An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym (1982)

Love, life, and other events affecting the congregants of St Basil's church in London.

Book Review: An Unsuitable Attachment was my introduction to Barbara Pym (1913-80); I hadn't realized it was posthumous -- apparently written in 1963. My read felt like a light mix of Spark, Waugh, and the overlooked Sarah Caudwell. Pym's work didn't really resemble Jane Austen, as had been suggested. For me Austen's novels have an underlying sense of desperation that if things don't work out characters will end up dispossessed and poverty-stricken. Not so here. In Pym's world if a woman doesn't find a man she might be better off as the men are mostly dweebs and duds. If Ianthe doesn't find love she'll be quite happy in her lovely little house with the perfect furniture in her community of well-upholstered minds. Many of the characters are prickly, judgmental, controlling, critical, manipulative. When they're not, they're oblivious and lacking self-awareness. Even our heroine constantly criticizes her best friend for not acting as a vicar's wife should (as if that's a negative). There's much emphasis on being a "gentlewoman," whatever that is. I did enjoy An Unsuitable Attachment despite my carping. Entertaining, humorous (very arch), with interesting situations and I'd read more by Pym, especially since I have a couple of her books still sitting on my shelf. Her characters, including one of the better cat ladies around, can carry the day. The core of the story is the conflict with being bound by custom or the judgment of the group. As with Austen the correct choice is to choose love. The "unsuitable attachment" is first presented as choosing a partner of whom others don't approve, but the real unsuitable attachment is that of clinging to the past, an attachment to the conventions of culture, the unwritten rules of society, or being guided by the opinions of others, those others often long dead. This isn't exactly curing cancer or dying for one's country, but that's not this book. In An Unsuitable Attachment emotions aren't too deep or too strong, though there are the occasional tears. This is a mild and gentle story, nothing too extreme, comfortably cozy.  [3★]

Maigret and the Lazy Burglar by Georges Simenon (1961)

A burglar long known to Maigret is found dead while a well-organized gang robs jewelry stores in Paris.

Mystery Review: Maigret and the Lazy Burglar contrasts the old and the new, revealing complexities and dilemmas for the Paris police. Maigret is assigned to apprehend a successful band of jewelry store robbers. But he's more interested in a case that's not his where he has to operate behind the scenes, that of a burglar found dead. A man that Maigret unexpectedly respected and considered almost a friend. At the same time, Maigret and the Lazy Burglar describes changes that are brewing in the police department with onerous prosecutorial oversight disrupting official investigations. The police are losing their freedom to effectively solve crimes, or to solve them in their own way. Maigret's life-long skills are no longer appreciated, but he recognizes his own talents and ability to get results with the old methods. He also sees the burglar's old-school methods and talents, unlike the more violent modern robbers. Maigret solves the crimes but faces ethical and political issues in that one crime will go unpunished because of wealthy connections, the irony being that Maigret appreciates that the burglar was honorable in his way. The evocation of the life of a petty criminal lifts this above the usual. Although the title in French translates as "lazy" burglar or thief, a better title would be the "quiet" or "careful" burglar as he doesn't seem lazy at all. Maigret and the Lazy Burglar is number 57 in the series, also known as Maigret and the Idle Burglar.  [4★]

The Carter of 'La Providence' by Georges Simenon (1931)

A stylish woman is murdered along a canal in France; a second death soon follows.

Mystery Review: The Carter of La Providence is the fourth (or the second ...) Maigret novel and has had a few different titles: Lock 14, The Crime at Lock 14, Maigret Meets a Milord, and The Carter of the Providence. The last is closest to Simenon's choice in French. There's a reason for the different monikers. Here we hardly get to know Maigret, who seems phlegmatic and reserved, and does little detecting that we can see though he does engage in a marathon bicycle ride -- young and spry as he was. He gathers a few bits and bobs that don't seem to tie together and there's little about how Maigret solves the crimes except for some telegrams he sends seeking information about various names. Which may be for the best as the scenario is almost wholly implausible except in the Gothic world of early 20th Century mystery stories. Mostly Simenon uses The Carter of La Providence to create a mood: dark, melancholy, rainy, and that he does very well. The mystery is secondary to the feeling, the scenery, the descriptions of the life of those who work and live on and along the canals. We get a generous description of those on the boats, the workers, the odd or sad characters that people this little corner of northern France. The Carter of La Providence almost seems like a new kind of mystery, one that gives the feel of the setting, the reactions of the various folk who encounter the crimes, the desultory actions of the police, and then after generating a spell-binding mood resolves it all as if by a magician's wand in a burst of sentiment. More a "feel-dunnit" than a whodunnit.  [3½★]

Maigret's Failure by Georges Simenon (1956)

Maigret investigates separate cases involving a murdered meat mogul and an English lady lost in Paris.

