strange and random happenstance

An English Murder by Cyril Hare
Published by: Faber and Faber
Publication Date: 1951
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

This will be Viscount Warbeck's last Christmas. Which is why he's invited those near and dear to him to Warbeck Hall, rumored to be the oldest inhabited house in Markshire. Which is why Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink, a survivor of the Third Reich and the concentration camps, is visiting the house; not because he's near or dear, but because of the history within the walls and the manuscripts. To think, letters from the reign of George III with magnificent marginalia! He is perusing just such a document when the butler, Briggs, informs him of the Viscount's wishes. Dr. Bottwink had assumed that this holiday season would be more circumspect at Warbeck Hall given the circumstances, but these are a dying man's wishes, so guests are coming! Just a few members of his lordship's family. There's Sir Julius Warbeck, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Warbeck's first cousin, and his securty detail, James Rogers, Lady Camilla Prendergast, a niece of her late ladyship's first husband, Mrs. Carstairs, whose father was the rector of the parish and was practically raised in Warbeck Hall, and the son and heir, Robert Warbeck, whose arrival leads Dr. Bottwink to ask a favor of Briggs. Because Briggs has informed Dr. Bottwink that he has been placed for the duration with the family party, which Dr. Bottwink is loath to have happen. He wishes to eat with Briggs and his daughter Susan rather than the son of his host because Robert is the leader of a Fascist organization, The League of Liberty and Justice. Though Robert's antisemitic views are also abhorred by Sir Julius and Mrs. Carstairs, Dr. Bottwink knows that this is not a man he could take a meal with. Though Lady Camilla has a soft spot for Robert. Even if lately he has been cold to her. With so many tensions right from the start it's a wonder they make it through tea and dinner, but it is Lord Warbeck's dying wish, so they all try to get along. They bury their hatred and carry on. As the bells ring out Christmas Day Robert proposes a a toast hinting that he has a secret to be revealed. A secret that won't pass his lips as he drops down dead. Dr. Bottwink is sure it's potassium cyanide poisoning and suggests the police are called. Which is when they realize they are on their own. They are snowed in and the lines are down. It would be logical for James Rogers to head the investigation as he's a sergeant at the Met. But it's obvious he's in over his head and Dr. Bottwink worries that being Jewish and a foreigner that he will be the scapegoat. Therefore it is up to this historian to catch a killer before he or she strikes again! The marginalia will have to wait.

When reading books from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, any informed reader knows that there are bound to be outmoded ways of thinking that were common back then. Or at least outmoded to those who aren't alt-right. I am of course talking about racism and antisemitism. And these outdated viewpoints aren't relegated to murder mysteries written in the early to mid twentieth century, just look to Mark Twain and the controversy about the bowdlerized edition of Huckleberry Finn which was re-released with the n-word removed. I don't believe in censorship, and I believe it's important to read books as they were written because it's a reflection of the time period and our culture just as much as it is a story. Changing that text, bowdlerizing it, changes it's impact and is done to make people feel better. We have to be willing to feel uncomfortable and try to continually be doing better. Literature is a reflection of us and our times, if you feel uncomfortable, perhaps you should look into why and try to change what you can in the world. This problem though is exacerbated within the Golden Age of Detective Fiction because of the five big name authors, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, and Margery Allingham, while they all have been known to have dated viewpoints, Dorothy L. Sayers is an out and out antisemite. Many people I know revere Dorothy L. Sayers as the pinnacle of writing. But I came to her late, I was thirty-four years old when I first read her, which is far too old to brush any objections under the carpet. When you read something as a kid or during your formative years, you can embrace it without fully understanding it and then it just becomes a part of your DNA, which explains why so many people can turn their backs on J.K. Rowling but still read Harry Potter. All this is to say that while this book is from 1951, firmly in the wider circle of the Golden Age, I was so pleasantly surprised by the lack of cringe. I didn't have to wince as Nazis walked across the pages, because they were, rightfully, the bad guys! I know that having this book come out after World War II contributed to Nazis being evil and there being a sympathetic Jewish lead, but, seriously people, we did not need a world war to know right and wrong. And yes, I am glaring at Dorothy L. Sayers. We need more Dr. Bottwinks and less Robert Warbecks. Which is why I like this book so much. It gets it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An English Murder, Antisemitism, Bowdlerize, Christmas, Cyril Hare, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink, Fascists, Formative, Golden Age of Detection, Jewish, Mark Twin, Murder Most Foul, Nazis, Poison

Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer
Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: 1932
Format: Paperback, 310 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Dominic, the Marquis of Vidal, has quite a legacy to live up to. His father, the Duke of Avon, was known as 'Satanas' and this Devil's Cub is on his way to proving he is the spit of his father. Vidal has left a string of bodies and broken hearts in his wake. But he has never trifled with women of a respectable class, until now. When his father hears that Vidal is fooling around with someone from the bourgeoisie he puts his foot down. This will not be tolerated. Vidal is starting to push boundaries that are there for a reason and when he conducts an impromptu duel in a gaming hell leaving his opponent for dead he has crossed one too many lines and his father banishes him to the continent before his crime catches up with him. But this still leaves the matter of the bourgeoisie unresolved. The young girl is a silly chit. Sophia Challoner has been encouraging Vidal all along despite his reputation, insisting to her sister Mary that she will be the one to put a ring on it. But the night before his departure for Paris he convinces Sophie to be his mistress, because in Paris such things are understood. Mary's worst fears are realized when Vidal sends Sophie the plan for their late night departure but accidentally addresses it to Mary. In that instant Mary comes up with a plan. She will take her sister's place and convince Vidal it was all a joke devised by her and her sister. He will be angry and she will return to her family, and no one will be ruined. She hadn't counted on his temper though. He takes Mary with him out of spite. When she recovers her senses she shoots him. During his recovering they come to realize that they are well suited and attracted to each other. Mary is so different than Sophia that he informs Mary that they are to be wed. This is not the outcome Mary wants. She wants to go home. But seeing as that's out of the question she'd settle for being a governess. As they duel over their future, back in England Vidal's mother is in a tizzy. Mrs. Challoner has approached her and told her of the kidnapping. The Duchess is so worried about what her husband might do to her son after he was specifically warned off the bourgeoisie that she flees to France hoping that she can figure something out before word reaches Avon. Because she is convinced that Mary is just like the odious Sophia and that she has trapped her beloved son. She couldn't be more wrong or more surprised about what happens. The course of love never has run smooth.

If there's one author that has been lurking around my to be read pile for a long time it is Georgette Heyer. I've oddly enough read two of her less lauded mysteries years ago but I have never taken the plunge into her romances until now. The first thing I should say is I probably should have read These Old Shades first as that is the first in this series but I'm not perfect. And I know that Heyer isn't either. Much like Dorothy L. Sayers she was an anti-Semite. In fact there's a push to reissue "sanitized" editions of Heyer's books for a modern audience, like they did with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. This is something I personally disagree with. Books should be left as they are, warts and all, so that we can discuss why things that were viewed by some as acceptable weren't and how we can move forward and evolve. But say what you will, Heyer is kind of the progenitor of modern romance and thankfully Devil's Cub appears to have nothing problematic going on as far as I could tell. Here we're dealing with the common romance trope of the rake and the virgin. But never before have I come across someone who isn't just a rake but leaving tons of dead bodies in their wake. It was disturbing hearing that Dominique's mother had forewarned him that his next kill might prove problematic for him. WTF!?! Seriously, within the first third of the book he's probably killed two people, one highwayman, and one drunk, who is still clinging to life. Sure, the duel is the one that got him in trouble, but shouldn't it be more troubling that he left a corpse by the side of the road and was like, whatever, my bad. And we're supposed to believe that someone could fall in love with this!?! But the further I got into the narrative the more I realized I shouldn't take anything at face value, because this, this is a farce. The crush and commotion of Vidal's family and their over-the-top behavior was hilarious. There are serious arguments on how best to get a large quantity of wine from Dijon to London and whether a carriage or a canal would be preferable. And since the majority of the action takes place in France, yes, we can call it a French Farce. There's some Shakespeare, some Aphra Behn, some She Stoops to Conquer. If it's over the top and nearly improbable, I could totally see it happening in Devil's Cub. So it wasn't at all what I expected, but in the end I think the levity is what I needed.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Antisemitism, Aphra Behn, Devil's Cub, Dorothy L. Sayers, Duel, France, Georgette Heyer, Marquis of Vidal, Mary Challoner, Regency Romp, Satanas, Shakespeare, She Stoops to Conquer, These Old Shades, To Be Read

