Whodunit?

how reading changes your opinion. how reading detective novels changed john updike & more

i apologize to my blog-friends. i haven't written in a little over a week because i've been in hospital. it's obvious why the hospital is such a good setting for so many mysteries. while i lay on my back morphined into submissiveness, anything could have happened. some of the many detective novels that have exploited that scene just waiting to be exploited are: memory book: a benny cooperman detective novel, the singing detective (a philip marlo novel), and the sunset lady (a lithuanian detective novel).

during my non-writing period, we all, as readers, lost john updike. the wall street journal calls him 'literary high priest of sex and suburbia.' i can add nothing to this or to the thousands of other tributes paid him, but i would like readers of this blog to know that updike's earliest reading was the mystery novel.

updike speaks of his earliest reading being the big books (the combination of comic book and story)

Then, he says, ' I graduated to mystery novels, some science fiction, the New Yorker humor.

Who were your favorite authors?

John Updike: I loved Agatha Christie, of course. And also, an American team called Ellery Queen. I read a lot of Ellery Queen. Erle Stanley Gardner. I must have read 40 books by Erle Stanley Gardner before I was 15 or so. So, I got the reading habit, and I slightly branched out, you know'

it seems to me that updike could have learned in this early reading to accept the flawed character that figures so prominently in detective fiction and in all of, for example, updike's rabbit books. but what is really important is that he lucked upon a genre that he enjoyed, encouraging his love of reading and keeping him involved in reading.  one can't write without reading.

at last writing, i had started stieg larsson's the girl with the dragon tattoo. i think i was raving about what a wonderful writer larsson is. well, he is a wonderful writer, but the more i got into this 465 page novel, the more i came to realize that this is a novel that only a man could have written. mikael blomkvist, one of our heroes in the novel, has three women who like nothing better than dropping everything they're involved with in order to get into bed with him. most of what they are doing has to do with him anyway. also, just about every woman even mentioned has been raped in some horrible way--not that there is a good way to be raped, but i suggest that someone must have enjoyed thinking of so many different barbaric situations. 

it is true that lisbeth salander, the young girl who is the girl with the dragon tattoo (and many others) is co-hero. she can hack into computers and does at will, which eventually solves crimes, power struggles, and curiosity. she also falls into (unrequited) loved with blomkvist. if she were the true hero of the novel, it would have been the other way around.

i have now started rhys bowens' a royal pain. lady georgiana earns extra money by being a maid , allowing bowens to gently satirize all classes. i'm sure my opinion of this novel will not change as my reading of it progresses. fluff, of course, but such fun, my dears.

whodunit philosophy and two (?) detective novels to be read

wasn't yesterday wonderful? i speak of inauguration day, in case you are reading this some time later.  but, if you can imagine such a thing, i forgot to spend the evening looking for photos of michelle o's ball gown. 'why?' you ask.

i was too engrossed with the opening chapters of stieg larsson's the girl with the dragon tattoo. the novel (so far) is excellent. excellent. it took me a while to get used to the swedish place names as well as to the references to swedish current events, but that lasted only a page or two. political, journalistic, cultural, and love problems are completely international today, therefore, easily recognizable and understandable.  i hadnot realized that larsson died in 2004 until, in preparation for writing this blog, i read the back cover of the girl. the first blurb is from the sunday times (london), 'crime fiction has seldom needed to salute and mourn such a stellar talent as larsson's in the same breath.' more about the girl with the dragon tattoo when i read more!

i have finished p.d. james' the private patient. baroness james of holland park is such a wonderful writer and such an idol of mine that i hesitate to say anything that wouldbe construed as less than glowing praise. but we all have our bad days. this is not to suggest that the private patient is a 'bad' novel. not at all. but also it is not up to the standards james has set for herself and for us as readers. one problem is that we do not have enough of commander adam dalgliesh, every woman's ideal man.  i do like his team, the ever reliable kate, who finally has a love interest of her own, and the newly assigned benton.  another problem is that i think we don't care deeplyabout who murdered rhoda gradwyn, journalist of sorts, the first victim of a complex plot. most readers will enjoy james' well turned sentences and social commentary. i think also readers might want to read what very well might be the last of the adam dalgliesh (named after one of james's teachers) novels.

