses the writer, “and I finally found the right one.”

Is titled The Christmas pig and it is published in Italy – like all Rowling’s other works – by Salani, the publishing house which has always been attentive to the tastes of young people. That the British writer has a special relationship with Christmas is no mystery to readers. All Potterians, young and old (including those who have grown up with Harry and company) know by heart the Christmas scenes that, volume after volume, have embellished the various chapters of the saga of the most famous wizard in the world. From the parties spent by Harry in solitude in the half-empty corridors of Hogwarts castle, in the company of his old friends, Hermione and Ron, to those spent in joy, at the home of the Weasleys, who, numerous, chaotic and all red-haired, they are perhaps the quintessence of the spirit of Christmas.
Because Christmas works when we are all together, a little less when we are alone or when there is an empty seat around the table set. And the theme of lack, in hindsight, is central to Rowling’s work, it crosses it all, from the Harry Potter saga through The Ickabog, a story initially published in installments on the author’s website during the pandemic for keep company with his young fans and subsequently published in paper (always by Salani) with illustrations created by young readers.
And that “empty chair” (and perhaps it is no coincidence that the only novel published by Rowling for adults is called The Vacant Seat) is also one of the red threads of this new work, which is in effect the first novel original published by the author after Harry Potter.

The Christmas pig he tells in fact Jack’s story, a “courageous, loving and somewhat lost” boy, according to the author’s definition, who is experiencing a transformation in his emotional universe: his parents have separated and a new family nucleus is created around him. which he tries to adapt with some difficulty, a story in which many children will certainly recognize themselves. Luckily, his beloved Lino keeps company with Jack, an old fabric puppet in the shape of a pig that he has owned since his earliest childhood, with a soft belly stuffed with balls that produce a sweet reassuring sound every time he
hugs. And Jack squeezes him often, especially before falling asleep. He knows everything about him: his smell, his taste, his slightly greyish complexion following frequent washing in the washing machine, that ear worn out from being used as a pacifier in the first years of life, the two buttons sewn by his mother to the instead of the fallen eyes, in short, all the small scars that have remained on him over time.
Rowling well knows that objects are important to every child, they have a magical value in themselves, because they protect him from the anxiety of separation from parents, and she also knows that the favorite toy represents a sort of transposition of family affections. “The Christmas pig,” said Rowling, “it is a magical story, but in a very different way from Harry Potter. It lets you enter a world that functions according to its own peculiar magical laws, even if there are no wands or wizards ». And Jack, who has already lost something in his life, would never want to part with his beloved puppet too. It is true that he has lost it many times, but so far he has never lost it, because he has always managed to recover it. One bad day, however, Lino disappears, throwing Jack into despair. His family members give him a replacement pig, a “replacement” very similar to the first one which, however, is obviously not his Lino and does not console him in any way for the loss. From this moment on, Jack’s only desire is to find the lost pig, as if, by recovering it, everything could get back into place.
«Psychologists Call These Valuable Toys “Transition Objects”Rowling explains, “which can soothe babies and act as a comforting substitute for a parent when needed. We take care of them and they take care of us. That special bond is what I decided to explore in the Christmas Pig ».
There is something missing, in short, that must be found and put back where it was. And if this is not possible – even Harry Potter teaches us -, then we will need to make a new place in our hearts and increase our capacity to love, to be generous with others and finally also with ourselves. Jack and the new pig, Lino’s replacement, begin an adventurous journey through seven fantasy worlds, an epic obstacle course in the lands
of Lost Things to discover in the end that each of us, big or small, pig or human, can sometimes lose the Compass (it is one of the lost objects that dot this imaginative story) and not feel “lost” for this.
Maybe that’s why Rowling’s stories appeal to kids and their parents so much. Because they speak without hiding, because they tell that there is evil in the world, that sometimes it is indistinguishable from good, that evil and good are intertwined together and that it takes a lot of courage to choose which side to be on, because you are wrong, yes: you can go wrong, and then you can go back. You can lose so many things: Memory, Voice, Optimism, Happiness and even Hope, sometimes… and not necessarily being the “losers”. And finally because everyone, at least once, happened to feel “Di Too”, as he calls one of the imaginary lands of the book, like a forgotten sock at the bottom of a drawer, set aside and left to disappear into oblivion. Well, Rowling reassures us, even for the forgotten there is a possibility of redemption. And on Christmas Eve, “the night of miracles and lost causes”, Jack and the Christmas Pig will come to discover that “change and loss are inevitable parts of life», To quote the words of the author: a precious teaching for our children, a phrase to underline and to repeat often as a mantra for us too.

Thus Rowling gives life to a fairy tale that is already a “classic” of Christmas, which can be read at different levels and at any age (as indeed all her repertoire for children), and which at the same time renews the genre by sinking as always the roots in our present and in our deepest fears. In Rowling’s pages you can find everything: magic, fun, pain, loneliness, even death. His writing is a fluid in which the reader floats tossed about by the vicissitudes and the twists and turns yet protected, safe, as in the amniotic fluid of the mother’s womb. This is how the pact of trust between the writer and the reader is born: follow me, says the author, it may also be painful, but it won’t hurt you. For sure it will be fun and very exciting too. And from page to page we follow it, again this time, because we trust it and because we are curious about what we will find. Like a Christmas present to unwrap under the tree.

On October 12, my son Giaime and I will also be in the bookstore, a mother and a boy united by the same gluttony, eager to receive our gift, to listen again to the unmistakable voice of one of our most beloved writers and to follow the pig in the her adventures, certain to rediscover the magic that is the author, as well as her characters. It doesn’t matter if it’s not December 25th, because, as that famous song says: “Either it’s Christmas every day, or it’s never Christmas!».

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