A Life of Contrasts: An Autobiography by Diana Mitford
Published by: Gibson Square Books
Publication Date: 1977
Format: Paperback, 281 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Diana Mitford felt stifled in her life with her family. When she went to Paris she got a sense of the enormity of the world and how she was admired for her beauty and wit. As soon as she could she made a prosperous marriage to the heir of the Guinness fortune and started her life surrounded by artists and poets and writers to fill the void she felt in her life. Yet this wasn't her true calling. Her true calling was to Oswald Mosley, the dynamic and married politician who founded the British Union of Fascists. She left her husband for him and spent her life dedicated to his causes and his happiness. They did eventually marry in Germany with Hitler as one of the only guests at the ceremony, which was one of the reasons they spent much of the war in prison. In A Life of Contrasts, Diana finally tells us her side of the story that captured headlines and made her one of the most memorable to those very notable Mitford sisters.  

Frank Pakenham, the 7th Earl of Longford, had said of Diana in a review of her memoirs that she "lacked a dimension." I can think of no more perfect an insult than this for a woman who in her own writing comes across as a shallow, unfocused, self-centered, self-impressed, socialite. She is one dimensional, never bothering with anything below the surface. In fact, if you were to scratch her, I bet there would be more surface below the surface. Apparently being "the most glamorous Mitford Sister" means being the most superficial. Before reading about her life in her own words I wasn't predisposed to like her based on what I knew, but after reading Mary S. Lovell's book The Sisters, I was willing to give Diana the benefit of doubt. I was fully willing to let Diana surprise me with insights and details to the events of her life. To hear more about her feelings and thoughts on her marriages. But none of this presented itself. She had no depth coupled with a scattered writing style wherein she would change the subject every paragraph and sometimes every sentence. She never picked a thought and stuck with it unless it was to parrot Walter Mosley's ideologies to such an extent that I was made sick to my stomach and she literally disgusted me as a human being. I was left with the distinct feeling that the world would have been a better place without her in it, because really, what good did she ever contribute to society? Being pretty doesn't count, just FYI.

Diana's shallowness is evident in every line she writes in this book. Like minor celebrities she name drops like no tomorrow assuming that we will know who everyone is and be impressed with how much they love and adore her. Guess what Diana? Your day has come and gone and so have all your comrades in arms. Name drop all you want, all it shows is your own flaws in being needed to be validated by those around you because you had no inner life to sustain yourself. To need constant validation with artists demanding to paint her or draw her just made me want to smack her. The fact that Evelyn Waugh (one of the few celebrities I actually knew) was in love with Diana makes me not think more of Diana, but makes me think less of Evelyn.

Diana is also infuriatingly self-impressed, by all means Diana, don't translate all the French, Italian, and German for those who don't speak or read it to show us how worldly you are, I'm not going to bother to look it up on the assumption that it's just more of the same shit that came before. Also, with the book, she was given the chance to tell her side of the story, a story that has had many commentators and writers over the years, and she failed miserably. Her wedding to Bryan Guinness was glossed over in two seconds, as was her second marriage to Mosley. The fact that her sisters have written in more depth on her life shows that Diana has absolutely nothing to offer us.

