Books – derrickjknight

Devices And Desires

“The Whistler’s fourth victim was his youngest, Valerie Mitchell, aged fifteen years, eight months and four day, and she died because she missed the nine-forty bus from Easthaven to Cobb’s Marsh. As always she had left it until the last minute to leave the disco and the floor was still a packed, gyrating mass of bodies under the makeshift strobe light when she broke free of Wayne’s clutching hands, shouted instructions to Shirl about their plans for next week above the raucous beat of the music and left the dance floor. Her last glimpse of Wayne was of his serious, bobbing face, bizarrely striped with red, yellow and blue under the turning lights. Without waiting to change her shoes, she snatched up her jacket from the cloakroom peg and raced up the road past the darkened shops towards the bus station, her cumbersome shoulder bag flapping against her ribs. But when she turned the corner into the station she saw with horror that the lights on their high poles shone down on a bleached and silent emptiness and dashing to the corner was in time to see the bus already half-way up the hill. There was still a chance if the lights were against it and she began desperately chasing after it, hampered by her fragile, high-heeled shoes. But the lights were still green and she watched helplessly, gasping and bent double with a sudden cramp, as it lumbered over the brow of a hill and like a brightly lit ship dank out of sight. ‘Oh no!’ she screamed after it, ‘Oh God! Oh no!’ and felt the tears of anger and dismay smarting her eyes.”

Thus P.D. James immediately engages our attention as she announces that we are reading a murder mystery involving a serial killer. There will be many more examples of her ability to build tension; to describe action scenes; to engage all the senses – sight, hearing, and touch in this passage, while smell features in many more, including, later in the first chapter that of “drink and sweat and a terror matching her own”. We also have here glimpses of her taste for alliteration and simile, and her ability to convey varying emotions.

This story is much more than a detective novel. It is also about the politics of publishing, protest, nuclear power and a remote rural location; of the people who live there and their interrelationships, of their back stories, of secrets, of deception; of grief, guilt, sexual faithfulness and promiscuity, physical and emotional pain.

The power station, perched above the “sea-scoured coast” of the headland, viewed from everywhere in the village, and lit by the skies according to the time of day or night and the weather becomes a brooding presence reflected in the character of its manager.

Particularly in the interview sections, much of the narrative involves conversation, of which James is a master. She understands the complexity of human emotions, the importance of tone, of silence, and of non-verbal communication. Careful questioning and listening will give an investigator more truth than any amount of force and bluster.

The tale is full of surprises, some of which change the focus of the reader. Given the number of characters in the story and their different recollections and presentations, true and false, the precision of the author’s prose is exemplary, enabling her to tie up all the threads in her concluding chapters, the details of which we were not expecting.

Irene von Treskow’s illustration to the book jacket of my Faber and Faber first edition of 1989 conveys the sight of the power station seen through the ruined abbey against a moonlit night sky as the silent protagonist of the book.

Whilst I was drafting this review, Nathan of Norman’s Heating was servicing our oil fuelled boiler which, despite various visits in the last two years had not received a full service.

This evening we dined on cod and parsley fish cakes; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm broccoli and cauliflower with chopped leaves; tender mange-touts; and moist ratatouille, with which I drank Reserva Privado Chilean Malbec 2023.

The Brontës

Given her conviction that the members of this multi-talented family were so tightly knit Juliet Barker wrote her life as of the family rather than of individual members.

She makes the point that for the best part of a century and a half until her 1994 publication we had relied on Mrs Gaskell’s biased and misleading depiction of the Haworth parsonage; the father Patrick Brontë; and the brother, Branwell, which, with compelling evidence, she largely debunks.

As is my wont, I will attempt to avoid spoilers, by not revealing too many details, although I do show many of the chapter headings from my Weidenfeld & Nicholson paperback edition of 1995, complete with the author’s prose beneath them. It is most significant that the eldest two of the six siblings did not reach adulthood, and why and how they did not. The four who did were all competent artists as well as exceptional writers.

After the early death of his wife and mother of the children, Patrick did his best to bring up the siblings with the help of their maternal aunt. Barker contends that he was a far more caring parent than the one described by Gaskell.