in conclusion (for today!), all time wandering around the internet is not wasted. recently, i came across the following that discusses doyle and other great detective story writers, including p.d. james, possibly stieg larsson: 

"Some time this century, the Sherlock Holmes stories became part of the literary canon: 'Joyce, Kafka, Baudelaire, a dash of Conan Doyle. In the late Twenties these were fashionable names.'⁽²⁾ When Dr Watson reported the death of Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Final Problem' (December 1893), he ended by talking of: 'him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known' echoing another report written long before: 'Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all men whom I have ever known'⁽³⁾ in Phaedo, Plato's account of the death of Socrates in 399 BC. In a new medium of publication, a new genre of literature and a new style of writing Doyle was asserting a continuity with an ancient higher tradition, almost the opposite of the populist means he was using."

l.j. hurst

origins of whodunits & scroll down for question

the novel i'll briefly review tonight is not exactly a whodunit. yes,the premise of the novel rests on finding out who killed kim larsen, but, in the end, that's not very important. songs for the missing is a long lament for the tortures family and friends go through when an ordinary college-bound teen ager in an ordinary ohio town disappears. it is extremely well written, therefore depressing, to watch a family caught up in the throes of 'the system,' trying desperately to find their daughter. stewart o'nan is a very good writer, but this novel is not for anyone teetering into depression.

i have also just started p.d. james' new book the private patient and trollope's 'old' book the eustace diamonds. both are a pleasure to read. both are written by master authors. both 'effortlessly' pack so much into a sentence, a paragraph, that one can't help but highly admire them and wish to latch onto some of their skills. on top of everything else, p.d. james looks like my grandmother fanny. generations apart, it's true. but, yes.

the author of us all, the first u.s. detective story writer e. a. poe has a birthday coming up in two days. 'murder in the rue morgue,' generally accepted as our first murder mystery, was published in 1841. at the same time, we should remember, that a few years later in 1868, on the other side of the pond, wilkie collins ( 1824-1889) published what is considered the first and greatest mystery novel the moonstone.

i close with an assessment sent to me from fellow writer artin deerfield:

 "Enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection," sniffed Henry James.
Yet there can be no doubt that Poe left a deep mark on literature. He invented both the detective story ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue") and the sequel to the detective story ("The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter"). An attraction to new technologies and cutting-edge ideas such as hot-air balloons, mesmerism, and cryptography made him a pioneer of science fiction. He could be a savage critic: "I intend to put up with nothing I can put down," he boasted.
Most important, Poe reshaped the horror story into a tool for probing the darkest corners of human psychology and his own disturbing obsession with death. Early detractors failed to share his vision and accused him of merely aping Gothic thrillers penned by German authors. Poe would have none of it: "I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul -- that I have deduced this terror only from its legitimate sources, and urged it only to its legitimate results," he replied, in a line that neatly sums up his philosophy of fiction.
In the popular imagination, Poe is the dreary, unsmiling, black-clad bard of diabolism. This is the guy, after all, who reveled in themes of torture ("The Pit and the Pendulum"), pestilence ("The Masque of the Red Death"), and premature burial ("Berenice"). Two of his best-known stories are told from the perspective of murderers -- one a cold-blooded killer ("The Cask of Amontillado"), the other a madman who dismembers his victim ("The Tell-Tale Heart"). Poe seemed to relish the deaths of beautiful women, especially when he could also describe their morbid resurrections ("Ligeia" and "Morella"). Sometimes it's impossible to know whether he's portraying supernatural events or the ravings of lunatics. His corpse-filled corpus is both engrossing and grotesque.
His biography was a weird tale in its own right. He was born in Boston as Edgar Poe, abandoned by a reckless father at the age of 2, and orphaned by his mother's death when he was 3. The Allans of Richmond took him in, giving their young charge a home and a middle name. As a boy, Poe began his lifelong habit of frequenting cemeteries and concocting elaborate lies. Gambling forced him out of the University of Virginia, defiance drove him from West Point, and the lure of alcohol became a constant curse. He married his 13-year-old cousin when he was more than twice her age. It's not clear whether this odd union was ever consummated.
Just about every biographer has pondered unanswerable questions about Poe's mental health. The latest, Peter Ackroyd in "Poe: A Life Cut Short," highlights the comment of a young woman Poe courted in his 20s: "He was not well balanced; he had too much brain. . . . He said often that there was a mystery hanging over him he never could fathom."
His death at 40 is itself shrouded in a fog that only heightens his enigmatic reputation. Poe had planned a business trip from Virginia to New York and promptly vanished. He eventually turned up drunk in a Baltimore tavern, possibly after participating as a pawn in a vote-fraud scheme, and died shortly thereafter. His lost week has become the stuff of literary legend. Whole books have been written about it, both fiction and nonfiction, and his tombstone is now the site of a strange annual ritual. On Poe's birthday, scores of devotees gather in the cold night to watch a shadowy figure known as the "Poe Toaster" leave three red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at the author's final resting place. This performance has survived for more than half a century, appears to have been passed on from one generation of visitant to the next, and shows no sign of letting up.
Around the time the original Poe Toaster appeared, Allen Tate made a famous observation: "Everything in Poe is dead." That's true to a point. Much of Poe's fascination with death actually grew from a desire to understand it as a member of the living. In "A Descent Into the Maelstrom," the narrator, a Norwegian fisherman, finds himself sucked into a violent whirlpool and worries that he'll drown in the vortex. "I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power," he says. "I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I should see."
Poe can't reveal what, if anything, he has learned from beyond the grave. But he did leave behind a handful of poems and stories whose eerie splendor continues to haunt us.
Mr. Miller writes for National Review.
 