Yet, it was this shallowness counterbalanced with bizarre political tracks that made me furious with her. You could feel at those times that it wasn't her voice by that of her master's, Walter Mosley. She was too shallow to have any true beliefs of her own so when she latched onto her idol Mosley, well, she took him all, even his opinions. Now that I've reached the "political tirade" section of my review, I firstly want to address the Hitler question. Diana has taken a lot of flack over the years for being unwilling to change her view of Hitler after the outbreak of war and his true desires and ambitions were revealed. Personally, I don't think that this in particular is what she should be criticized for. Hitler had to have been a charismatic and personable man in order to amass such a following and accomplish all that he did. I'm sure in a one on one setting he could be delightful. Therefore I don't blame Diana for being unwilling to take something back when her own experiences where different to public opinion. It was her opinion, one she is perfectly willing to stick to.

What I do think Diana should be criticized for is her parroting of horrid antisemitism. Yes, she is entitled to this view, but that doesn't mean it makes me like her, accept her, or even settle my nauseous stomach at some of the things she said. I came to not only really dislike her on a human level, but I revolt against all her ideologies. She actually states that what happened in the Holocaust could have been prevented if the Jews had just left Germany. Apparently they had plenty of warning, so they should have just moved on. Forget that these people have homes and lives and families, if they had just got up and gone history could have been different. In fact, in her opinion, if everyone would just go back where they came from, everything would be better for her. She didn't even want immigrants in England! While she never really outright states that she hates those who are Jewish or Black, the fact that she wants everyone to go back to where they came from shows a severe xenophobia that appears to be the sole aspect of her personality that isn't about her appearance. Also, extra ironic seeing as she lived in France and was therefore an immigrant herself. So by all means, if you want to read about a narcissist who will occasionally expound vitriolically on Jewry, well, Diana Mitford Mosley is the Mitford for you. She definitely isn't the Mitford for me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Life of Contrasts, Antisemitism, Autobiography, Diana Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, Facist, Germany, Hitler, Mitford March Mach Deux, Oswald Mosley, The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, WWII

The Layton Court Mystery by Anthony Berkeley
Published by: The Langtail Press
Publication Date: 1925
Format: Kindle, 222 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Because of his friend Alec, the author Roger Sheringham has been invited by Victor Stanworth to be a part of his house party at Layton Court. Victor has rented a lovely house for the summer and has surrounded himself with friends. So why do they find Victor locked in his library with an apparently self inflicted gunshot wound to the head and a suicide note? Despite the fact that all the windows and doors are locked from the inside, Roger thinks that perhaps it was murder and it would be fun to play at being a sleuth. He has to have a Watson to his Holmes, someone who will be a dumb sounding board and willing to be berated constantly. Alec grudgingly takes up this mantle and they set about solving a crime that they aren't sure even happened. At one time or another they suspect all of their fellow guests, and even a mysterious "Prince." With the clock running against them till the inquest and their imminent departure from Layton Court, can an amateur sleuth and his reluctant Watson solve it in time?

When I sat down here at my computer and hammered out the details to my Golden Summer, I added Anthony Berkeley for the reason I have had a copy of The Poisoned Chocolates Case sitting on my bookshelf for... well, I don't know how long it's actually been there, but a dash long time. Yet when I got to reading up on Berkeley I found out that The Poisoned Chocolates Case was not the first Roger Sheringham book as I had thought. Because of Berkeley's propensity for writing under pseudonyms, or in this case, sometimes anonymously, The Poisoned Chocolates Case is either the forth or fifth book with Sheringham... so obviously, I had to start at the beginning and my poor copy of The Poisoned Chocolates Case would be neglected for some while more.

My initial impressions of The Layton Court Mystery was that it had more then a few striking similarities with A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, which I had just finished and loved. Sadly, where that one had wit and originality, this was just labored and had an angry tone throughout... or maybe it was my rage reading because everything grated on my nerves. I was more then once struck by how this reminded me of an episode of the BBC's Comedy Showcase called "Felix and Murdo." In the episode the hilarious actors Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong, are Edwardians looking forward to the 1908 Olympics in London, this being aired to spur the fervor for last year's summer Olympics. The thing about the whole episode was that it was trying too hard to be witty and ended coming out crap. That's how I felt about this whole book. It was trying too hard. That and the fact that seeing as both Milne and Berkeley worked for Punch, that there is no way Berkeley didn't realize how similar his book was and I think Milne should have taken him out back, not necessary for a dust up, but maybe to school him in the ways of actually writing a good book. Or perhaps it's crappiness was why it was published anonymously...