Our author bases her work on letters, publications, and reported conversations of friends, relatives, and witnesses contemporary with the family members. She balances differing views and claims, whereas she contends that Mrs Gaskell’s informants are largely biased or untrue.

Juliet Barker sets the scenes that would have been familiar to the Brontës themselves and compares them to locations in the 1990s. Thus, “the fell hand of the twentieth century has destroyed most of the Dewsbury that Patrick Brontë knew. Its once proud and separate identity has been lost, swallowed up in the vast and characterless urban sprawl which oozes southwards from Bradford and Leeds. Today, its most dominant feature is the road system – a Gordian knot of flyovers, dual carriageways and underpasses apparently designed to prevent anyone either entering or leaving the town. The shabby remains of late Victorian municipal splendour are dwarfed by the concrete stanchions of modern bridges. Semi-derelict mills, empty warehouses and demolition sites are a depressing foretaste of the town centre. Dewsbury is a town which has lost its way; having obliterated its past it gives the impression it has no confidence in its future. Yet in December 1809, when Patrick arrived, Dewsbury was a distinct entity, a town with a venerable history and a prosperous future in the boom years of the late nineteenth-century wool trade.”

The historical context is also pinpointed by such as the Luddites battle against machines in 1812, the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the coming of the railway in the 1840s, and the Great Exhibition of 1851.

The three surviving sisters and their brother Branwell spent their childhood years writing what Barker terms juvenilia in which they played out their own relationships in their creations of characters which continued into their young adulthoods, and “the attraction of such piquantly shocking characteristics in their creations was that they were so alien to the conventionality of life at the parsonage.” The Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo made him a hero in these works given the fictitious character name.

Barker presents many balanced extracts from her source materials, including their groundbreaking novels, interpreting how the juvenile fantasies and the lives of the three major writers influence their mature works. In particular she considers the many contemporary attempts to identify the originals of many of the characters.

Relationships with publishers and reviewers are explored. In particular how they affect individual family members and how such relationships ebb and flow over the years, especially in an age when communication was mostly by long distance letter writing and subject to misinterpretation. People could not make an appointment by telephone, text, or e-mail; rather they may travel miles to turn up on a doorstep where they may or may not be welcome – indeed they may be too late to attend a deathbed or may not have known someone was even ill.

These are the front and back covers of my copy of the book. The portrait of the three sisters is by Branwell who erased himself from the central space.

The title page illustration is by Emily;

these selected chapter headings. The gallery, where the individual artists are named, can be accessed by clicking on any one of the images.

I closed my posting of this review before we dined on Jackie’s wholesome shepherds pie, parsnips, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, mange touts, garden peas, and spinach, with which she drank Diet Coke and I finished the Malbec.

Cover Her Face

In the very first sentences of her novel P.D. James engages her readership of this Inspector Dalgleish novel: “Exactly three months before the killing at Martingale Mrs Maxie gave a dinner-party. Years later, when the trial was a half-forgotten scandal and the headlines were yellowing on the newspaper lining of cupboard drawers, Eleanor Maxie looked back on that spring evenings the opening scene of a tragedy. Memory, selective and perverse, invested what had been a perfectly ordinary dinner-party with an aura of foreboding an unease……” Just a few well-chosen words convey the passing of time, a sense of history, and reflections on memory.

The precision of her carefully descriptive prose Is further exemplified by “…. The window gave a view of the main hospital entrance farther along the street. In the distance she could discern the shining curve of the river and the towers of Westminster. The ceaseless rumble of traffic was muted, an unobtrusive background to the occasional noises of the hospital, the clang of the lift gates, the ringing of telephone bell, the passing of brisk feet along the corridor….. “

It is in the reflection of this patient precision in the character of her sleuth that, for me, the story had begun to pall as we were presented with a series of interviews by the unflappable and unemotional Detective Chief Inspector’s gradual peeling away of the inconsistencies in the statements of the various members of the house party; indeed I was becoming bored. Perhaps that was Dalgleish’s essential skill. His technique is to calm rather than threaten.

