Reading Those Classics #4

Classic Comic Novel. This 1934 novel was, in fact, the first novel starring the duo, after four collections of short stories were published from 1919 to 1930. 

Thank you, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse

I was teaching English in Japan when the Jeeves and Wooster TV series ran from 1990 to 1993. So, I have only recently watched Hugh Laurie as dim cheery Bertie and Stephen Fry as deadpan Jeeves. So funny that they drove me, in stiches, to the original stories.

At the beginning Wodehouse takes a chance of alienating the reader by introducing about 10 previously met characters in the tiny of space of four pages. But soon enough the reader is laughing too much to care about not recognizing the settings or the who’s who from previous stories

I enjoyed the comic situations as they snarled up and, as hair-pullingly tangled as they may seem at times, they are made more than believable thanks to the characters themselves. The plot unfolds an uninterrupted comedy of errors, during which Bertie gets into trouble and Jeeves saves his bacon. The rhythm of the action is impressive. Wodehouse sets up pieces not too long, not too short. The action beats along smartly because all the characters have a pulse.

Yes, we have to steel ourselves for too causally used words that our post-modern culture has ruled no longer to be used without dire consequences. It was 1934 and many turns of phrase that are unacceptable to us were absolutely not a problem for them. So we must make allowances for ugly epithets while we condescend to snicker at outdated slang like “bally” and “corking.”

Inspector Henry Tibbett #12

Note: The unfortunate title of this murder mystery refers to the main characters, a black ambassador and his white wife who is the victim of a shooting. But the author makes clear in this 1975 story that she does not endorse the attitudes mouthed by some characters. In a typically smooth sentence Moyes has a character make a crack and then, “having packed the maximum possible snobbery, bigotry and lack of tact into one short sentence, she ran out of the room.”

Black Widower – Patricia Moyes

Diplomatic spouses usually have the refined manners of upper middle class people, but not so for the wife of the ambassador to the US of the newly independent Caribbean country of Tampica. Where would Mavis – blonde, gorgeous, loves parties and shopping – learned manners in the modeling agencies and music halls of London?

Love overcomes color prejudice and social qualms, however. Law student and later lawyer Edward Ironmonger marries Mavis, despite the opposition of Mavis’ racist parents and the consternation of his friends and supporters who think he’s throwing his future prospects away by marrying a low-class dummy who doesn’t know how to help him socially and politically as a diplomatic spouse should and must.

On top of this, recall it’s 1975. So socially and politically it’s a strain when a black Ambassador with a white wife is posted to the southern city of Washington D.C. Moyes has a Dixiecrat senator and his wife Magnolia (of course) express sentiments that I, a college sophomore that fall, can testify were totally in keeping with the time.

At a diplomatic celebration of Tampica’s opening its embassy, poor Mavis makes a fool of herself and is ushered to her room. She is found shot dead. Ironmonger exercises dip privileges (an embassy is that country’s territory) and calls in a British police officer to investigate. Inquires reveal that the persons of interest have personal, social, and political motives galore.

So the reason to read this mid-Seventies mystery is that Moyes was a master at blending excellent settings with brilliant characterization and plausible unfolding of incidents. Moyes moved to the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean archipelago in the 1970s, so her descriptions of tropical lushness ring true. She must have moved in diplomatic circles because her set-piece of a dip party in D.C. rang true with me, who lived for three years on the fringes of the dip world in a European capital.

Like her other traditional police procedurals, this novel stars her series dynamic duo Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Henry Tibbet and his wife Emmy. Extremely relatable is this pleasant middle-aged couple who are down to earth but solve murders with no-nonsense English composure.

The Scourge of Scrofula

The Forgotten Plague: How the Battle Against Tuberculosis Was Won - And Lost - Frank Ryan

This informative and frightening history of the battle against TB is not too technical for the non-expert reader, but a knowledge of chemistry and soil science will go a long way toward comprehension.

Ryan tells the story of the doctors and research scientists searching for a cure for Tuberculosis in the 19^th and 20th centuries. Although sometimes his breathless tone relative to their heroism disconcerts the reader, it’s still a tribute to their determination to beat this terrible disease. I never knew the bacterium which causes TB can survive and grow in single-celled organisms found in soil and dung. So cows can get TB and pass it into their milk which human kids can drink and get TB. This is one reason why raw milk is so dangerous.

The author, by the way, is a physician so his credentials to write this book are in place. The last part of the book paints a scary picture of the future of drug-resistant diseases. Thinking adults with an interest in infectious diseases and their effect on history will get much out of this book. 