There is just so much wrong with this book I literally don't know where to start... shall I dissect the horrid characters or the plot... decisions, decisions... ok, let's go with characters, because their stupidity made the plot drag and drag until I could barely stand it anymore. Roger and his "friend" Alec are the two most unlikable people ever. They are mean and snipe at each other constantly. I would say that they quite literally hate each other. I would never treat a friend in the manner they treat each other, a mortal enemy, maybe... but still, it wouldn't be as harsh as these two. Also, they act against character all the time. They say they are not prone to sentimentality, yet the act that Alec commits is the definition of being a sentimental fool and rushing in to save the damsel in distress. But luckily, they aren't sentimental...wtf? Not to mention Roger is a bigoted jackass, and a hypocritical one at that who calls others bigoted! He looks down on the servants, whom having a discussion with "would be as ineffective as to harangue a hippopotamus." Also, his views on women... oh dear me. Women are all crying milksops that need a big strong man to protect them, and with their inferior mental capabilities "there's always the chance that a woman will" give away a clue. Though nothing compares to how Roger's antisemitism comes out. The line was so offensive I can't even bring myself to quote it. Unlike the pervasive racism that is in the work of Dorothy L. Sayers, Berkeley's was like a slap in the face. I literally cannot think why anyone would say something so offensive.

Now to the plot... or what I gather you would call a plot. It's really just two guys arguing and then arguing some more and at the end of the day, well... nothing happens at the end. It just sort of stopped. All the plot problems are because of the idiocy of Roger and Alec. Their attempt to solve the "murder" of their host is like a how-to guide on how not to solve a mystery. They look at the scene of the crime and then retreat into the garden and talk things out, repeat ad infinitum. Because obviously they can't be overheard in a garden? Why is this garden so damn secretive? Is it in fact The Secret Garden? NO!?! Well then, anyone with any sense can hear what you're saying. As for your host and resident corpse... you didn't figure out that his circle of friends are all people he is blackmailing till about 150 pages in? Well, I figured it out 10 pages in. Haven't you seen Clue? Ok, no... you wouldn't, but still, it was obvious. Also, why would you discount the fact that the killer was probably among the house guests? Why would you think an outside person was the perpetrator? Ug. But the worst of all, why would you think that a suspect would have the name "Prince?" I mean, the SECOND I read that name I was like, dood, that's an animal, as it turned out to be a bull, I was spot on. In fact, everything about this book was either bang my head against the wall obvious or so offensive that I wished to throttle the author. And here I go... getting ready to read his next book... am I a masochist? Yes, I think I might be, but it's all for you, my gentle reader.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A. A. Milne, Anthony Berkeley, Antisemitism, Clue, Dorothy L. Sayers, Felix and Murdo, Olympics, Punch, Roger Sheringham, The Layton Court Mystery, The Red House Mystery, The Secret Garden

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Published by: Starscape
Publication Date: 1985
Format: Paperback, 324 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition then one reviewed)

Ender Wiggin is the shame of his family. He is a Third. On an Earth where the population is still reeling countless years later from the last alien "Bugger" invasion, children are limited to two... unless there is a government mandate or the parents live outside the laws of decency. Ender was government mandated. In order to save humanity, the government has decided that children who are gifted should be trained to be their saviours. Ender's siblings, Peter and Valentine, both showed potential as being the most gifted children ever to be monitored for training. Yet Peter's violence and Valentine's empathy ultimately doomed them to a life on Earth. Still, the potential was so great that Ender Wiggin was "commissioned."