Just in time we are presented with some surprise witnesses and faster moving action sequences which enliven the previously soporific pace.

The author has a deep knowledge of human nature with its ambivalences and contradictions which are often reflected in her well-presented dialogue with emphasis on tone and body language.

In the highly original perspective of his well drawn illustrations Jonathan Burton collaborates with the author in leaving misleading clues, some of which tricked me.

Here we have the front board and spine; the title page and frontispiece of my Folio Society edition.

Gentian Hill

This novel by Elizabeth Goudge is a story on many levels based largely in Devon during the time of Nelson and Bonaparte. It is a tale of instinctive romantic love; of consistent unselfish giving of oneself; of loyal adoption; and of genetic recognition; of intuitive identification; of generosity of spirit; of friendship formed in adversity; and of complete lack of empathy and extreme cruelty.

So well crafted is the work that it is not at first apparent that the backdrop is the earlier period of The Terror of the French Revolution and the part it played in the lives of the main protagonists. The overall triumph of survival in challenging circumstances is an underlying theme.

Contrasts between gentle bucolic country life and the harsh disciplined life of sailors on the open sea form a key part of the narrative, as do those concerning class and breeding, and of different spheres of Christianity.

Goudge’s elegant descriptive prose engaging all the senses is at its best, whether featuring inland or coastline scenes or the various action sequences. “[dawn] came quite soon, with its inevitable quickening and reassurance, and the interpenetration of light an sound and scent by each other that one seems to notice only in moments of deep piece. The crying of the awakening gulls, the soft slap of the sea against the harbour wall, the running of the stream, the sound of an opening door and a voice singing, a church clock striking the hour, made a music that was a part of the growing pearly light. There was a faint scent if seaweed, of baking bread, and that indescribable fresh smell of the dawn compounded of dew-drenched flowers, wood-smoke and wet fields…..” is an example of this scenic range. “…..he was enduring the punishment meted out to midshipmen who sleep on watch. He was lashed in the weather rigging, his arms and legs widely stretched, his head burning, his body shivering from the bucketful of cold water that had been emptied over him, every nerve in him stretched to what felt like breaking point, and in his heart black rebellion, fury and despair. For he had been treated with the most shocking injustice…..” demonstrates the cruelty; “….Hour after hour it went on, the work and discipline of the wounded ships functioning all the while with order and purpose. Men toiled at the guns, in the magazines, in the rigging, carrying the wounded, flinging the dead and dying overboard, running messages, repairing under-water timbers….” the toil of battle.

There is good use of simile and metaphor, as in “He could disappear with the ease of a shadow when the sun goes in”; “he had been like a tortoise on its back, immovable but vulnerable and inviting prodding”; “that nauseating smell of unwashed bodies and filthy clothes that is the very breath of poverty”.

With intimate knowledge, our author closely observes her human characters and their animals with equal accuracy. “His eyes were his father’s, tawny and somewhat stern, but there was great sweetness of expression about the mouth. He had a character of the utmost nobility; he was wise, brave, loving, loyal, patient, chivalrous, and fastidious in his personal habits.” Which would this be?

She has good command of dialogue and natural accents.

She weaves in her usual references to Shakespeare and ancient myth and legend

My copy is a 1949 first edition published by Hodder and Stoughton inscribed to ‘Morag from Noel Jan 1950’.

Although the book jacket by J. Morton Sale was in raggedy unconnected bits it somehow managed to protect the front and back

boards for three quarters of a century. Note the preservation of blue in the gentian on the front.

These are the endpapers both front and back.

Having spent many hours watching Christopher Shaw restoring books on The Repair Shop, Jackie took great pleasure in applying his

techniques to repairing this jacket. You will see that she has pasted the parts onto a base sheet and created a spine. Study of the darkened spine in the first picture above shows by contrast how well the boards have been protected until now. Maybe, with the jacket wrapped in cellophane, they will continue for many more years to come.

This evening we dined on tasty baked gammon; piquant cheddar cheese and mustard sauce; boiled new potatoes; firm carrots and cauliflower with its chopped leaves; tender runner beans; and moist spinach, with which I drank more of the Malbec.

