The Making of a Murder Monday
For me, as for many others, the reading of detective stories is an addiction like tobacco or alcohol. The symptoms of this are: Firstly, the intensity of the craving - if I have any work to do, I must be careful not to get hold of a detective story for, once I begin one, I cannot work or sleep till I have finished it. Secondly, its specificity - the story must conform to certain formulas (I find it very difficult, for example, to read one that is not set in rural England). And, thirdly, its immediacy. I forget the story as soon as I have finished it, and have no wish to read it again. If, as sometimes happens, I start reading one and find after a few pages that I have read it before, I cannot go on.
-- W. H. Auden, "The Guilty Vicarage"
Do you want to read an article by W. H. Auden on detective fiction? The Guilty Vicarage is available online. I've decided I need to read some Freeman Wills Crofts; his chapters in The Scoop and Behind the Screen were good, and Auden names his Inspector French as one of only three "completely satisfactory detectives" (with Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown). I do not agree with Auden that Father Brown is a completely satisfactory detective, though the ideal version of Father Brown that exists only in my head is completely satisfactory.
What I've Finished Reading
Partners in Crime is 100% silly fluff, with the advantage over The Secret Adversary that no one attempts to explain the political context to any level of detail. Tommy and Tuppence goof around a lot and pretend to be different fictional detectives, and mostly manage not to bungle most of their cases too badly. At one point Tommy is rescued from an unscrupulous tough by Albert, the office boy, who just happens to have been practicing his lasso skills ("Albert watches a lot of movies" is the weak running joke). In the end they catch a spy in typically blundering fashion and retire from the fake detective business because Tuppence is going to have a baby. Awww.
What I'm Reading Now
The House By the River has overrun its slow start and become a genuine page-turner. It's also alarmingly efficient. In the past hundred pages, our intrepid typist Alison Cleveley has fallen in love at first sight, witnessed a murder, provided evidence for the police, been shot at by a mysterious assailant, moved to Manchester to avoid interfering in the "interests" of her beloved (his family wants him to marry an earl's daughter to shore up their social position and dwindling funds; he would rather marry Alison but she's disappeared for his own good), befriended a bookie (and former private investigator) at her boarding house who seems overly interested in her mysterious brush with murder, allowed a different fellow boarder to coax her into marrying him and coming with him to Australia, despite her total indifference, mentally justifying her action with the thought that at least now Noel will have to marry the rich woman he doesn't like. They've just left the church and Sydney, the sacrificial husband, has gone off to see to the luggage. As Alison sips coffee in the hotel lounge and wonders where Sydney has got to, a message arrives for her: his sister is dying, and he's been summoned home immediately, so she should just head back to the boarding house and wait for further correspondence. SORRY ALISON. This neatly avoids any wedding-night awkwardness, but leaves Alison understandably confused and even more underwhelmed than before. Would this be the perfect time for the bookie/PI to reappear with the results of his investigation? Probably!
The library is closed for repairs until January 15, so I've been unable to replenish my Christie supply. I decided to give Erle Stanley Gardner another go with the first chapter of Murder Up My Sleeve. It's bracingly silly! A sarcastic man of the world, recently returned from China, is called into the district attorney's office and questioned about a mysterious Chinese weapon, the sleeve gun. It's a tube with a spring you hide in your copious Eastern sleeve and activate by leaning your arm against a table. Wikipedia informs me that this was, in fact, an experimental British weapon during WWII (several years after the publication of Murder Up My Sleeve), and also that it wore out quickly and didn't work very well. This book already has a lot of thoughts to share about The Oriental Mind, and I can tell there are plenty more to come.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'm not sure! I'm looking forward to the next two Christies, when the library opens back up.
One of the differences between me and W. H. Auden: Auden never re-reads a detective story and forgets them the minute he's finished: this is, he says, one of the things that separates "literature" from the detective genre. For me this is true some of the time, but not always. I'm finding Christie pretty reliably re-readable, even books that depend heavily on deception and surprise, like Roger Ackroyd and Orient Express; reading the structure while knowing the ending is an auxiliary pleasure to having been surprised by the ending. But I also enjoyed re-reading The Secret Adversary, which is not a brilliantly plotted book by any means, and will probably feel the same about the equally silly The Seven Dials Mystery.