Mystery Review: Maigret's Failure is an example of a detective novel in which nothing much happens. Assigned to investigate death threats received by a wealthy meat merchant, the detective shows little interest. Later, although he may have bungled the case, Maigret isn't sure that he wants to resolve the crime, doesn't care if the murderer is caught. Not the best attitude for a detective. In the other case, it's uncertain whether a law was even broken, and the incident goes cold. Maigret doesn't solve either of the unrelated cases (see title) despite no amazing machinations by the individuals involved. Time and happenstance resolve both cases in the end, with no help from our hero. In the end the newspapers may scream, but Maigret doesn't mind his failures. More interesting is that in Maigret's Failure we learn more about his early life, how he was bullied by the murder victim as a child, how he grew up, his father's job. Despite being short and a quick read, Simenon's talent is to make the book seem like it's more than twice the length, both in terms of story and depth. On the other hand, none of the Maigret novels I've read so far stand out as exceptional or much above the norm. Maigret's Failure is number 49 (of 75) in the canon.  [3★]

Maigret and the Old People by Georges Simenon (1960)

An elderly aristocrat is found dead in his study.

Mystery Review: Maigret and the Old People contains the story of an intense life-long platonic but requited love affair, reminding the reader just a bit of García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). Maigret finds himself baffled and out of his depth in the rarefied air of the sheltered and discrete world of aristocrats, counts and princesses. For Maigret the realm of the monied, upper classes is a foreign land. The title refers to old people, and perhaps it has some of the meaning of the old order as the characters seem of a bygone and outdated time, too effete to live. Although France seems democratic from afar (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, after all) apparently the aristocracy still matters, or did in 1960. Maigret and the Old People is the first Maigret mystery that made me warm up to the great detective, revealing him as more of a person. Simenon makes you come to Maigret, unlike the more dynamic Poirot or Holmes. Maigret is stolid, reserved, phlegmatic, he doesn't play up to the reader. He's a cat not a dog, though he really seems like an old bear. The reader may readily figure out half the solution of the murder, as it seems to be the only answer, but the other half is a little trickier. Perhaps I should say, the reader may quickly figure out the "who," but not quite solve the "why," though it's simple if not obvious. I can be vaguer. Maigret and the Old People is number 56 in the series, also known as Maigret in Society.  [4★]

Hercule Poirot's Casebook by Agatha Christie (1984)

A broad collection of most of the Hercule Poirot short stories.

Mystery Review: Hercule Poirot's Casebook is a reference to Sherlock Holmes, only appropriate as Poirot is arguably the character most deserving of being that icon's successor. Here there are ever so many stories in many different guises, showing that the staid Mrs. Christie was more varied and adventurous than she's generally given credit for. Quite the perfect gift for those who know a Poirot fan (as I do) who may have read the novels or watched the David Suchet series, but haven't yet tracked down the Poirot story collections. This tome (883 pages) contains 50 stories from seven books. Four books were solely collections of Poirot stories: Poirot Investigates (1924), Murder in the Mews (1937), The Labors of Hercules (1947), The Under Dog and Other Stories (1951). Hercule Poirot's Casebook also excerpts Poirot stories that were included in three other mixed Christie story collections: The Regatta Mystery (1939), Three Blind Mice (1950), and Double Sin (1961). These are not quite all the Poirot stories. Not included are original stories that were expanded into longer works (e.g., "The Submarine Plans" isn't here because it was expanded into "The Incredible Theft"). Also "The Regatta Mystery" isn't included, which was originally a Poirot story but was later refashioned for another detective, Parker Pyne. Not my intention today, but Poirot archivists and fanatics can undoubtedly delineate all the Poirot stories that aren't here. I'm unsure if there's a complete collection of stories anywhere. But no matter, this is an impressive collection and many of the stories not included are available elsewhere. All in all, Hercule Poirot's Casebook is a varied and potentially essential collection.  [5★]

The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary (1944)

An itinerant painter challenges a society that he never made and was not made for him.

