Whiplashed by time and place I am, thank you for that, Soho International Crime Club! From Classical Athens to the present-day Australian Outback is a big jump, but Garry Disher's latest novel doesn't fare entirely badly by comparison. Hell to Pay is a kind of straight-up police procedural - except that the cop in question, Our Hero Paul Hirschhausen (known as Hirsch), is in the police doghouse for having testified against another cop in a corruption case so even as the local cop here in the dry and tough outback, he is persona non grata.
You would be excused for thinking that Hell to Pay is the latest installment in a series. It sounds like the backstory of the corruption case occupied an earlier book, but in fact, this is a stand-alone. (And to complicate matters further, this story is published as Bitter Wash Road in Australia, so you might think that was the first story.) The point of giving us all that background on what happened before Hirsch got to the vaguely depressing town of Tiverton is to a) tell us why he is there instead of in some more exciting metropolis; b) explain why all the other cops hate him; and c) add another bleak thread to the already bleak story.
I know that there are people who really love the Australian outback, but the slice that Disher gives us is pretty grim. "After twenty minutes, he found himself skirting around the Razorback, driving through red dirt and mallee scrub country, the road surface chopped and powdery where it wasn't reefed and rbbed with a stuone underlay. Very little rain had fallen here last night; it was as if a switch had been flicked, marking the transition from arable land to semi-desert." OK, so it is desert. But wait, it gets worse. "Leasehold land, one-hundred year leases define by sagging wire fences, sand-silted tracks and creek beds filled with water-tumbled stones like so many misshapen cricket balls. You might find a fleck of gold in these creek beds if you were lucky, or turn your ankle if you were not. If was land you walked away from sooner or later: Hirsch saw a dozen stone chimneys and and eyeless cottages back in the stunted mallee, little heartaches that had struggled on a patch of red dirt and were singking back into it. Anthills, sandy washaways, fostails hooked onto gates, a couple of rotting merino carcasses, a tray-less old Austin truck beneath a straggly gum tree, and weathered fence posts and the weart rust loops that tethered them one to the other. . . . What he didn't see, but sensed were abandoned gold diggings, mine shafts, ochre hands stenciled to rock faces. A besetting place." (23)
Dry, hot, mean, lifeless, boring, and devoid of opportunity, Disher's outback has only the occasional pocket of human decency or kindness. Hirsch is trying to make do here, and as the new (and despised) cop on the beat, is sent after every small story that unfolds. This gives him the opportunity to see where lives intersect, which is of course necessary if you are going solve crimes, or explain accidents that you think are actually crimes but the locals keep telling to butt out. The story opens with kids taking target practice (this is gun country) and an apparent hit-and-run victim who is mourned by many but comes from a depressing background, and the story winds in and out of her sad life, and those of others in this backwater. The local cops are nasty and probably corrupt, and everyone hates them. The local wealthy landowners have their own brand of profound dysfunctionality, and are probably in cahoots with the aforementioned authorities. What Disher does well is weave together several threads that seem to have nothing to do with each other - the misbehaving swells, the nowhereseville lives of the local teens, the nasty cops, and even his own corruption case and a far-away crime spree end up connected to one another. The resolutions surprises in some respects, but does not strain credulity, in fact the whole story builds slowly to a more complex finish than I expected.
Garry Disher is a prolific writer, with "literary" novels, short stories, a collection of young adult novels and even some non-fiction - in addition to all the crime - on his list. He may be the Henning Mankel of Australia but I'm not sure how much more hot bleakness I can stand. I'll take the Scandinavian version.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
The Marathon Conspiracy
Wow I am really behind on this, the books are piling up. I am not be absolutely mad for anything I've read recently, hence the delay in writing about them.
I know I like to be transported to another time and place in my reading, but I had heretofore not considered the classical world as a possible destination. While Gary Corby's series set in Ancient Greece was on my radar, I hadn't done anything about it (as is the case with the dozens of other items on the "to read" list). Hence my pleasure when the latest in this lightweight but charming series arrived as part of the Soho International Crime Club.
Yes, I did just say that The Marathon Conspiracy (Soho Crime, 2014) was lightweight. I can't think of another adjective to describe a story that takes place in a place and time so very removed from our own, yet utilizes language that sounds so familiar. "Maybe the wacky, naked priestess who talks in riddles is an optimist" says Our Hero Nicolaos at one point. (75) The Ancients were wacky? "The thing is, Zeke," he starts another sentence (94), while a priestess says to another much later "Welcome to management." (289) The thing is, it is hard to imagine that the Ancients used such modern-sounding constructions and ideas. Will the youngsters start peppering their speech with, um, like next? But of course, who is to say that they didn't talk slangily, or whatever their version of it was? Their sense of humor and concept of tragedy have withstood the test of time, and their playwriting - referenced often in this story, thanks to Aeschylus' big supporting role - defined the genre. As did their incredibly complex and effective government and social administrative structures. It follows naturally: why wouldn't they bemoan the idea of management-level bureaucracy?