The Heart Of The Family

Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest now considered one of the greatest poets of the Victorian era, who produced beautifully descriptive philosophical sonnets inspired by his love of nature and his Christian faith; moving on to the so-called “terrible sonnets” of desolation, two of which, for example “No worst, there is none ….. speaking of “world-sorrow…….” from which comfort and even joy may ultimately be sought, as “all/ Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.”

Undoubtedly Elizabeth Goudge in her “The Heart of the Family” from 1953 was deeply influenced by Manley Hopkins as is reflected in her beautiful bucolic prose descriptions and her philosophical approach to the lives of her characters.

Shakespeare, too, is woven into her narrative with references to such as madness in Lear, jealousy in Othello, and joyful Midsummer Night’s Dream to name but a few. Just as the bard makes use of woodland in many of his plays so does Goudge in this book. Even the plant rue, commonly known as the Herb-of-Grace, is quoted in Hamlet; rue meaning remorse or regret, and The Herb of Grace being the hostelry so significant in our current work.

“The warm sun of the stormy August day was out again and beat down upon them. Here in the sheltered drive, with the rampart of the oak-trees between them and the marshes, they did not feel the wind from the sea. Through the wrought-iron gate in the wall the man could see the golden and orange glow of autumn flowers, the tall and gracious trees of an old and matured garden, and, beyond, the irregular roof of the house. ……. To the right the marshes had been splashed with colour like a painter’s palette; to the left, just at the corner of the lane that led down from the high-road, there had been cornfield bending beneath the wind. On the horizon he had seen the silver line of the sea and the estuary, with the cliffs of the Island beyond, at one moment hidden by the mists of driving rain, remote and far away, at the next leaping out under the sun in such clear distinctness that they looked like the longed-for Celestial Mountain at the end of the unending way. Then he had reached the harbour, with wild sea-asters growing beside the harbour wall and fishing-boats and yachts rocking peacefully at anchor. …… A swan had flown overhead, the rhythmic beating of its wings adding to the note of strength, and everywhere, in the wind and sun and rain, the gulls had been flying and calling……..” “The house smelled of flowers, furniture polish, baked apples, dog and tobacco” are just a few sections from the many elegantly descriptive prose paragraphs that display the author’s love of nature; her attention to the weather, to senses of sight, hearing, touch, and smell; her use of metaphor, simile, adjective and adverb, to draw the reader into her scene.

Her characters of all ages, especially young children, as in “The sheer ecstasy with which her booted feet came down in each puddle told of the depth of her capacity for happiness. …….” or older members of the household in “A door opened at the back of the hall, letting in light, and a woman came through it, a country body of immense size and immense charm. She advanced with a stately swaying motion, shifting her great weight from one foot to the other with a patient humorous determination that did not quite mask her fatigue…….” are touchingly presented with a deep knowledge of human nature and its complexities.

Each member of the family, for their different reasons and because of their varied experiences, including those of wartime, in the decade following the Second World War is suffering burning regret, remorse, and disappointment, yet hoping for joy and maybe happiness. Some carry unexpressed shame. Each is seeking truth and ultimately settling for contentment. Their deep Christian convictions affect how they manage powerful contrary desires. Clearly not all are identical in their struggles but I do not wish to publish spoilers, especially as a shared secret unknown to each of two participants emerges as an ultimate cathartic surprise.

A pivotal section of the book involves a pause at Knyghtwood forest en route to the group walking to The Herb of Grace. This is where Elizabeth Goudge adapts Shakespeare’s device of a significant woodland feature. Different couples and individuals make use of their own special places among the trees to relate and reflect.

I heartily recommend this insightful, heartwarming, and thought-provoking work.

Perhaps it is appropriate that the jacket of my Book Club Selection of 1955 has seen better days, yet still serves some protection to the browned pages within.

The storm still raged as we drove the short distance to Rokali’s for dinner this evening; when we returned the winds had dropped but the rain continued. I enjoyed my duck dhansak and two purees; Jackie chose chicken biriani. I drank Kingfisher and she drank Diet Coke. Well cooked food, friendly service, and welcome ambience were as good as always.

