Whodunit?

happy birthday, oscar wilde, +marie winn and central park. more writing hints

 

'i'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air.....1917-1918

oh,SHOOT the photo of audrey blowing bubbles didn't move to  typepad!!!!

'i'm forever blowing bubbles' is almost as old as the first book i'm going to discuss today.

BOOKS:

'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by oscar wilde was published in 1890 ( the bubble song almost thirty years later). both stay on as contributions to popular culture. listen. often when a bubble is blown in a movie, the background score moves into this once popular song and show tune. more important to us today is dorian.

  

it is fitting, though accidental that i re-read the book this week, the anniversary of wilde's birth, 16 october 1854. i'm celebrating, by the way, with irish whiskey and decadent chocolate cake. dorian is a variation on the theme of adam and the apple or to bring it a little more up-to-date, a bargain with the devil, or a faustian contract, trading knowledge (specifically, eternal youth) for his soul. 

 

another theme that is subsumed by this major one is the fear of ageing, still referred to in arrowsmith's 'every time i look in the mirror/all these the lines in my face getting clearer,' though my favorite novel and movie (outside of wilde's) that shows the awfull effects of aging is 'lost horizon', 1937.

 

dorian gray is a pleasure to read again. it is amazing how well the epigrams hold up. the copy i have was published by costa books. it is 181 pages and sells for around $10-15. a good book to have in your library.

 

Central Park in the Dark is not a murder mystery. even though it's a good title for one. in fact, it is subtitled 'more mysteries of urban wildlife.'  it is about bird, moth, and other wild-life-watching in, as you might guess, central park after dark. the author marie winn is an exuberant nature lover, generous with the friends she meets who are following similar hobbies and a delight to read. the book was suggested to me by judy n. of canton. i must get hold of her and thank her.

the book is 287 pages, published by farrar, strauss and giroux. it sells for $25.

 

HINTS FOR WRITERS:

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”
—Enid Bagnold

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”
—Allen Ginsberg, WD

scandinavian whodunits

BOOKS:

 

Roseanna written by the swedish husband/wife team of maj sjowall and per wahloo was published in swedish in 1965, in english in 1967. 1967? and we're talking as if scandinavian crime writing was just invented in the 21st century by steig larsson and his translator reg keeland (the girl with the dragon tattoo), henning mankell (kurt wallander series), karin foss (inspector sejan series), arnaldur indrioasson (detective erlandur), and jo nesbo the harry hole series).

 

i've just read roseanna;  it's still a good read. the books listed above are more contemporary and because of that are perhaps more fun to read. yes, the dark brooding swedish countryside and barren iceland etc. can be fun to dive into. but roseanna, the first of the twenty volume sjowall/wahloo martin beck series is also fun to dive into, though the dive the namesake of the novel roseanna mc graw takes is post-death. the american tourist meets her murderous fate on a ferry boat in southern sweden. detective martin beck in spite of his tendency toward stomach aches and because of his persistence is the lead detective in solving the crime that no one else can.

 

the slow going police work and attention to detail emphasize the realism of the novel that like most of the contemporary scandinavian mystery stories also attempt to show the decay of madern scndinavian society through the eyes of the police procedural.

 

roseanna is translated from the swedish by lois roth. it is 212 pages, published by pantheon books. the paperback can be found for under $10. the hard cover is $25.

 

a number of movies have been made based on this novel, including two in sweden.

 

SUBMISSIONS: please continue to send your submission for the little magazine on the blog to audrey lavin at lavingroup@aol.com

 

audreylavin.com         http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

from e.m.m forster to moggach to barbara vine +writing hints

 

 

BOOKS (and a MOVIE)

 

i was discussing the movie the best exotic marigold hotel with a friend, a. a. we both like it. as i have said before, the movie can not and does not attempt to capture any of the smells of india and sanitizes it quite a bit, but give some credit--we in the audience are always in india while watching the film. my friend is reading the book of the same title by deborah moggach, and gave me this interesting tidbit which i'll pass on: in the film, we constantly see the 'bad' wife ('bad' as in not appreciating all that india has to offer) reading a book with a tulip on the cover. the book is tulip fever by none other than deborah moggach.

