Books read Q4 2019

The Golden Age Of Murder

Martin Edwards

This is an absolute delight. Edwards is not always the most reliable judge of quality in Golden Age fiction – or perhaps it would be better to say that our tastes don’t coincide, or even that he goes out of his way to be charitable in his assessments – but his knowledge of the genre and its practitioners is outstanding. This book is loosely based around a chronological account of the heyday of the Detection Club, from its genesis in the late twenties through to the post-war decades, and biographical information about many of the key members – not just the well-known names like Christie and GKC but the Coles, Anthony Berkeley, ER Punshon and so on. As with his previous book, The Story Of Classic Crime In 100 Books, he takes the reader on a tour of the genre, its nooks and crannies, its fashions and trends, its development and decline. Some of the biographical speculation is a little fanciful, especially when it comes to his theories about how authors’ personal lives affected their storytelling (he is very keen on the notion that the difficult or unusual love lives of people like the Coles, Sayers and Anthony Berkeley were clearly reflected in their books).   

The Leopard

Giuseppe de Lampedusa

One of those books where it’s not immediately straightforward to say what it’s about. We follow the life, and the death, of Don Fabrizio Corbera, a Sicilian nobleman of ancient lineage whose family, the Salina, has been gently decaying for many years. The story picks up in media res with the arrival of Garibaldi’s revolutionaries on Sicily. Italian unification is bringing an end to the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, based in Naples. Thrusting modernity is on its way. Don Fabrizio is nevertheless convinced that the sensual, complacent indolence of Sicily will never change and that despite all the upheaval things can remain the same – this despite his nephew’s now-famous injunction that "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change."

Over the course of the book things do change. The Don tries to go on as before, but to no avail. Despite the loyalty of some old retainers, the rise of the bourgeoisie and the new world of trains and telegrams and commerce and rationalism turns out to be unstoppable. The Don finally dies soon after a long and uncomfortable journey on the newly built railway line from the mainland. Many years later his surviving daughters receive an unwelcome visit from an officious diocesan official seeking to remove fake relics and a supposedly unsuitable painting from the family chapel, another powerful symbol of the way in which the Sicily of tradition, history and idiosyncrasy is being regularised and flattened.

At its heart this is a marvellous poetic meditation on the real things of life, art and death and family and religion and sex and politics. The Don is perhaps not a very admirable man but he is likeable and human, torn as most of us are not just between the earth and the heavens, the lusts of the flesh and the call of higher things, but between conflicting political impulses. He is a reactionary in many respects, but not a barbarian; he has moments of clarity when he understands (regretfully) the need for, and the inevitability of, change.

     

Deep Waters: Mysteries On The Waves

Various, ed. Martin Edwards

About the usual hit rate for one of these collections. There were several here I didn’t finish, but also a few diamonds in the rough. RA Freeman’s “The Echo Of A Mutiny” is a decent yarn, and CS Forester’s “The Turning Of The Tide” is very taut and well-done, probably the pick of the bunch. “Four Friends And Death” by Christopher St John Sprigg has a splendid idea, well-executed.

Crossword Mystery

ER Punshon

I suspect this is a good example of the top end of your average inter-war crime story. It didn’t exactly leave me desperate to get my hands on more Punshon, but it has a bit of wit and intrigue and fun. Classic Golden Age setting of an isolated village by the sea, and a decent amount of psychological depth in the portrayal of the killer and their motivation. I did feel, as I sometimes do with the lesser works in the canon, that the detectives made pretty heavy weather of identifying the villain of the piece.

Miraculous Mysteries: Locked Room Murders And Impossible Crimes

Various, ed. Martin Edwards

This is one of the better BLCC short story collections, although I suppose I am somewhat biased as an absolute sucker for "impossible crimes". There are only two or three damp squibs here, and several that are rather good.

Dancers In Mourning

Margery Allingham

Lively and colourful Campion mystery, with a mildly Ngaio Marsh-y feel, set as it is among rather highly-strung and self-dramatising theatrical folk. I have come to terms with the fact that I just don’t like the Allingham books as much as I want to, even though I can see objectively that they are mostly pretty good. This one has a fairly bog-standard plot centred around a long-ago secret marriage, substantially enlivened and elevated by Allingham’s considerable talent as a writer of character, setting and humour. I can actually see myself revisiting it, which isn’t always the case with non-Christie or non-Sayers Golden Age writers.

Radetzky March

Joseph Roth

It took me a while to get into this, I must confess. It’s on the official reading list at Reactionary Declinists Club, but I struggled initially to get a “way in”. Nevertheless, once you do enter the world of the novel, and begin to understand its themes, it’s enormously rewarding. The central thread of the story follows the Trotta family, of Slovenian peasant stock, who have been elevated to the aristocracy after one of their members saves Emperor Franz Josef’s life at the Battle of Solferino (1859).

The story gains its power from the ironical contrast between the grand self-image of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the reality experienced by the Trotta family, starting with the comedic – almost farcical – portrayal of the attempts by the first Baron Trotta to correct school history books to give an accurate account of his heroics. Through the attitudes and experiences of the family, we see the decay of the Empire’s illusions and institutions, especially the army, and the tensions raised by the dawn of modernity, in the shape of industrial action (the young Lt. Trotta commands troops sent to tackle striking workers, which they do with some brutality).

It seems to me that the trajectory of the young Lt. Trotta in particular is a powerful parable for the deterioration and weakness of the Empire. Trotta’s youth is spent in aimless dissolution – drinking, gambling and womanising – and he has to leave his smart cavalry regiment after his involvement in a fatal duel. He has a curious, stilted relationship with his father, and seems to learn nothing, to have no vigour or purpose, no agency or moral courage. He is merely buffeted by circumstance and convention and impulse, despite his role as part of an imperial elite, of sorts (the officer corps). It’s not hard to see a parallel here with the Empire’s flawed pretensions to grandeur and dignity, especially when his death is brave but pointless and almost in some sense ridiculous, somewhat reminiscent of Petya Rostov’s in War And Peace.

Gallows Court

Martin Edward

Underwhelming attempt to tell a modern dark psychological crime story with a Golden Age setting and Golden Age-type characters. Personally, I found it all a bit too grand guignol and overdone; there is an excess of violence and much of the action is highly implausible even within the world of the story. The ending gets very, very silly. The dialogue is also a bit ripe in places. But I suppose it’s not too bad if you like your crime writing with a dark, fantastical edge.