Readers should not be deterred by my use of the word lightweight, however, because that implies a negativity that I don't ultimately feel for this lively story. Nicolaos is trying to make a living at being the Hellenic version of a private investigator, and gets by based on intelligence, good connections, and a smart and sassy fiancee named Diotima. In The Marathon Conspiracy, a girl student at a temple school is found dead, and another is missing. Pericles, that Athenian operator, asks him to look into it so Nicolaos and Diotima take a break from planning their wedding to investigate. It becomes apparent that this is not just some local bad guy or errant temple staffer, but only the latest development in a story that begins in the recent past, at the epic battle of Marathon. The ending will surprise, and then charm a bit, as - not really a spoiler alert - Nicolaos and Diotima's wedding provides a delightful coda.!
If you know your Classical Greeks, you'll feel very much at home here because Corby's tale is populated with real characters - Pericles, Aeschylus, Socrates (he is actually Nicolaos' younger brother - and is always asking questions, ba-dump-bump). It feels a little silly at first, especially given the occasionally anachronistic language. But the plot moves briskly, and it becomes apparent that, other than language, Corby pays extraordinary attention to historical detail. Buildings, rituals, dress, ceremonies are all carefully described but not boringly so, and the result is a vivid picture of ancient life and society. Corby's afterword supported my sense of this, by revealing what of his plot was drawn from the historical and literary record (a lot). This 15 pp. Author's Note saved the book for me, as did the detailed timeline (four more page) that followed. The Marathon Conspiracy won't take you long to finish, but it might provide you with a few pleasant hours very far away from wherever you are.
I know I like to be transported to another time and place in my reading, but I had heretofore not considered the classical world as a possible destination. While Gary Corby's series set in Ancient Greece was on my radar, I hadn't done anything about it (as is the case with the dozens of other items on the "to read" list). Hence my pleasure when the latest in this lightweight but charming series arrived as part of the Soho International Crime Club.
Yes, I did just say that The Marathon Conspiracy (Soho Crime, 2014) was lightweight. I can't think of another adjective to describe a story that takes place in a place and time so very removed from our own, yet utilizes language that sounds so familiar. "Maybe the wacky, naked priestess who talks in riddles is an optimist" says Our Hero Nicolaos at one point. (75) The Ancients were wacky? "The thing is, Zeke," he starts another sentence (94), while a priestess says to another much later "Welcome to management." (289) The thing is, it is hard to imagine that the Ancients used such modern-sounding constructions and ideas. Will the youngsters start peppering their speech with, um, like next? But of course, who is to say that they didn't talk slangily, or whatever their version of it was? Their sense of humor and concept of tragedy have withstood the test of time, and their playwriting - referenced often in this story, thanks to Aeschylus' big supporting role - defined the genre. As did their incredibly complex and effective government and social administrative structures. It follows naturally: why wouldn't they bemoan the idea of management-level bureaucracy?
Readers should not be deterred by my use of the word lightweight, however, because that implies a negativity that I don't ultimately feel for this lively story. Nicolaos is trying to make a living at being the Hellenic version of a private investigator, and gets by based on intelligence, good connections, and a smart and sassy fiancee named Diotima. In The Marathon Conspiracy, a girl student at a temple school is found dead, and another is missing. Pericles, that Athenian operator, asks him to look into it so Nicolaos and Diotima take a break from planning their wedding to investigate. It becomes apparent that this is not just some local bad guy or errant temple staffer, but only the latest development in a story that begins in the recent past, at the epic battle of Marathon. The ending will surprise, and then charm a bit, as - not really a spoiler alert - Nicolaos and Diotima's wedding provides a delightful coda.!