Gales And Drafting

The raging storm that will beset us for the whole weekend takes me back to

The Uses Of Enchantment

from ten years ago. On that particular October of 2014 the weather did calm later, presenting similar scenes to those we experience at the moment, although respite will not come for a couple of days.

I am feeling much better after my BCG vaccine instillation and will be taking another day’s rest, fortunately enforced by the weather.

Today I finished reading “The Heart of the Family” and began drafting my review for completion tomorrow.

This evening we dined on succulent roast lamb; mint sauce; crisp Yorkshire pudding; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; pure white cauliflower; flavoursome Brussels sprouts and tasty gravy with which I drank Collin-Bouriset Fleurie 2022

The Last Two

‘The Dream’ and ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ are the last two of the Entrées in the Crime Club Choice selection of Agatha Christie’s 1973 stories in ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’.

The Author’s two most popular sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple are therefore linked – one following the other among the pages. Each murder also involves the deception of fabricating a false identity exposed in the first case by the Belgian Detective, and in the second by a dear elderly aunt.

The Dream is a recurring nightmare related to Poirot by Benedict Farley and seemingly predicting his demise. The detective was flummoxed. “He was puzzled. His busy mind was going over and over the story he had been told. Yet in the midst of his mental preoccupation, a nagging sense of something wrong obtruded itself. And that something had to do with himself – not with Benedict Farley.”

“That dream was very important” said Poirot, who was told “If we hadn’t got your word for it….” the implication would have been “that [Mr Farley] had committed suicide.

Greenshaw’s Folly opens with a typically engaging sequence catching the reader’s interest:

“The two men rounded the corner of the shrubbery.

” “Well, there you are,” said Raymond West. “That’s it.”

“Horace Bindler took a deep, appreciative breath.

” “But my dear,” he cried, “how wonderful.” His voice rose in a high screech of aesthetic delight, then deepened in reverent awe…….”

Folly itself is a double entendre in that it refers to the remarkable building, about which “One wonders how he ever got hold of an architect to carry out these ideas.” and to his own unfortunate activity.

“with her mouth pursed up very prunes and prisms” displays both the author’s partiality for alliteration and her liking for humorous description.

Possibly the first reader of this book, to use as a bookmark, tore the corner off a page of the Daily Telegraph a few days after this library copy entered circulation. We can also see from the line of text above the use that Miss Marple makes of her memory of someone from her past to inform her about likely traits of those she currently contemplates.

This reminds me of the story of Crocker’s Folly which I once frequented that features in

A Screwdriver Comes In Handy

Referring to ‘The Dream’ above the Marylebone mistake also involved suicide.

Traditionally roast lamb leftovers were minced up on Monday to provide the meat for shepherd’s pie, so it was appropriate that Jackie added to bought mince the leftovers from the recent roast lamb we had enjoyed with Louisa for tonight’s meal which also included pure white cauliflower, orange carrots, and green beans, with which I finished the pinotage.

Four-And-Twenty Blackbirds

The twist in this, the fourth story in the Crime Club Choice selection is that Hercule Poirot appears to anticipate a murder – all on account of a blackberry pie reminiscent of the Four-and-Twenty blackbirds in the “Sing a Song of Sixpence” English nursery rhyme that inspired Agatha Christie to write the piece.

The regular waitress of the Gallant Endeavour at which the Belgian Detective dined one day with his friend Bonnington, shared the friend’s impression that men, like me, rarely change their meals in their favourite restaurants, so, when she told these two men that ‘Old Father Time’ had suddenly done so, and what is more, deviated from one of his normal two particular days a week over ten years, this piqued Poirot’s interest.

We were kept waiting and wondering how Hercule could have predicted the crime, the victim, and the perpetrator, until he confronted the killer with definite proof.

“They nodded to each other, swaying about, hanging on to adjacent straps. Then at Piccadilly Circus there was a general exodus……” is just one example of Dame Agatha’s descriptive encapsulation of location as she presents the two friends travelling in a crowded tube train.