 

i don't know if ms. moggach is familiar with the short stories of e. m. forster or not. the storyline in the film of the english homosexual teacher looking for his long lost boyhood lover seems to me directly taken from forster's "the eternal moment" in the book of short stories with the same name. forster's story does not have a happy ending and is more devastating to a number of people, but if you read it, i think you will be aware of the similarities, give or take a male character for a female one here and there.

 

on to my whodunit? for the day. it's a fatal inversion by barbara vine, a pen name ruth rendell uses for some of her work. that's ruth barbara rendell, baroness rendell. it was published in 1987, recently listed in the wall street journal as an outstanding suspense story, and, amazingly enough, it still is. similar tales have been told since its  publication twenty-five years ago, so the novel probably doesn't carry quite the punch it originally did, but it is quite a good read. it is the tale of the loss of innocence  (i'd say shooting someone dead is about as much of a loss as one can take) and how that loss effects the lives the five people involved.

effects is a gentle word to use. the loss of innocence and murder destroys four of the five. you'll like the scene at the end with the one person who survives.

 

the book is 268 pages, published by bantam books and is $14.95. i'll bet that's the original price on the jacket. $14.95 seems pretty cheap for a hardback today.

 

 

HOW TO WRITE:

 

Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.

2. Just between you and I, case is important.

3. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.

4. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

 

i usually don't publish announcements that have a price tag attached, but, hey! this is for the library, an institution we all want to support.

The Stark County District Library Foundation invites you to Tap into Literacy: A Craft Brew Tasting Experience on Thursday, October 11, 2012.  This casual, fun evening mixes the best of craft beers with delicious food in the rustic setting of The Lodge at Fieldcrest (the old Hoover hunting lodge).  We have all the makings of a successful event. The only thing missing is YOU.  The Stark County District Library Foundation raises funds to support projects that cannot be adequately funded using the library’s tax-based revenue.  We look forward to seeing you for an evening of tasty fun which will raise funds for this important cause.  For more information, please call 330.458.2702 or click here http://www.starklibrary.org/events.

audreylavin.com       http://bit.ly/OhAudrey 

comments and three whodunits? murder mysteries by swanson, evanovich, and lewis

COMMENTS:

in honor of valentine's day i'm re-publishing some of the best love quotes that have been a part of some of the best Hollywood movies from time to time. these are from  the literary jewels, january-march 2012.

“Promise me you’ll survive. That you won’t give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless.” (TITANIC)

“I have crossed oceans of time to find you.” (DRACULA)

“If I had one more night to live…I’d wanna spend it with you.” (PEARL HARBOUR) (pearl harbor?)

“I have no armour left. You’ve stripped it from me. Whatever is left of me, whatever I am, I’m yours.” (CASINO ROYALE)

“You make me want to be a better man.” (AS GOOD AS IT GETS)

  

Posted by Amritbir Kaur at Sunday, February 13, 2011

 

a comment sent by a local writer and business man has to do with a new start-up company some readers might find interesting:  greg butler writes that he has started JZ Fulfillment  (check the web site)– it is a  company that warehouses and ships product for start-ups, small companies, and  authors.

BOOKS:

today we have two more samples of series and one seemingly independent writer.

he is mitchell scott lewis. i love him. though who knows if he, too,  might be planning to take his independent novel along the series route.

  

murder of a real bad boy by denise swanson is another in the never ending scumble river (illinois) series. if you love the previous seven novels in the series, you'll love this one, too. it is supposed to take place in september 2003. it has the same zaney cast, which in the main, consists of school psychologist and detective skye denison's simply outrageous family.

  

skye has inherited a house. it needs repairs. she hires beau hamilton to repair it. he doesn't last long, in fact is murdered. he is 'the real bad boy' of the title. meanwhile, skye still can't decide between wally and the funeral dude.