If you know your Classical Greeks, you'll feel very much at home here because Corby's tale is populated with real characters - Pericles, Aeschylus, Socrates (he is actually Nicolaos' younger brother - and is always asking questions, ba-dump-bump). It feels a little silly at first, especially given the occasionally anachronistic language. But the plot moves briskly, and it becomes apparent that, other than language, Corby pays extraordinary attention to historical detail. Buildings, rituals, dress, ceremonies are all carefully described but not boringly so, and the result is a vivid picture of ancient life and society. Corby's afterword supported my sense of this, by revealing what of his plot was drawn from the historical and literary record (a lot). This 15 pp. Author's Note saved the book for me, as did the detailed timeline (four more page) that followed. The Marathon Conspiracy won't take you long to finish, but it might provide you with a few pleasant hours very far away from wherever you are.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Another Sun
Timothy Williams' Guadeloupe-based series has been in the to-try queue for some time now. Another Sun (2012, Soho Press) definitely did not disappoint on the atmosphere front although I had a hard-ish time following the plot and I'm not sure if that is on me or the plot itself.
Our Heroine in Another Sun is Anne-Marie Laveaud, a French woman who is a local juge d'instruction, some sort of official whose job it is to determine if crimes have actually occurred, and against whom charges should be made. A wealthy landowner has been shot, and the crime is pinned on an old, almost-vagrant ex-con with the mellifluous name of Hégéssipe Bray. The victim and his apparent killer's lives have intertwined for decades, as have so many on this island of former slave plantations, populated by descendants of native Indians, slaves, white owners, and French administrators. It is a complex creole soup and Anne-Marie soon realizes that old rages have combined with modern political dramas to tangle this killing up with some other potentially nasty doings.
The writing here is nicely unobtrusive, that is to say, it did not distract from the story in a bad way, which is just how I like it. The characters are carefully drawn, with individual complexities except that I still don't quite follow all of their motivations. Would these be confirmed in a subsequent book in the series? Or is the idea just to reinforce the complicated and interwoven nature of local society? There is just a lot going on, outside of the main crime - political issues, Anne-Marie's complicated family dynamic, other French and locals who may or may not want anything to do with her, and so on. If you pull a thread here, you get a whole bunch of other ones that you might not have been expecting.
The setting is terrific, lots of flame trees and cracked streets and sun-bleached buildings but not a lot of powdery white beaches and beautiful people - Williams' islands are tourist destinations only on the periphery of his story, but actual people are born, live, and die here. This is both the tropical paradise of the BBC's "Death in Paradise" and a bleaker setting marked by age-old racial divide and endless poverty. This paragraph, in the opening chapter, made me think of our late-night arrival in Martinique twenty-plus years ago.
"The fronds swayed and creaked. The pond lay in the hollow of the sloping valley. Grass-covered hills ran down to the edge of the white dirt track and its two parallel lines of coconut trees. To the east, against the darkening hill top, rose the gaunt silhouette of the derelict sugar refinery. A couple of hangars and a tall, crumbing chimney that pointed to the sky and the rising half moon." (2)
I can just smell the distilleries. Williams does employ more romantic descriptions of these islands, but as memories from Anne-Marie's earlier married years, when she did not really know much of the world in which she was coming to live. It is an effective way to evoke the loss of her romantic and political innocence.
Williams clearly has a deep understanding of the complex social strata that makes up this old island complex. (No surprise; he lives in Guadeloupe and Another Sun was first published in French.) Modern French history is pretty darn complicated, when you start trying to suss out what happened in Algeria, and in France in 1968 and why do they still own islands in the Caribbean anyway? We Americans don't tend to think of France's colonial past that much, maybe because we remain grateful for their help in our Revolution, and the World Wars so dominate our own history. But of course they did get into all kinds of trouble, perhaps because that fabled devotion to liberté, egalité, fraternité is actually hard to put into practice if you are being a colonial overlord. Any story that seeks to involve historical threads can get very complicated, very fast. An author either has to go into deep background, as Martin Thomas did in Black Diamond, or risk his reader losing the plot as I did sometimes here, by using brief references and character vignettes. I think I get it - basically there is an independence movement in Guadeloupe that is not particularly effective because it doesn't have much white power behind it, and that drives some of what happens here - but I kept getting distracted by references to Algeria and 1968 and hippies and the like. I still don't know who Jerry Dupont is!
To be fair, I was moderately distracted while reading this, and the disconnect between the the islands of Guadeloupe and the fishing camp in Maine where I started it, may well have exacerbated by occasional disconnect with the story. I think I'd give this series a second try, if only to visit those islands again.
Our Heroine in Another Sun is Anne-Marie Laveaud, a French woman who is a local juge d'instruction, some sort of official whose job it is to determine if crimes have actually occurred, and against whom charges should be made. A wealthy landowner has been shot, and the crime is pinned on an old, almost-vagrant ex-con with the mellifluous name of Hégéssipe Bray. The victim and his apparent killer's lives have intertwined for decades, as have so many on this island of former slave plantations, populated by descendants of native Indians, slaves, white owners, and French administrators. It is a complex creole soup and Anne-Marie soon realizes that old rages have combined with modern political dramas to tangle this killing up with some other potentially nasty doings.