Book Review: The Horse's Mouth is an English Don Quixote, a picaresque story portraying an artist errant, a delusional painter tilting at the world of art, caste, and blank walls. As if the Man of La Mancha was a Dylan Thomas who painted instead of wrote, a man who never quite grew up ("as he's got older, he's got younger"), self-destructive and choosing the worst thing for himself when better options are available. A man at war with a world that is not at war with him. He's not lovable, but understandable, a man who has given up everything for his art, his craft, his dream, and does so without scruples or (much) regret. Just as addicts will do anything to feed their habit, so 67-year-old Gulley Jimson will do anything to feed his addiction to art, do anything to buy brushes and paints and (since he's a muralist at heart) find an empty wall. Jimson is not a nice person, not someone you'd want in your home, and the novel wants the reader to see that but forgive him because he does it all for art. Jimson can't fully see people as people, as real, because he sees all the world as a work of art, as the subject of one of his pictures, as though he himself created all the world as a painting. The irony being that for all Jimson is in his own mind and the minds of many around him a great artist, the novel implies that he painted only one truly great picture, that of his wife in the bath. The Horse's Mouth is the third book in a trilogy (the "First Trilogy") by Joyce Cary (1888-1957), after Herself Surprised (1941) focusing on and told by the character Sara Monday, and To Be a Pilgrim (1942) centered on Tom Wilcher, both of whom appear in this volume. Neither of which I've yet read so will end up reading them out of order. The Horse's Mouth is a close cousin to The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy, and both being ancestors of Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me, the three books being published in '44, '55, and '66 respectively. Most of all this is a book to be read slowly, savored, reflected upon, to be read without (my) impatience. It's a book that would be worthwhile to take a month to read. Sure, it's picaresque, episodic, not much happens, but much is contemplated and observed. Cary employs stream of consciousness, meditations, digressions, memories, discussions, and pronouncements amidst the intricate embroidery of the descriptions of the world around Jimson, descriptions as if of a painting, the whole world as simply a painting, two dimensional. Thoughtful and ruminative on philosophy, art, religion, economics, dense with meaning, at times almost Joycean (James not Cary) in its narration and observations. "Art and religion and drink. All of them ruin to a poor lad." Most of all Joyce Cary looks at humanity. Just as Gulley Jimson wants to paint what's real and revealing, so Cary wants to write real people, homely women and weak men, defeated and desperate, fearing what the world has on offer. Many pages are spent contrasting the sensitivities of a world of haves and have-nots. "It is a sensation something between that of an angel let out of his cage into a new sky and a drunkard turned loose in a royal cellar." The story simultaneously glories in the life of the artist and despairs at the cost. My one caveat, and I accept all blame (I'm an impatient reader and certainly it's just me), is that at about two-thirds through the book it just seemed too long, that the wandering, picaresque tale had gotten lost, the new episodes were no longer adding to the story. Closer to the end, however, The Horse's Mouth most definitely got back on track and fully regained the coursing flow and power of the great book it is.  [4½★]

The Hollow by Agatha Christie (1946)

A doctor is murdered at a country estate, but which of the nobs could have done him in.

Mystery Review: The Hollow starts out like a literary novel about couples and affairs where unforgivable things will soon be screamed in drawing rooms. The characters are more complex and interesting (though not all particularly likable) than usual for Christie. Seems as if she started wanting to write a typical domestic novel, but after a hundred pages the story inevitably turns to murder and Hercule Poirot finally arrives on the scene. The resolution is clever and unexpected, though not especially new, and is an interesting comment on how the upper classes stick together even in the face of homicide. In fact, the forces conspiring against Poirot and the police is the more unusual aspect of The Hollow. At the same time for mystery readers there's the question of when do we stop trying to outwit Poirot and go meta by trying to outwit Christie, herself. She enjoys dropping little meta clues and comments in her books, such as mentioning that in detective novels it's always the most unlikely person who's the culprit. But then, which is the unexpected person: the most mild, the one with the best alibi, the least obtrusive? There's the usual casual bigotry ("the raucous voice of the vitriolic little Jewess ...") in The Hollow, actually a little worse than usual, which is surprising in 1946 after the War. There's also the unpleasant implication that decent Christian Britons shouldn't have to work for such undesirables. Lucky that there was no social media back then or Christie's career might never have got off the ground. But as disconcerting and disruptive as her racist and anti-Semitic comments can be, I can't say that I want them removed or altered. I wish she hadn't written them in the first place, but better to remember and face the world as it was (and is).  [4★]

Murder on "B" Deck by Vincent Starrett (1929)

A countess is murdered on a trans-Atlantic cruise but amateur detective Walter Ghost is on board.

