Anne Perry and/or Lemony Snicket

I have one more Perry book on loan from the library, one of the Victorian ones, I think. I'll read it, even though her style wears me down.

The one I'm only after finishing is Shoulder The Sky. It's no. 2 in a series, I believe. Since she recapped all the drama parts of the first one i don't have to read it. Which is good for making the book easy to follow on it's own, but bad from a literary point of view - makes for heavy reading. Here's a typical quote from the book:

"Joseph drew in his breath to answer, then did not know what to say. It was his job here to make sense of the chaotic, to justify the descent into hell, even to make intolerable suffering bearable because it had meaning, to insist that there was a God behind it who would make even this all right in the end. [...] If personal murder for vengeance, or to rid oneself of embarrassment or pain, were acceptable, what exactly was it they were fighting for? Bert had spoken of country things like the church and the pub, a village whose people you knew, the certainty of seasons, but what he meant was the goodness of it, the belief in a moral justice that endured.
To allow Prentice to be murdered, and do nothing, would be a betrayal of that, and Joseph would not do it."

There's pages of this stuff. Seriously. If it's not said every second page, it hasn't been said at all, apparently. WE GET IT! God, woman. On it's own that quote is fine, but multiplied it's sleep-inducing.

The moral issue of the book is "is it always right to be a pacifist and avoid war?" Perry, or at least the main characters, say "no". You have to fight for what you believe in, and even when you discover that you're fighting under people who have made massive mistakes that have cost thousands of young men's lives, you still fight, for the soldiers who've gone before you. I'm not sure I agree, even though I understand the emotive sentiment behind it - but more importantly it gets repeated so often I'm thoroughly sick of this thesis before the (unsatisfying) end of the book.

So. One more Anne, then no more. I really want to like her writing, if nothing else for her compassion for all those people in history who have fought and died in muddy trenches and on cold seas, and for her excellent research (as far as I can tell anyway). But I can't. But don't get me wrong, it's not terrible. It's miles and miles and MILES better than Dan Brown, who should not make another dime off his rotten excuses for novels.

I also read The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket. WHat can I say, it's a Lemony Snicket... About four hours' worth of amusement. I would have adored these as a child, now I think they're cute, mostly. But keep writing, mr Snicket! We want to hear the end. Although if you kill them all off I'll be very upset.

WW1

So I'm reading another Anne Perry. This one is set during WW1, in the trenches (so far). WW1 makes me cry so much. Such tragedy, such loss, and we barely remember it because of the horrors of the next war.

But Anne Perry is heavy going. She talks and talks and talks. The best bits are the ones where she describes the vile conditions the soldiers endured. She's done her research and writes from the heart. However.... couldn't her editor have taken out The Big Pencil and crossed out a few lines??? Why do we have to read about the characters' inner turmoil after Every. Single. Bit. Of. Dialogue. It's beginning to wear me down. I really must try to learn my lesson and not choose any more of her books when I'm next at the library (but there isn't much else left...)!

And all her characters are so good. Like I said previously, it's all a bit too modern and soul-searching.

Argh. Back to book. I have to know how it ends, after all.

Ngaio Marsh

Ngaoi Marsh is one of my favourite favourites.

The book I've just finished is called Clutch of Constables. It features Marsh's Scotland Yard hero Roderick Alleyn, but mostly his wife, the artist Troy Alleyn. After an exhibition she decides to take a five-day pleasure cruise - a spur-of-the-moment decision after spotting a sign about a cancellation. Naturally, everyone on the boat is not as innocent as you'd think...

The story is opened by Alleyn, who is lecturing would-be detectives on a criminal called The Jampot. He tells us that he became personally involved in "the affair" because of his wife. The story then moves on to being told from Troy's perspective, featuring her letters to her husband as a way of keeping us informed of what Alleyn learned from her before turning up at the later crime scene. Throughout the book the narrative switches from the events at the time of their occurance and Alleyn's lecture. (Marsh often uses the relationship between Alleyn and Troy as a narrative tool. It also helps us, as readers, to feel closer to them as characters. )

What I like best about Marsh's books is how they place me in the time in which they were written. I get a wonderful sense of how people thought and reasoned, what was new and in and what was not. Clutch of Constables brings up the problem of rascism (called racialism, quaintly enough), but in a very 1960s English way - decent people treat the blacks decently and the blacks do their bit to avoid offending racially prejudiced people. Ludicrous as it may sound it does help you understand prevailing ideas of the time. A modern novel can never really portray the past that way. In a modern novel the present constantly intrudes. As an example I could mention The Alienist by Caleb Carr (a book worthy of it's own post, but it's not getting one today - maybe when I read the sequel). Set in New York of the 1890s, all Carr's heros are just that little bit too modern and open-minded to seem genuine. The same goes for Anne Perry's victorian detective stories.

This particular Marsh novel was, unfortunately, not so gripping a story. I found it a little too easy to get distracted. It may be the fact that it centres around one of those typically 60s style supervillains - international, quirky, extremely intelligent and a master of disguise. I never really buy those characters. But never mind. I'd recommend a Marsh anyday!

It's all in the heroes. I love Alleyn and Troy.