The writing here is nicely unobtrusive, that is to say, it did not distract from the story in a bad way, which is just how I like it. The characters are carefully drawn, with individual complexities except that I still don't quite follow all of their motivations. Would these be confirmed in a subsequent book in the series? Or is the idea just to reinforce the complicated and interwoven nature of local society? There is just a lot going on, outside of the main crime - political issues, Anne-Marie's complicated family dynamic, other French and locals who may or may not want anything to do with her, and so on. If you pull a thread here, you get a whole bunch of other ones that you might not have been expecting.
The setting is terrific, lots of flame trees and cracked streets and sun-bleached buildings but not a lot of powdery white beaches and beautiful people - Williams' islands are tourist destinations only on the periphery of his story, but actual people are born, live, and die here. This is both the tropical paradise of the BBC's "Death in Paradise" and a bleaker setting marked by age-old racial divide and endless poverty. This paragraph, in the opening chapter, made me think of our late-night arrival in Martinique twenty-plus years ago.
"The fronds swayed and creaked. The pond lay in the hollow of the sloping valley. Grass-covered hills ran down to the edge of the white dirt track and its two parallel lines of coconut trees. To the east, against the darkening hill top, rose the gaunt silhouette of the derelict sugar refinery. A couple of hangars and a tall, crumbing chimney that pointed to the sky and the rising half moon." (2)
I can just smell the distilleries. Williams does employ more romantic descriptions of these islands, but as memories from Anne-Marie's earlier married years, when she did not really know much of the world in which she was coming to live. It is an effective way to evoke the loss of her romantic and political innocence.
Williams clearly has a deep understanding of the complex social strata that makes up this old island complex. (No surprise; he lives in Guadeloupe and Another Sun was first published in French.) Modern French history is pretty darn complicated, when you start trying to suss out what happened in Algeria, and in France in 1968 and why do they still own islands in the Caribbean anyway? We Americans don't tend to think of France's colonial past that much, maybe because we remain grateful for their help in our Revolution, and the World Wars so dominate our own history. But of course they did get into all kinds of trouble, perhaps because that fabled devotion to liberté, egalité, fraternité is actually hard to put into practice if you are being a colonial overlord. Any story that seeks to involve historical threads can get very complicated, very fast. An author either has to go into deep background, as Martin Thomas did in Black Diamond, or risk his reader losing the plot as I did sometimes here, by using brief references and character vignettes. I think I get it - basically there is an independence movement in Guadeloupe that is not particularly effective because it doesn't have much white power behind it, and that drives some of what happens here - but I kept getting distracted by references to Algeria and 1968 and hippies and the like. I still don't know who Jerry Dupont is!
To be fair, I was moderately distracted while reading this, and the disconnect between the the islands of Guadeloupe and the fishing camp in Maine where I started it, may well have exacerbated by occasional disconnect with the story. I think I'd give this series a second try, if only to visit those islands again.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Gaudy Night
If you've been reading along with me then you know that the Dean of Harvard College has swell taste in mysteries. Gaudy Night (1935, this edition Bourbon Street Books 2012) is one of the Dean's most favorite books, and he's read a lot more Dorothy Sayers than I have. But I have to agree that this is one swell read.
To get the full benefit of Sayers' prodigious intellect as displayed in Gaudy Night, it helps if you a) know something about life in a residential college that just happens to be modeled on the colleges at Oxford) b) are familiar with women's colleges and c) are an Anglophile. I happen to hit this trifecta, so reveled in Sayers' witty commentary on life in a residential college, student shenanigans, and faculty attitude. The magisterial Warden, warm and witty Dean, and dons ranging from vague to prickly but all deeply intellectual and immensely deserving of their academic titles, combine to make one feel instantly at home.
I've said this before so I won't go into again but . . . that British upper crust command of language and intellectual allusion and gentle self-mockery is just invigorating. This story has so many examples, but I particularly like this description of a formal portion at the Gaudy:
"The procession came into sight beneath the archway; a small crocodile-walk of elderly people, dressed with the incongruous brilliance of a more sumptuous era, and moving with the slovenly dignity characteristic of university functions in England. They crossed the quad; they mounted the plinth beneath the clock; the male dons removed their Tudor bonnets and mortar-boards in deference to the Vice-Chancellor; the female dons a reverential attitude suggestive of a prayer-meeting. In a thin, delicate voice, the Vice-Chancellor began to speak. He spoke of the history of the college; he made a graceful allusion to achievements which could not be measured by the mere passing of time; he cracked a dry and nutty little jest about relativity and adorned it with a classical tag; he referred to the generosity of the donor and the beloved personality of the deceased member of Council in whose memory the clock was presented; he expressed himself happy to unveil this handsome clock, which would add so greatly to the beauty of the quadrangle - a quadrangle, he would add, which, although a newcomer in point of time, was fully worthy to take its place among those ancient and noble buildings which were the glory of our University." (13)
If you've ever been to a Commencement or a Convocation or some other academic ceremony you know exactly how this whole scene does down. Sayers just nails it.