  

it's a signet book of 252 pages.

  

even though i had been warned by lsl of montclair n.j., and had published the warning in this blog, i still didn't believe that janet evanovich could go so wrong. when i started explosion eighteen, i was happy to be among old friends. this is the good part of a series. if the author has established a strong cast, and ms. evanovich has, of people like grandma mazur; lula, the ex-ho; and stephanie plum's two boyfriends ranger and morelli, then it's a pleasure for the reader to see them again, to catch up with their adventures. it turns out, there is nothing to catch up with. a big chunk of the book is taken up with lula's mis-adventures in a love-life fueled by witch's potion. something like that. honest. then morelli drinks it at the end, as if he hasn't been crazy about stephanie for all of these books.

 

i loved the first books in the series. it's an over-used expression, but they were definitely laugh out loud novels. evanovich came up with wonderfully unexpected turns with her characters and plots. i know she can do it. we'll pass on this one and see what nineteen brings us.

 

bantam books is the publisher of this 305 page murder mystery.

 

now for a different detective novel. mitchell scott lewis has created a charming astrological detective in david lowell. lewis himself is an astrologer and knows whereof he speaks when he has lowell uncover many clues by reading the stars in murder in the 11th house.  the reader does not have to know anything about astrology to enjoy the novel. i don't and i did. i do know that i'm a sagittarean, but i don't even recognize the astrologer's vocabulary. i do recognize a good story, well told, when i read one. the use of astrology to solve the crime of the murder of a federal judge is a darn good idea. for those of us who are more practical minded, it's also good that david lowell has his attorney daughter to help him.

 

murder in the 11th house is published by poison pen press and is 239 pages.

 

happy valentine's day to all from audrey

whodunit? jo nesbo's 'the snowman' & other cultural events

if you have a chance, take in the flick lost bohemia by joe astor, formerly of canton oh. it's a short documentary about the community of artists who lived, some for fifty years or so, in the apartments above carnegie hall. it will probably be shown as an art film around the country and is a fascinating peek at a world i, for one, didn't know existed-- right in my own back yard, so to speak.

 

i am sorry to say that for the first time i was disappointed in a metropolitan opera movie production. we saw mozart's don juan over the weekend. the eight leads (eight leads!!) all had fantastic voices. as a concert, it would have been beyond outstanding. but it was presented as an opera and something was off with the setting. the set was a three-storied vertical that we have seen many times in the past two years. it's not trite yet, so that's not what i'm complaining about. my complaint is that the staging did not taking advantage of the three levels. but worse than that, for the most part, the director did not take advantage of the whole horizontal stage either. i understand that if the scene calls for two people 'whispering' to each other, you can't have the stage full of peasants dancing, but so many times the characters could have moved, or someone could have passed in the background instead of showing us a tight little scene. but no carping about the music; it was magnificent.

 

now i am reading jo nesbos' The Snowman. it is advertised as following in the footsteps of steig larssson. really odd. nesbo was writing first for one thing and though i am not fond of larsson's trilogy, he is the sharper, cleaner writer of the two. norway is also the background of nesbos's novel and the book does feature a number of gory crimes against women.

 

The Snowman is the seventh in a harry hole series. i have not read any of the previous books. one thing i can say in favor of the snowman is that, although it probably connects with earlier books in the series, it does stand alone.

 

harry is a typical noir detective: he has a drinking problem; he has women problems; he is both an intuitive detective and a hands-on detective. for example, for no strong reason, he decides to go to a family owned shack that had been searched by police before. what do you know? it seems that during the previous search, the police did not open the large freezer where, guess what? harry finds a body.

 

i like very smart katrine bratt who is working with harry. i also like all of the red herrings we readers follow along with him. i have to say that if i were a serial killer, i would find something quicker to leave as my calling card than a snowman. think about it, wouldn't it be easier just to steal a rose from a neighbor's rose bush and leave it near the body than to spend a half-hour or so making a snowman in your victim's yard?