The Under Dog

This morning I underwent the postponed third session of my BCG vaccine installation series at Southampton General Hospital. The procedure was carried out on time with the usual smooth, efficient, friendly, informative, and humorous care by Anna Cornwall.

The anticipated painfully irritating after effects to be expected for 48 hours produced the usual difficulty in concentrating on anything else, so here is a review I made earlier:

This is the third story in the Crime Club Choice of Agatha Christie’s tales entitled “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding”.

Once again we have the perspicacious Poirot unravelling the alleged facts in a case of Inspector Miller’s and coming to a different conclusion.

With the spare precision of her character description reflecting that of her main protagonist, Christie matches his skill – or is it the other way round? “His eyes swept over Lily Margrave in a quick comprehensive survey, taking in the details of her neat black suit, the touch of white at her throat and the smart little black hat. He saw the elegance of her, the pretty face with its slightly pointed chin, and the dark blue, long-lashed eyes. Insensibly his attitude changed; he was interested now, not so much in the case as in the girl sitting opposite him.” Naturally he was not the only man attracted by her, thus providing an element of a the intrigue.

In complete control of her characters’ dialogue, Christie guides the conversation with such as “His eyes invited her to go on.” She pays attention to tone, as in “The disparagement of her tone, though vague, was evident, and Poirot beat a tactful retreat.” The manner of speech is also relevant, for example ” “Yes, yes, quite so,” said Mr. Mayhew without enthusiasm.”

Dame Agatha catches the note of the Belgian’s spoken English with accuracy and humour, as in “She is anxious that no one should disturb the sleeping dogs.” and “one would hardly think a young man of that type would have the – how do you say it – the bowels to commit such a crime.” On the other hand he can use idioms to good advantage: ‘See a pin and pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck.”

The detective’s own obsessive nature is indicated by such as “Poirot’s right hand strayed out and straightened one or two of the objects lying on the table near him.” This quotation also suggests the author’s love of alliteration as does “quick comprehensive survey” above.

The well-crafted story is told with humour and meticulous detail connecting or refuting all elements as appropriate in order to establish the truth.

This evening we dined on flavoursome baked gammon; boiled new potatoes; piquant cauliflower and leek cheese; tender cabbage and leek; crunchy carrots; I also decided that one small glass of Collin-Bourisset Morgon 2022 could not irritate my bladder any more than today’s procedure has done, so I drank one.

The Mystery Of The Spanish Chest

We learn something of Hercule Poirot’s taste in women in this second story in the Crime Club’s Choice Collection “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding” – a tale of an impossible murder into which his reluctant investigation was cajoled by Lady Chatterton, “…..one of the brightest jewels in what Poirot called le haut monde. Everything she did or said was news. She has brains, beauty, originality and enough vitality to activate a rocket to the moon.”

This “entrée” is introduced with a description of the famous detective’s efficient secretary who “seemed to be composed entirely of angles – thus satisfying Poirot’s demand for symmetry. Not that where women were concerned Hercule Poirot carried his passion for geometrical precision so far. He was, on the contrary, old-fashioned. He had a continental prejudice for curves – it might be said for voluptuous curves. He liked women to be women. He liked them lush, highly coloured, exotic….” This quotation exemplifies Christie’s humour and fluid prose. As usual she has complete control of dialogue.

Poirot can be “obsessed with beautiful women, crimes of passion, jealousy, hatred and and all the other romantic causes of murder” especially as this one appeared to have only one generally accepted possible solution which he found inexplicable.

We were led down a blind alley before Poirot proved what had really happened.

Agatha Christie’s own genius was to tie her plot into Shakespeare’s story of Othello with its themes of jealousy, murderous intent, and the naive innocence of a femme fatale.

Yesterday Jackie began transporting paving stones from the stack on the back drive to the side of the house for use behind the shed. She continued today, and I added a few. 21 of 28 have now been moved with the aid of sack barrow and wheelbarrow.

This evening we dined on Southern Fried Chicken and Jackie’s savoury rice with which I drank Collin Bourisset Fleurie 2022.