Our Heroine, Harriet Vane, is returning to Shrewsbury College at Oxford for Gaudy Night, a Reunion-like event, complete with festive dinners, endless speeches by University officials, and drinks before, during, and after. Harriet writes detective novels, and apparently just extricated herself from a murder charge (her former lover) with the help of her new sort-of beau, the witty, handsome, aristocratic, basically what-a-catch Lord Peter Wimsey. But Harriet hasn't been asked to come to the Gaudy just because the Dean really likes her (which she does). There is a vicious prankster at hand, terrorizing the College community with nasty notes and destructive behavior, vaguely aimed at tearing down the hard-built walls of this new, and first in Oxford, women's college. Is it a student, faculty, staff? All we really know is that it is a member of the College community. The members of the college community do not want word of this discord to become public, lest it tarnish the College's new and hard-won reputation as a place of serious scholarship. The idea of a women's college is so new, they fear that the criticism will be used to undermine the larger mission of educating women.
The long (527 pages!) story is really not that exciting from a crime perspective. Harriet digs and probes, but doesn't come up with much. She calls in Peter for help, reluctantly, because they have a complicated relationship. Basically, Peter is in love with Harriet, but is too smart to push her into a relationship, and she is skittish for reasons that are not entirely clear to me but I think have something to do with the previous episode, and not wanting to give up her delightful-sounding independence for what society generally deems a subordinate position in a relationship. I think it a bit of a cop-out on Sayers' part to have Peter be the one to solve the mystery in the end. But perhaps by this time in the Wimsey series, Sayers couldn't get away with him not taking a central role. There is something a bit meta about a mystery writer writing about a mystery writer, who is having trouble keeping her characters in line.
A central theme in this book therefore, is not whodunit so much as why and what does that say about this society? This is not an unusual tack for crime fiction, which is often all about social context, but in this case it strikes rather closer to home. One of the better known quotes from this book is "But what are you going to do with the people who are cursed with both hearts and brains?" (74) The first time we read this, it is during a conversation between Harriet and Peter that is really about their own relationship but is played out as a debate about whether one can maintain personal relationships and be really truly brilliant at some vocation, at the same time. It doesn't take much for this to be applied in a feminist context, and I see it as the old working-mother debate. As the prankster's actions become nastier, they take on a distinctly anti-feminist (if we can call these doughty academics feminists - I think they just consider themselves genderless scholars) tone. Someone really hates these women who have presumed to stray from the natural order of home and hearth.
Pretty much everyone in this book has an opinion on whether women should try and be part of a heretofore man's world, and Harriet is right in the thick of it. At one point she rails against wasting the hard-earned spaces at Oxford on girls who don't want to take it seriously. "We haven't got room for women who aren't and never will be scholars." Her pal the Dean agrees. "I know . . . but schoolmistresses and parents are such jugginses. We do our best, but can't always weed out their mistakes. And here's my secretary - called away, just when we're all so busy, because her tiresome little boy's got chicken-pox at his infuriating school. Oh, dear! I oughtn't to talk like that, because he's a delicate child and naturally children must come first but it is too crushing!" (180) Come on, you know you've had that same thought at some point, even if you have kids of your own. And the child-free have certainly thought it about us.
Team Family doesn't get much of a hearing, and I think it is because the senior Shrewsbury scholars are the vanguard (as is Sayers herself), the first group to win their degrees. The younger faculty and students are a generation removed from the struggle and while their path is not entirely smooth, neither is their every move questioned and challenged. The only women with families are those in service, or the secretaries. Even the younger dons, some of whom might actually be engaged, are only that - they've not become the ball and chain.
Gaudy Night does not settle the debate. If Harriet agrees to ride off into the sunset with Peter at the end, let it be noted that it is with a career, and without a family. One can't help but admire Harriet's glorious independence, dashing about in her roadster, making her own decisions, working away in the library when she wants, taking a break with the dons when she needs. The story is ultimately a noble effort to secure women's place in a man's world, but at what expense? Sayers can't answer that one satisfactorily, but then, who has?