 

more later when i finish the novel

 

audreylavin.com           http://bit.ly/flTthc

koons, watson, and parot all whodunits, not all equal

correspondence from li hertzi: Click here for my blog and more information on the other great artists and to sign up! http://artdolladventures.com/public_html/wordpress/
Join me and some wonderful artists, I mean really wonderful! As in Wanda
Montgomery, Annie Morgan, and Mo Mosyjowski, and a bunch of great
artists/students/women, at the Women's Art Retreat at The Cuyahoga Valley
Art Center in October.

in my last blog, i meant to talk about dean koontz's the good guy and too much hemingway. perhaps i was influenced by two viewings of woody allan's midnight in paris , but so much of koontz's writing sounds to me like a hemingway satire.  opening the early part of the book at random, i find, 'the coffee shop was open  all night. the air smelled of bacon and french fries, and good coffee.'

a better example  is the end of the novel, 'the wide world remained dark, and greater darkness threatened. but he and linda had found a small place of light, because she knew how to endure and he knew how to fight, and together they were whole.'

this 386 mystery/thriller is published by bantam books.

i also read before i go to sleep by british author s. j. watson, a terrific and fun novel to read with the problems of memory loss/amnesia deftly handled. i highly recommend this debut psychological thriller.

  

every night when christine lucas goes to sleep, she loses the memory of the past twenty years of her life. publishers weekly calls the book a haunting twisted debut. the central question beside christine's 'who am i?' is who can our heroine trust. she has three contact points: ben her supportive husband; dr. edmund nash, her neeuropsychologist, who is helping her find her way; and her best friend. it is strange that neighbors and storekeepers don't play any part in this novel, it is equally strange that christine isn't more aware of how society has changed in the twenty forgotten years. but enough of my quibbles. i understand that the film rights have been purchased. i hope they work on the ending a bit. improvement is needed in the last chapter. and really, the u.s. editors who thought readers wouldn't understand a few briticisms hasn't been reading very much lately. it is not startling to see the gerund for travel be travelling; it is more upsetting to read about londoners at home eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  

before i go to sleep is 358 fast turning pages. it is an imprint of harper collins publishers.

 

and i read most of jean-francois parot's the chatelet apprentice, translated from the french by michael glencross.  i skipped about fifty pages in the middle because i found the story of the development of a young man (nicolas le floch) into a detective to be tedious in the extreme, even though it is played out against the political background of the 1780s. if you love, love, love,  historical fiction, read it.

it is 339 pages and published by gallic.

  

i have just returned from 9.5 glorious days in iceland and in my next blog will discuss the halldor laxness and arnaldur indridason books i read while i was in reykjavik. 

 

audreylavin.com

      http://bit.ly/flTthc

writers' activities and disparate (?) novels by howells and weisberger

two chances for writers to show your stuff

1. Hamilton Writers Guild Announces Its
2011 Harvest the Cash Fall Contest

Category: General Fiction
1500 Word Limit
Entry Deadline: October 21, 2011
Entry fee: $10.  Critique fee: $5 (optional)
$400 First prize
$150 Second prize
$50 Third prize

2. There will be a Columbus Book Festival on Saturday, Oct. 8 from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm in downtown Columbus.  Guest speakers, poet and children’s book author Patricia Smith will be there with Kalli Dakos, children’s author poet and Thaisa Frank, author of Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel and Finding Your Writer's Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction.  This is also an invitation to all authors to come sell your books at this event.  The cost is $10 for half a table or $15 for a whole table.  That fee will also pay for open mic time, space on their web site and Facebook and Twitter blogs.  This is also a catered event.  For more information on this, contact Nora Holt at 614-493-3298 or email: noraholt85@yahoo.com.  The website is writersinkcreativity.com

* * *    

friends, when i finally figured out how to access my mail on my new web page, i found nine messages waiting for me. right now i can only remember  six of them.  gary, rita, carol, doris, jill, lois, and lisa, thank you. i've answered the notes that have arrived since then.