The Ides of Perry Mason 45

On the 15^th of every month, we deal with a topic related to Our Favorite Lawyer.

Famous Later

A season in the Perry Mason TV series would have about 30 episodes. So the casting department was constantly hiring talent. Some had good careers in TV, like Dick Clark, Alan Hale Jr., Barbara Eden and Marion Ross. But others had stellar careers in the movies.

Louise Fletcher

In 1975, she won an Academy Award for her portrayal of joyless cruel scary Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Though she has a smile as dazzling as Barbara Hale, she’s rather tall and her athletic build gives her a striking bearing and manner in keeping with the stereotype of “there’s a steel magnolia in every southern belle” (she’s from Alabama). Somehow you can tell Fletcher from the get-go that she’s serious about life, acting, and everything, though I readily admit that may be confirmation bias.

She was the defendant in two episodes, the only actress to come close to Lureen Tuttle’s record of four times in the dock. In The Case of the Larcenous Lady, Fletcher’s character Susan Connolly has a small role as a secretary that loves her married boss and for her pains ends up accused of murder. The episode is notable as one in which most of the characters are awful - such as victim Patricia Huston who often played The Designing Woman - since the maguffin everybody wants is high political position and prestige.  

Fletcher’s part as Gladys Doyle in The Case of the Mythical Monkeys gives her a better chance to display her acting chops. She plays an independent minded but still somewhat naive young person. Beverly Garland plays a dishonest writer who gets in over her head with Wise Guys and is so scared that she’s quite willing to sacrifice poor Gladys to very bad people. All the acting is quite good in this episode, which sticks pretty closely to the original story.

Burt Reynolds

The man known for being able to swagger even while sitting down has only a couple of scenes in The Case of the Counterfeit Crank. But he’s got the star quality that makes the viewer pay attention to his lines. He is the loyal employee of August Dalgren, played by Otto Kruger. Uncle August is faking madness to throw his scheming rotten nephew off the scent of a big deal August is cooking up.  Kruger, a veteran character actor since 1915, appeared in four diverse roles on Perry Mason: tough businessman, visionary businessman, doting grandfather, and judge.

Ryan O'Neil

In The Case of the Bountiful Beauty the actor females love to look at plays a small part as John Carew, the boyfriend of Debra Dearborn (pixie-like Zeme North). John has told Debra stories of his monstrous step-mom Stephanie (Sandra Warner, a Joan Collins bad girl type). Budding writer Debra has woven these stories together into a lurid novel like Peyton Place. The book becomes a best-seller, attracting the attention of an evil movie producer (John Van Dreelan, a caddish George Saunders type). This episode illustrates the tendency of this series to paint the entertainment industry in the worst colors. The best character is an agent man who protests his innocence and calls our favorite lawyer “Perry baby.”

Robert Redford

Redford appears in The Case of the Treacherous Toupee (season 4, 1960). On top of his good looks, he has screen presence and acting chops. He reads the little line “And stop crying” with just the right notes of exasperation, anger, and concern. The real star, however, Thomas Browne Henry (on the left in this picture), who plays the victim Hartley Basset, in his only turn on the show as the villain.

Basset has returned from a two-year bunk he doesn’t bother explaining. His over-confident bearing suggests a selfishness that makes the viewer loathe him on sight. Alternately ingratiating and threatening, he expects to pick up with his family and business as if he never disappeared, as if he never hurt anybody. He bulldozes his weak-willed wife, played excellently by Peggy Converse, who deals with the situation by trying to be good and sweet to Hartley but is breathless with anxiety that he has returned out of nowhere. Basset is ushered to his Eternal Deserts. Perry Mason must defend Basset’s abused business partner, played by Philip Ober who often plays the upright guy.

Reading Those Classics #3

Classic Epistolary Novel: Before this novel written as series of letters, I’d not read one since You Know Me Al: A Busher’s Letters by Ring Lardner in 2019 and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett in 2020.

Augustus – John Williams

An American author from a messy democracy circa 1972 examines the remote monarchal spirit of Ancient Rome. 

He makes this examination via this fine epistolary novel about the reign of the Emperor Octavian Augustus. The first part of the novel describes his rise to become the successor of Julius Caesar, of whom he is the adopted son. The Republican Rome that Octavian, a somewhat naïve twenty-year-old, inherits is a pitiless world, filled with ambitious enemies and double-crossing friends. 