To get the full benefit of Sayers' prodigious intellect as displayed in Gaudy Night, it helps if you a) know something about life in a residential college that just happens to be modeled on the colleges at Oxford) b) are familiar with women's colleges and c) are an Anglophile. I happen to hit this trifecta, so reveled in Sayers' witty commentary on life in a residential college, student shenanigans, and faculty attitude. The magisterial Warden, warm and witty Dean, and dons ranging from vague to prickly but all deeply intellectual and immensely deserving of their academic titles, combine to make one feel instantly at home.
I've said this before so I won't go into again but . . . that British upper crust command of language and intellectual allusion and gentle self-mockery is just invigorating. This story has so many examples, but I particularly like this description of a formal portion at the Gaudy:
"The procession came into sight beneath the archway; a small crocodile-walk of elderly people, dressed with the incongruous brilliance of a more sumptuous era, and moving with the slovenly dignity characteristic of university functions in England. They crossed the quad; they mounted the plinth beneath the clock; the male dons removed their Tudor bonnets and mortar-boards in deference to the Vice-Chancellor; the female dons a reverential attitude suggestive of a prayer-meeting. In a thin, delicate voice, the Vice-Chancellor began to speak. He spoke of the history of the college; he made a graceful allusion to achievements which could not be measured by the mere passing of time; he cracked a dry and nutty little jest about relativity and adorned it with a classical tag; he referred to the generosity of the donor and the beloved personality of the deceased member of Council in whose memory the clock was presented; he expressed himself happy to unveil this handsome clock, which would add so greatly to the beauty of the quadrangle - a quadrangle, he would add, which, although a newcomer in point of time, was fully worthy to take its place among those ancient and noble buildings which were the glory of our University." (13)
If you've ever been to a Commencement or a Convocation or some other academic ceremony you know exactly how this whole scene does down. Sayers just nails it.
Our Heroine, Harriet Vane, is returning to Shrewsbury College at Oxford for Gaudy Night, a Reunion-like event, complete with festive dinners, endless speeches by University officials, and drinks before, during, and after. Harriet writes detective novels, and apparently just extricated herself from a murder charge (her former lover) with the help of her new sort-of beau, the witty, handsome, aristocratic, basically what-a-catch Lord Peter Wimsey. But Harriet hasn't been asked to come to the Gaudy just because the Dean really likes her (which she does). There is a vicious prankster at hand, terrorizing the College community with nasty notes and destructive behavior, vaguely aimed at tearing down the hard-built walls of this new, and first in Oxford, women's college. Is it a student, faculty, staff? All we really know is that it is a member of the College community. The members of the college community do not want word of this discord to become public, lest it tarnish the College's new and hard-won reputation as a place of serious scholarship. The idea of a women's college is so new, they fear that the criticism will be used to undermine the larger mission of educating women.
The long (527 pages!) story is really not that exciting from a crime perspective. Harriet digs and probes, but doesn't come up with much. She calls in Peter for help, reluctantly, because they have a complicated relationship. Basically, Peter is in love with Harriet, but is too smart to push her into a relationship, and she is skittish for reasons that are not entirely clear to me but I think have something to do with the previous episode, and not wanting to give up her delightful-sounding independence for what society generally deems a subordinate position in a relationship. I think it a bit of a cop-out on Sayers' part to have Peter be the one to solve the mystery in the end. But perhaps by this time in the Wimsey series, Sayers couldn't get away with him not taking a central role. There is something a bit meta about a mystery writer writing about a mystery writer, who is having trouble keeping her characters in line.
A central theme in this book therefore, is not whodunit so much as why and what does that say about this society? This is not an unusual tack for crime fiction, which is often all about social context, but in this case it strikes rather closer to home. One of the better known quotes from this book is "But what are you going to do with the people who are cursed with both hearts and brains?" (74) The first time we read this, it is during a conversation between Harriet and Peter that is really about their own relationship but is played out as a debate about whether one can maintain personal relationships and be really truly brilliant at some vocation, at the same time. It doesn't take much for this to be applied in a feminist context, and I see it as the old working-mother debate. As the prankster's actions become nastier, they take on a distinctly anti-feminist (if we can call these doughty academics feminists - I think they just consider themselves genderless scholars) tone. Someone really hates these women who have presumed to stray from the natural order of home and hearth.