 

so many of you have helped with audreylavin.com. i wish you could do a make over on me as efficiently as you've done with my web page. thanks so much. more names to appear. anyone who checks it out can see how much better it is with all of your help.

 

now to reading instead of writing: i have just finished and v. much enjoyed reading william dean howells' A Hazard of New Fortunes - Complete. although howells is not considered a major american writer, he's certainly just below hawthorne, twain, james, etc. and has much more of a sense of humor than melville, for example. this book shows a turn-of the century slice of new york life as seen through the chief protagonist and anchor of the story, a magazine editor. howells manages to keep his representative men and women from being stereotypes. a good read.

 

i have the modern library edition. it comes with some interesting added critiques, etc. the novel itself, sans critiques and notes, is 496 pages. worth the time.

 

some things never change. the search for a new york apartment could have been written today. the differences between life in new york and life in boston are the exact same as expressed in lauren weisberger's Last Night at Chateau Marmont: A Novel, another book i just finished. this is a book as contemporary as name dropping will permit. brooke, our heroine, marries a guy who becomes a rock star, so author lauren weisberger has a good excuse to work in everyone you've ever heard of in the entertainment world. weisberger is the author of the devil wears prada, so knows how to tell a tale. the book is a real chick novel. i'm sure weisberger is hoping it will be a real chick flick. and why not?

 

it is 368 pages and published by washington square press. for those of you who are worried, brooke's errant husband does come back to her and she gets a new job. 

audreylavin.com

                http://bit.ly/flTthc

mystery novels that are not whodunits: larsson and lehane

response to my semi-satirical review of steig larsson's trilogy ranged and ranged. i'll repeat three points of view that should give you an idea of that range:

yes: 'good job.' from m.l. in chicago.

no: 'I think Academe tends to make intelligent writers hypercritical of fictional villains.' a.s. from greater chicago also had some nice things to say about the column, but this part of his statement does very well represent a point of view.

thought-full: I read today's whodunit and it's, as always, beautifully written and this time, full of surprises.  I may be the only person in the world who is not addicted to these Larsson novels.  One was quite enough:  full of sadism and violence and special effects like the current movies I'm not seeing.  But I never thought of them as satire until now, and of course you're right.   It's Larsson's final  message of disgust.  And until you came along, we didn't even realize he was mocking us. from d. l. outside of n.y.

the subject i want to talk about today (in addition to the fact that my blog platform, typepad.com, gives me no control over font size or color) is dennis lehane's Shutter Island. i saw and was completely pulled in by martin scorsese's film version, so wanted to read the book to see if 1. the film and novel were the same and 2. how i was trapped.

the film is almost exactly the same as the novel. the operative word here is 'almost.' one part that may be different is a part i can't really remember from the film. the prologue of the novel starts with the words, 'from the journals of dr. lester sheehan.' this is a huge bread crumb for the trail the author tells us he leaves. maybe the movie did start this same way and i simply did not process it.

the other part that is somewhat different is the ending. it's still the same enormous plot twist, but in the movie teddy daniels makes an informed choice that is made for him in the novel -- but i'm not sure. on re-reading the last few pages, i see that 'teddy' wakes up in the morning, 'His vision was as clear as it had been when he was a child and his head as well.'

if there is still any one around who has not seen the movie or read the book, do so. you are in for a treat of psychological insight. leonardo di caprio is excellent. is this the same guy i saw as a good romeo just a few years ago? he keeps developing.  he truly is a fine actor.

the movie is set in 1954 when conspiracy theories were as much the rage as they are today and pefrontal lobotomies were beginning to be questioned as cures for the criminally insane.

at the beginning we meet u.s. marshall teddy daniels and his partner chuck aule (the name-pun does seem a little out of place now that i'm writing about it). they are on a ferry boat going to shutter island where they hope to find a missing murderess. from there on in, nothing and no one is what it or he or she seems.