Mystery Review: Murder on "B" Deck is perfect for mystery fans who enjoy fallible detectives who don't make clever observations or brilliant deductions, and prefer crimes to be solved by accident. This is a very average mystery, solved by happenstance based on an implausible object and a telegram with the name of someone who just happens to be aboard ship. In fairness, after receiving the telegram Mr. Ghost does induce a Perry Masonesque confession. The story contains a slight, awkward romance that leads to subjecting the murdered woman to heavy and unfair victim blaming "Oh, she was to blame, all right." (American women apparently are just too nice to live.) Why the unknown amateur detective is given so much leeway to handle the case by the ship's captain is never quite made clear. Although the mystery is thin, Murder on "B" Deck still seems padded with many repetitions of the known facts, the narration of a chapter from a mystery story written by one of the characters (very meta), and the description of a short silent film (the implausible object). There might also have been a touch of Christie-like bigotry. While the story was mildly entertaining, most of the enjoyment came from a glimpse of life on a cruise in the Roaring Twenties. The mystery itself and the solving thereof were minor and nothing special. This was the first of three Walter Ghost mysteries and as I have the second I'll still read that. Vincent Starrett (1886-1974) was better known for his Holmes research and his well-received The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933), which I'd like to read. Murder on "B" Deck had nothing of Holmes about it and can be left for readers who have nothing else to read or an insatiable curiosity about cruise life a century ago.  [3★]

Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie (1948)

A possible case of bigamy leads to blackmail and murder.

Mystery Review: Taken at the Flood presents a once-wealthy family struggling with tightened belts because of a post-war economy in which taxes are up, rationing still reigns, shortages are everywhere, there are rules and regulations for everything, and the world has most definitely changed, not for the better. To this Christie adds an awkward romance featuring a bad-boy love triangle ("there's something that I'm afraid of -- but there's something that draws me, too"), which would be tolerable if they weren't such uninteresting characters. This was the first Poirot novel (of 27) that I didn't enjoy and had little interest in continuing. But I persevered. The second half was somewhat better after Poirot appears and murderous events start to put a shape to the mystery. Poirot notes that there are three deaths: an accident, a suicide, and a murder, which creates interest and suspense. Purely as a whodunnit Taken at the Flood is potentially above average, but the poorly constructed and inconsistent characters detracted from the overall effect. I had an inkling of the final twist, but was off the mark. In addition to the unexpected resolution and the implausibly charitable conclusion (manslaughter is still a crime), there's also a hearty dose of virtually unpublishable (nowadays) masochistic victim porn ("When you caught hold of me by the throat -- I knew then that I was your woman!"). Taken at the Flood was a let down for me that I hope won't be a trend. Also titled There is a Tide ... for the U.S. market.  [2½★]

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (1896)

A man lands on an island inhabited by a scientist who believes that there more things in heaven and earth.

SF Review: The Island of Doctor Moreau can be labeled horror, mad scientist and all, as much as SF. Similar to The Time Machine, it's once again a rollicking adventure story that simultaneously traffics in ideas (Borges liked it). Call it The Tempest (1610) meets Frankenstein (1818) meets On the Origin of Species (1859) with meditations on religion, ethics, and other tangents. I found it most interesting as an allegory with a god-like creator who instills his creations with a set of rules for a religion and then wholly abandons them (the author has acknowledged his debt to Mary Shelley). While verging on blasphemy, Wells shows just how close we are to our animal nature and that we're religious backsliders at heart; notably there are only three humans on the island, but a widely diverse host of beast folk. As with The Time Machine, the story is told in such a pragmatic and straight-forward way as to make it seem credible. The Island of Doctor Moreau was published just a year after The Time Machine, as Wells turned out a book a year for several years. The Penguin version includes helpful annotations for those unfamiliar with 1890 England. Also adapted as an intense 1977 film with Burt Lancaster, Barbara Carrera, and Michael York -- haven't seen the Brando version. Stunning how easily Wells' works have been translated to other media, showing just how prescient his ideas were. The Island of Doctor Moreau is another stellar outing from Wells.  [4½★]

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)

A man invents a time machine and travels to the future.

SF Review: The Time Machine is still today a worthy classic, combining an exciting action-hero adventure story with a basketful of ideas deserving of a couple pots of coffee or bottles of wine (depending on your bent). This was Wells' debut novel, more a novella, in which he invented the term "time machine," predating the TARDIS by 70 years. The writing reminded of Arthur Conan Doyle, similarly somewhat stiffly presented but still a quick and easy read for the Indiana Jones moments (our hero armed only with a box of matches). Even more intriguing in The Time Machine is the battle of ideas Wells presents through our adventurer, who is fallible and very human as he explores a world in which humanity may be no more. As with much of the best SF Wells adds a philosophical substrate to his fantasy, one such level being that he finds the battle between capital and labor still on-going and taken to an imaginative extreme, a warning for our future. Footage of the classic (if cheesy) 1960 movie with Yvette Mimieux and Rod Taylor kept playing in my mind while reading, both being entertaining and enjoyable. The Penguin book version is nicely annotated and helpful since I'm not a turn of the century Briton and didn't know what "plough you for the Little-go" or "eke out his modest income with a crossing" meant. The Time Machine is concise, to the point, and rewarding in every way.  [5★]