-- W. H. Auden, "The Guilty Vicarage"
Do you want to read an article by W. H. Auden on detective fiction? The Guilty Vicarage is available online. I've decided I need to read some Freeman Wills Crofts; his chapters in The Scoop and Behind the Screen were good, and Auden names his Inspector French as one of only three "completely satisfactory detectives" (with Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown). I do not agree with Auden that Father Brown is a completely satisfactory detective, though the ideal version of Father Brown that exists only in my head is completely satisfactory.
What I've Finished Reading
Partners in Crime is 100% silly fluff, with the advantage over The Secret Adversary that no one attempts to explain the political context to any level of detail. Tommy and Tuppence goof around a lot and pretend to be different fictional detectives, and mostly manage not to bungle most of their cases too badly. At one point Tommy is rescued from an unscrupulous tough by Albert, the office boy, who just happens to have been practicing his lasso skills ("Albert watches a lot of movies" is the weak running joke). In the end they catch a spy in typically blundering fashion and retire from the fake detective business because Tuppence is going to have a baby. Awww.
What I'm Reading Now
The House By the River has overrun its slow start and become a genuine page-turner. It's also alarmingly efficient. In the past hundred pages, our intrepid typist Alison Cleveley has fallen in love at first sight, witnessed a murder, provided evidence for the police, been shot at by a mysterious assailant, moved to Manchester to avoid interfering in the "interests" of her beloved (his family wants him to marry an earl's daughter to shore up their social position and dwindling funds; he would rather marry Alison but she's disappeared for his own good), befriended a bookie (and former private investigator) at her boarding house who seems overly interested in her mysterious brush with murder, allowed a different fellow boarder to coax her into marrying him and coming with him to Australia, despite her total indifference, mentally justifying her action with the thought that at least now Noel will have to marry the rich woman he doesn't like. They've just left the church and Sydney, the sacrificial husband, has gone off to see to the luggage. As Alison sips coffee in the hotel lounge and wonders where Sydney has got to, a message arrives for her: his sister is dying, and he's been summoned home immediately, so she should just head back to the boarding house and wait for further correspondence. SORRY ALISON. This neatly avoids any wedding-night awkwardness, but leaves Alison understandably confused and even more underwhelmed than before. Would this be the perfect time for the bookie/PI to reappear with the results of his investigation? Probably!
The library is closed for repairs until January 15, so I've been unable to replenish my Christie supply. I decided to give Erle Stanley Gardner another go with the first chapter of Murder Up My Sleeve. It's bracingly silly! A sarcastic man of the world, recently returned from China, is called into the district attorney's office and questioned about a mysterious Chinese weapon, the sleeve gun. It's a tube with a spring you hide in your copious Eastern sleeve and activate by leaning your arm against a table. Wikipedia informs me that this was, in fact, an experimental British weapon during WWII (several years after the publication of Murder Up My Sleeve), and also that it wore out quickly and didn't work very well. This book already has a lot of thoughts to share about The Oriental Mind, and I can tell there are plenty more to come.
What I Plan to Read Next
I'm not sure! I'm looking forward to the next two Christies, when the library opens back up.
One of the differences between me and W. H. Auden: Auden never re-reads a detective story and forgets them the minute he's finished: this is, he says, one of the things that separates "literature" from the detective genre. For me this is true some of the time, but not always. I'm finding Christie pretty reliably re-readable, even books that depend heavily on deception and surprise, like Roger Ackroyd and Orient Express; reading the structure while knowing the ending is an auxiliary pleasure to having been surprised by the ending. But I also enjoyed re-reading The Secret Adversary, which is not a brilliantly plotted book by any means, and will probably feel the same about the equally silly The Seven Dials Mystery.