Pretty much everyone in this book has an opinion on whether women should try and be part of a heretofore man's world, and Harriet is right in the thick of it. At one point she rails against wasting the hard-earned spaces at Oxford on girls who don't want to take it seriously. "We haven't got room for women who aren't and never will be scholars." Her pal the Dean agrees. "I know . . . but schoolmistresses and parents are such jugginses. We do our best, but can't always weed out their mistakes. And here's my secretary - called away, just when we're all so busy, because her tiresome little boy's got chicken-pox at his infuriating school. Oh, dear! I oughtn't to talk like that, because he's a delicate child and naturally children must come first but it is too crushing!" (180) Come on, you know you've had that same thought at some point, even if you have kids of your own. And the child-free have certainly thought it about us.
Team Family doesn't get much of a hearing, and I think it is because the senior Shrewsbury scholars are the vanguard (as is Sayers herself), the first group to win their degrees. The younger faculty and students are a generation removed from the struggle and while their path is not entirely smooth, neither is their every move questioned and challenged. The only women with families are those in service, or the secretaries. Even the younger dons, some of whom might actually be engaged, are only that - they've not become the ball and chain.
Gaudy Night does not settle the debate. If Harriet agrees to ride off into the sunset with Peter at the end, let it be noted that it is with a career, and without a family. One can't help but admire Harriet's glorious independence, dashing about in her roadster, making her own decisions, working away in the library when she wants, taking a break with the dons when she needs. The story is ultimately a noble effort to secure women's place in a man's world, but at what expense? Sayers can't answer that one satisfactorily, but then, who has?
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Death Money
I like Jack Yu, and I feel a little bad about the short shrift he's going to get from Crime Pays. Yu is the protagonist of Death Money (2014, Soho Press), the fourth in Henry Chang's series about a Chinese-American cop in New Yawk City, AND the most recent shipment from Soho Press Crime Club.
I was looking forward to this - Chinese-based detective stories usually feature some good eats, and a dose of exoticism, if nothing else - but I'm sorry to say that Death Money is suffering in the review department from a) coming right behind A Time for Gifts, and b) being read while on that super-charged vacation in New Orleans. I'm not sure it got all the attention it deserved. This is not a complicated story, nor long, but it is embedded in a subterranean layer of Chinatown life and crime. Chang carefully recreates the various relationships and societies that under-gird the crime world here, and you need to pay attention else the names and places all start to sound alike and you don't want to become a speakee-English kind of reader, do you?
Our Hero, Jack Yu, is called on to a case of an unidentified body found in the Harlem River, and quickly figures out that this is more than just a jumper. A few clues lead him toward some shady businessmen, although his friend Billy Bow the Tofu King doesn't exactly help to keep the investigation on the up and up. Through careful police work, and late-night forays into vividly-described gambling dens and strip joints, Yu solves the case.
That's it. Just didn't grab me. Despite the supposed danger of going into these various dens of iniquity, and some threatening characters, you never really get a good adrenaline rush - Jack is almost always in command of the situation, even if he has to swallow a few responses to suspicious fellow cops who don't understand the Chinese world. Despite the exoticism and roughness of the setting, the characters don't seem terribly original or nuanced, so don't surprise or delight. Jack is very likable, smarter than the average cop, doesn't quite fit in to either the Chinese or the American world, but somehow that is expected. His friend Billy Bow, the Tofu King, is a fast-talking businessman who likes his nookie and a little criminal excitement, and swears a lot. OK. And what of Jack's girlfriend, tough lawyer Alexandra? She shows up at the beginning, then disappears, conveniently, until the crime is solved. The non-Chinese cops are equally as interchangeable.
The prose here is workaday, but I disliked the excessive use of italics to emphasize an important thought. You can practically see Our Hero turning toward the camera, brow furrowed in concentration, as he voices these thoughts. But how? Not everyone, apparently. Just four blocks and parked on a stakeout. Often, Chinese words spelled out in the Roman alphabet are italicized, tong, kai dai, jai fear, gee pa faahn, and that is OK, but the two together is just too much. There are often multiple italics on every page and it is distracting.
Now, it is possible that earlier books in this series dealt with different themes in different ways, and might be more engaging. I'm not sure I'm going to take the time to find out.
But before we go, let's take a moment to enjoy the fact that any mystery set in Chinatown is probably going to involve some excellent eats, and Death Money delivers on that front.
"The noise level in Eddie's was amped and they both leaned in over their Three Precious plates of rice, som bow faahn, to hear each other.
'Francis Gee?' Billy grinned. 'Really?'
Jack nodded as he forked up a piece of soy-sauce chicken.
'Everybody in Chinatown calls him Franky Noodles,' Billy continued. 'Hangs with the Black Dragons. He ain't no fighter; he's a rich-boy wannabe. Daddy's got some juice.' He jabbed up a piece of for ngaap, roast duck.