well done flick, well written book. the novel is 325 pages. it is published by william morrow.

hammett, lists, andrea camilleri, and m.c. beaton

i meant to write about dashiell hammett on his  birthday, 27 may, but didn't get around to it. it's not too late to pay tribute to one of the fathers of the hard boiled detective novels. hammett was born in 1894 and is most famous for his noir novels, especially Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man.

another item i meant to write about is one that interests me, but is a stretch to include with a discussion of  detective novels. in fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with them. it is still a recommendation. if you are in washington d.c., please hike yourself over to the national gallery and see the exhibit on lists. as a compulsive list maker, i can't tell you how pleased i am to have seen all the lists made by famous artists: picasso, bertoia, etc. i am not alone. i wonder how many of them have hobbies that are also related to list making, such as bird watching.

the two books i will talk about today are each part of a series, which i take as a warning. i think that when i finish the novel i am working on now, that young man eloquent, the third in the series (Eloquent Blood and Eloquent Corpse: A Murder Mystery are the other two), i will call it quits. too much becomes predictable and necessarily repetitive in long series of novels.

The Paper Moon (Inspector Montalbano Mysteries) by andrea camilleri is the ninth in the inspector montalbano series. by the way, this book, originally written in italian, has no connection with the ryan and tatum o'neil 1973 film that most americans will think of first on hearing the title. camilleri continues to be great on descriptions of sicily and great on descriptions of food. as i said before in commenting on another book in the series, although most of the translation is excellent, the need to translate some accents into what one critic calls 'phonetic brooklynese' is disturbing. also, though i like detectives who second guess themselves and spend time soul-searching (see my own mary beth goldberg), detective montalbano seems to indulge too much, plus his forgetfulness is too thick, un-detective-like. this is for the most part an enjoyable and quick read. it is 257 pages and published by penguin books. stephen sartarelli is the translator.

according to my count, Death of a Witch (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries) is the 25th (!) novel in m. c. beaton's hamish macbeth mystery series. i really, really liked hamish in the first few novels i read. beaton still has a strong, well expressed, feeling for the scottish highlands. this time hamish returns home from a disappointing vacation in spain. his home in lochdubh is beginning to sound more and more like a negative brigadoon. a 'witch' tries to change things and is soon found murdered, as are many others. three beautiful women (investigators and reporters) chase after hamish, but he maintains a better relationship with his two pets than he does with any one of them. the novel seems patched in places to me. again for an enjoyable quick read, it will be fine. the 245 page novel was published by grand central publishers.

emily arsenault's 'the broken teaglass,' a murder mystery?

The Broken Teaglass: A Novel is definitely worth your time even if it is not as brilliant a book as i thought it would be when i started to read it.

like a.s. byatt's Possession and nabokov's Pale Fire, the interpretation of 'evidence' within the frame story gives the reader a second, completely different tale. arsenault is not a byatt or a nabokov, but she is clever and weaves a couple of good stories. in addition to the book's being composed of two stories, it also fits under the rubric of two genres. it is a murder mystery, a whodunit?, and a coming-of-age story.

billy and mona, young editors/lexicographers at samuelson dictionary company stumble across a citation for the word 'editrix' that leads to many more citations and seemingly the story of a murder that was committed by people who work at the very office where billy and mona do.

if you like playing with words or are interested in the procedure of making a dictionary, you will definitely enjoy this mystery. i don't know why arsenault threw in billy's cancer toward the end or left out some of the characters she began with, but it's not too important. aren't most stories a little uneven? at least, hers is redeemed by flashes of insight. the novel is 370 pages and is published by delacorte press.

a book that sounds interesting and that we all might like to take a look at is The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 by steven moore. moore, according to the wsj is 'essentially a delivery system for aesthetic bliss.'

see Exit Through the Gift Shop, a mockumentary/documentary that's a hoot.