Ender has spent years being monitored to see if he would fulfil the potential of his siblings. Despite appearances to the contrary, the government decides that Ender is indeed their ideal savior. Yet, in order to achieve this end result, the rules will be broken. Battle School has been run in a space station orbiting Earth and training the youths in a very set curriculum of schoolwork and mock battles. Divided into armies and platoons, the students fight each other in a safe environment to hone their skills that will be used against the Buggers. When Ender arrives, all the rules are changed. By isolating Ender and promoting him beyond his age group, they hope to create the greatest military mind the universe has ever seen. He is a tactical genius, thinking outside the box and is able to embrace concepts that other students can't even understand on the most rudimentary level.

Soon Ender is promoted out of Battle School before even reaching his teens and sent out to the far reaches of the galaxy to Command School, where he is trained by the greatest military mind ever, before him that is. Put in a simulator, Ender is virtually learning how to control a fleet and fellow commanders who must answer to him. Yet, deep in his mind he starts to question if the Buggers are the real threat. While back on Earth, his siblings might pose a far greater threat because they have realized something that Ender has only guessed at. They are spurned geniuses, and they have the world at their feet.

A space age Lord of the Flies, a tale of justified violence and uncompromising brutality. This are the criticisms that are often written about this book. Yet... this was not what bothered me. Growing up when I have, the world around me has desensitized me to violence. Not to say that I didn't consider this book violent, I just considered that to be the least of it's flaws. I have never read a book by Orson Scott Card previously, nor will I ever again. While many believe this book to be the pinnacle of science fiction, I personally was left, not only scratching my head, but with the taste of bile in my mouth.

If not for the fact that this was for my book club I would not have finished it. If Card isn't spewing hatred, he is plodding along with his mind numbingly boring plot. This book is very much a battle movie, in that, you can see Michael Bay loving getting to set children into combat with lots of gore and death. This did not make for a good book. Moving past the fact that it is badly written, you really have to give me this, it's clunky, awkward and the little "omniscient narrations" before each chapter where laughable, the language and hatred that spilled out of the book just shocked me. The racism and bigotry floored me. I don't believe in censorship or taking away free speech. But the fact that there are children out there reading this book and thinking this language is acceptable, chills me to the marrow of my bones. From homophobic slurs against a little boy Shen, who comes to be called worm because of his effeminate walk, to racial anti-Semitic language used against Ender's first army leader because he is Jewish, and not only that, having Rose himself "self deprecatingly" joke about it himself shows even more that it's acceptable to children who don't know better! The book just compounds hatred and bile into this big mess that I wanted to fling out the window.

For many years I have tried to come to grips with the fact you sometimes have to separate the artist from their art. A beautiful painting might have been painted by a horrible bigot. A classic of literature might have been written by a pervert, ie, the Lewis Carroll/J.M. Barrie conundrum. Yet this is impossible when the views and opinions of the author are so a part of the text that they are inescapable. After a few chapters I realized that Orson Scott Card must be one of the biggest homophobes the world has seen. Therefore I did some goodreads trawling. Going past all my friends who mysterious loved this book (they are going to have a lot to answer for at book club!) I went to those reviews who gave the book a star. Or as I call these reviewers, "my people." There a found a link to an online article where he railed against homosexuality saying that homosexuals are allowed to marry, so long as they marry the opposite sex, not where their heart lies. Not that Card believes that homosexuals have hearts... because "the dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally." WHAT!?!

Card, you can believe what you want to believe, just like anyone who is reading my blog can, just, don't do it around me. I'm not trying to preach here or anything. I was raised to believe in love. But to spew this bile and not be called out on it. To be lauded with awards for this hate spewing work? You have an amazing mind, you where able to envision how technology would evolve. In the eighties, you saw the rise of the Internet, the rise of bloggers like me and the power we would have. You saw children working on desks that are quite literally our tablets, such as the iPad. You pre-saged all this amazing technology, yet your belief system lives in the dark ages. I'm calling you out on it. Hopefully one day people will realize that your book is nothing more than a platform for your hate.

*If you would care to read the full article referenced above, it can be found here. I will warn you though that it has many inflammatory opinions, none of which I hold with.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Antisemitism, Ender Wiggin, Ender's Game, Hatred, Homosexuality, iPad, J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Lord of the Flies, Orson Scott Card