'The Dragons still working out of that spot behind Half-Ass?' Jack asked, working a forkful of cha siew, roast pork and fried egg.
'Yeah. I hate those motherfuckers as much as I hate the Ghosts, you know?'
'Yeah,' Jack agreed, knowing Billy hated the thugs and gang culture in Chinatown. 'He got any beefs?'
'The usual shit between the Dragons and Ghosts. But he's a player,' Billy sneered. 'Drives a tricked-out red Camaro. Acts tough because he knows Daddy can bail him out.'
'Sounds like you don't like him, man.'
'I hate them all.' Billy chomped a chunk of for yook. 'Punk asses giving us hardworking Chinamen a bad name.'" (142)
I don't even know what for yook is but I want some, please!
I was looking forward to this - Chinese-based detective stories usually feature some good eats, and a dose of exoticism, if nothing else - but I'm sorry to say that Death Money is suffering in the review department from a) coming right behind A Time for Gifts, and b) being read while on that super-charged vacation in New Orleans. I'm not sure it got all the attention it deserved. This is not a complicated story, nor long, but it is embedded in a subterranean layer of Chinatown life and crime. Chang carefully recreates the various relationships and societies that under-gird the crime world here, and you need to pay attention else the names and places all start to sound alike and you don't want to become a speakee-English kind of reader, do you?
Our Hero, Jack Yu, is called on to a case of an unidentified body found in the Harlem River, and quickly figures out that this is more than just a jumper. A few clues lead him toward some shady businessmen, although his friend Billy Bow the Tofu King doesn't exactly help to keep the investigation on the up and up. Through careful police work, and late-night forays into vividly-described gambling dens and strip joints, Yu solves the case.
That's it. Just didn't grab me. Despite the supposed danger of going into these various dens of iniquity, and some threatening characters, you never really get a good adrenaline rush - Jack is almost always in command of the situation, even if he has to swallow a few responses to suspicious fellow cops who don't understand the Chinese world. Despite the exoticism and roughness of the setting, the characters don't seem terribly original or nuanced, so don't surprise or delight. Jack is very likable, smarter than the average cop, doesn't quite fit in to either the Chinese or the American world, but somehow that is expected. His friend Billy Bow, the Tofu King, is a fast-talking businessman who likes his nookie and a little criminal excitement, and swears a lot. OK. And what of Jack's girlfriend, tough lawyer Alexandra? She shows up at the beginning, then disappears, conveniently, until the crime is solved. The non-Chinese cops are equally as interchangeable.
The prose here is workaday, but I disliked the excessive use of italics to emphasize an important thought. You can practically see Our Hero turning toward the camera, brow furrowed in concentration, as he voices these thoughts. But how? Not everyone, apparently. Just four blocks and parked on a stakeout. Often, Chinese words spelled out in the Roman alphabet are italicized, tong, kai dai, jai fear, gee pa faahn, and that is OK, but the two together is just too much. There are often multiple italics on every page and it is distracting.
Now, it is possible that earlier books in this series dealt with different themes in different ways, and might be more engaging. I'm not sure I'm going to take the time to find out.
But before we go, let's take a moment to enjoy the fact that any mystery set in Chinatown is probably going to involve some excellent eats, and Death Money delivers on that front.
"The noise level in Eddie's was amped and they both leaned in over their Three Precious plates of rice, som bow faahn, to hear each other.
'Francis Gee?' Billy grinned. 'Really?'
Jack nodded as he forked up a piece of soy-sauce chicken.
'Everybody in Chinatown calls him Franky Noodles,' Billy continued. 'Hangs with the Black Dragons. He ain't no fighter; he's a rich-boy wannabe. Daddy's got some juice.' He jabbed up a piece of for ngaap, roast duck.
'The Dragons still working out of that spot behind Half-Ass?' Jack asked, working a forkful of cha siew, roast pork and fried egg.
'Yeah. I hate those motherfuckers as much as I hate the Ghosts, you know?'
'Yeah,' Jack agreed, knowing Billy hated the thugs and gang culture in Chinatown. 'He got any beefs?'
'The usual shit between the Dragons and Ghosts. But he's a player,' Billy sneered. 'Drives a tricked-out red Camaro. Acts tough because he knows Daddy can bail him out.'
'Sounds like you don't like him, man.'
'I hate them all.' Billy chomped a chunk of for yook. 'Punk asses giving us hardworking Chinamen a bad name.'" (142)
I don't even know what for yook is but I want some, please!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)