i would like to change the word 'comment' for the word 'kibbitzers' on this blog. does anyone know how i can do it?

 

a poem (mine) & a whodunit (willett's)

i had an unusual experience yesterday and, although i don't usual write poetry, here's a draft:

no title yet

I spoke with a deer yesterday.

He listened

And walked toward me.

I toward him.

 

I spoke of friendship.

He listened

And calmly nodded.

I, too, bowed.

 

What did we signal?

Will he return tomorrow?

Ever?

           **************

and on to jincy willett's novel, the writing class. i'm stumped. almost.

to solve my problem of what to say, i'll write about the writing class as if it were two books. and for me it has been. for you dyed-in-the-wool mystery readers, the novel will be a disappointment. yes, we have a murder, two in fact, and the threat of a third, and a drugging, too. so, a lot is going on. but you won't really care. you won't be terribly involved with any of the people. was there a motivation? she didn't get published or something like that?

but as a satirical novel about writing, writers, writing groups, or reading groups, for that matter, omg, ms. willett is terrific. she hits the nail on the head with every sentence, and you'll love the pounding. i can't wait to read her previous novel, winner of the national book award. ms. willett is a hard-edged, soft-hearted satirist; i don't care if i contradict myself. if you like a laugh -- what else connects us? -- if you can laugh at yourself, thank me for directing you toward the writing class.

the attractive cover (a pen personifying each of the members of amy gallup's writing class points toward the title) is by catherine casaline.

for those of you who would like to hear some of my own opinions on writing, my next talk is at the canton woman's club on 16 february at 7:30. please call bernice morrison 330-454-4541 for reservations. if interested, there is a 6:30 dinner.

 

 

 

whodunit's thanks to the (london) times

before i talk about the timesor anything else, i want to mention that well-done cover designs of books should be recognized and will be from now on in this blog. for example, i spent a great deal of time with dan chrzanowksi, the cover designer of eloquent corpse. i am very please with the result. some writers are involved with the designer of their books; some publishing houses take care of this aspect of presenting the book to its potential public.  in either case, people care.  so i will start out by saying that the cover of the paris enigma (a tightly spun thriller that i am not wild about) is excellent. i'll try to get the designers name to you later.

now to the times.  my scottish correspondent alastair has sent me some more super clippings from that august newspaper. and who wouldn't love a periodical that advertises itself with a photo of ian fleming, no less, complete with trademark cigarette and holder in hand. he is quoted as saying, 'an essential item in my desert island library would be the times literary supplement, dropped to me every friday by a well-trained albatross.'

another neat article is the first chapter of a newly discovered classic whodunnit (spelled with two 'ns' in the british version) with the times asking its readers to play literary detective and work out who the author is. of course, one can't find a previously unknown novel by an 'undisputed great of british literature' every week. but it's a fun idea.

one interesting article mourns the death of the television detective. the author of the article, gill, says, 'who killed all of the detectives? one by one, they have gone missing into that bad night, down the slick and ill-lit mean streets.' he then asks, 'so whatever is murdering the detectives? have they gone the way of the tv cowboy?' on this side of the pond, we find that raymond chandler's phillip marlowe and dashiell hammet have been replaced by sarah peretsky and janet evanovich.  look at the stock market. look at the wars on almost every continent. we live on the mean-streets. we have to be able to laugh at something..

whodunit mail bag

i meant to post responses to the whodunit blog at last writing, but concentrated instead on donald westlake's untimely death. he will be missed.

this blog publishesdifferent responses from different readers. a good thing. i'd hate to be a one-note writer whose note struck the exact same chord with everyone. some writers, such as dorothy in ohio are impressed by number of books reviewed, "READ YOUR WHOLE E MAIL AND AM AMAZED AT HOW MANY BOOKS YOU READ."  some, such as julia, another ohioan, get more specific "You really communicate a lot with your thoughts on your blog. Its hard 
to image that Pinter would recite such a poem when he was accepting 
the Nobel prize. But I understand that he was a little strange anyway."

and the final response for today's blog, that expands on the pinter note comes from still another ohioan, art, "t r u t h o u t | Remembering Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter - "Is Our Conscience Dead?" Thank you,Audrie,for your wonderful writing and mind! It is worth reading the speech of Pinter that is enclosed here."

i'll talk about two books today, alice munro's friend of my youth and karen maitland's company of liars. munro, the most famous of canada's short story writers, has published a collection of ten previously published stories. the title of the book is the title of the first story in the collection. the over-arching theme of the stories, each one a story framed by a story, is the way we weave tales to make sense of our lives.  but speaking of one note, as i was a few paragraphs ago; ms. munro has hit it. she is a fabulous writer. if you, dear reader, come across one of her stories in the new yorker or in another collection of work by multiple writers, you will want to read more. but to read ten stories of loneliness, separation, guilt, living behind a facade, and betrayal (to list a few of her repeated themes) on grey cold ohio days is not what i would recommend. save and savor friend of my youth on a glorious spring day.

the second book i finished this week is company of liars by karen maitland. it is loosely based on the canterbury tales. in this case, however, the 'pilgrims' are not going toward any thing, but rather are trying to escape the plague, or 'pestilence' rampant in 14th century england. each one has a guilty secret. in fact, if i look at the list of words i used to describe munro's theme, i find that most of them also fit the company of liars. of course, if you have a guilty secret, you will of necessity be living behind a facade, and much is made of the narrator's facade, which fools no reader. neither does the guilt of the ageless child. but i think you will enjoy this book. maitland has done a terrific job of weaving medieval lore and attitudes into the novel. the story each member of the company tells is set off by borders, so that even the unwary reader will not confuse it with the over-arching tale. the novel is an enjoyable read.

 

whodunit mailbag and a death to mourn

i've just heard of donald westlake's death on new year's eve. i hope he died looking forward to a good time.  westlake and his intentionally unintentional comic criminal john dortmunder are my favorites. his creation of dortmunder, a clumsy crook whose capers go weirdly awry and result in humorously logical but completely unpredictable plots consistently give me and millions of fans laugh-out-loud pleasure. westlake has written over 100 books under a number of different names and has received an academy award nomination for a screenplay, three edgar awards and the title of grand master from the mystery writers of america in 1993. work habits for other writers to note are that westlake wrote on a manual typewriter, and, most important, he was incredibly disciplined: he wrote seven days a week. he died leaving us the gift of one more book to be published, get real, which should be out in august. thank you, mr. westlake, for so much pleasure and writing inspiration.

i hope all of the readers of this whodounit blog will read the comment posted by joe m. concerning his nostalgic take on paperbacks vs. hard backs. scroll back to see that, as usual, his is a 'different' point of view.

my new year's 'poem' gave permission to the rest of the bad poet's society to add comments and/or post their own. poems and comments ranged from art of chicagoland's,  'I'm disappointed at your low brow put down of my poem -- which has had 233,789 hits so far. How many has Pinter's had. I think my filling in the silences accounts for  the success of my poem. That and the abbagxkQ rhyme scheme...'  

happy new year to you as well dear aud

and i will jog to your blog

grog or wine

your messages are devine!

to scott of ohio's, '