Octavian and his wise-guys see Rome as bleeding in the wolfish jaws of factions. They believe - or rather, they say they believe - that the monarch will subdue the subversive Republican wolf and its bribery, extortion, influence-peddling, fraud, embezzlement, and favoritism. A tyrant will make Rome whole again. The macho Roman pats himself on the back for not being a niminy-piminy Greek, as worldly-wise pragmatism trumps vaporous moralizing every time. For the Roman in the late Republic, argues one of Octavian’s henchmen, principles and virtue must be subservient to policy and necessity if Rome is to be saved. The hard-guys always argue they must do what they do, since the times call for hard measures, against an enemy intractable, etc. etc.

And granted, the Emperor Augustus presented to Rome two centuries of pax romana in which there was no civil war, no barbarian incursions, no famine, and even short periods of peace when Augustus tried to get across to power-brokers in Rome who benefitted from fighting wars that long-term stability for the country came from avoiding risky wars.

In the novel, many voices alternate, some fictional but others historical such as failed politician Cicero, henchman Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, the poets Ovid and Virgil, troubled daughter Julia and a prime example of an impetuous man being his own worst enemy, Marcus Antonius aka Mark Antony. This variety of voices recounts the strategies and deeds of the players in way that is totally plausible and riveting. The Emperor himself remains silent until the last section of the book so we have to infer his thoughts and motivations in the words of others.

The use of letters in various voices stating various points of view in letters, memoirs, orders, dictated anecdotes, etc. has the merit of infusing the narrative with plausibility even when it is not easy to distinguish where the truth stops and where the fiction starts. Calling to mind Russell Banks’ caution about Cloudsplitter (paraphrasing: “a work of the imagination that should be read solely as a work of fiction”), Williams says in the introduction if truths are present in this novel, they are the truths of fiction rather than of history.

Inspector Otani #8

Go Gently, Gaijin - James Melville

This 1986 mystery was the 8^th of 13 novels starring Japanese police inspector Tetsuo Otani. His base is the city of Kobe, a port city in Hyogo prefecture. He is investigating the hit-and-run killing of one Arab outside the mosque in Kobe and the suicide of another Arab at a hot-spring resort hotel.

As usual, the investigation takes Otani to different spots that will resonate with readers who have visited the Kansai region. Otani spends time in Tor Road, home of shops selling fashionable clothes to antiques and many kissaten (tearooms) and restaurants. The hot-spring is the real Arima hot-spring on the other side of Mount Rokko from Kobe city. Otani also takes in the all-female theatrical troupe at the Takarazuka Revue. This is very nostalgic for a certain kind of reader.

Also, as usual, Otani, like Maigret, is surrounded by loyal supporters. Officer Kimura uses his flair for languages and intercultural interaction to good advantage. Officer Hara is the brainy one and Noguchi is the brawny streetwise one whose loyalty and strength reminds us of the folklore hero Benkei. Hara and Noguchi, however, hit it off in the kind of unlikely friendship that English writers can pull off so well (e.g. Darcy and Bingley). Otani’s marriage to Hanae reminds us of the strong marriage of Henry and Emmy Tibbett by Patricia Moyes.

Although Melville was a fiction writer, his prose feels academic with sentences lengthened to the point of irritation by prepositional phrases and relative clauses. The mystery takes a back seat to setting and characters, which is not a bad thing when it comes to mysteries set outside of the US and UK. Melville is sometimes gently satirical but never acerbic about Japanese people and their culture, which may or may not be a draw, depending on the depth of experience the reader has had with this delightful and exasperating people.

Inspector Montalbano #1

The Shape of Water – Andrea Camilleri

Set in Sicily in the early 1990s, this mystery is the first novel to star series hero Inspector Salvo Montalbano. It begins with the death of a local big shot Silvio Luparello. His partly-clothed corpse is discovered in a BMW by two garbage collectors. The body is found near a disreputable area called The Pasture frequented by the dope dealers, dope fiends and prostitutes that cater to all proclivities.        

Important people in business, politics, the church and Our Gang seem relieved that an autopsy reports Luparello died of natural causes. Without any loose talk of The Pasture, they want to get him below ground as soon as possible so life can go as before. But Inspector Montalbano asks for a few days to be able to investigate the case, which his superiors don’t even want to call a “case.”

But such are the ways in an ancient traditional culture run by self-interested syndicates, nothing is what it seems. Pious words deceive and stalwart deeds betray. Montalbano begins to suspect that the powers-that-be want to blacken Luparello’s reputation and the standing of his political faction by having it look like a cover-up is being conducted to screen the nasty circumstances of the death.

The mystery story, in all honesty, is nothing exceptional. The fascination of the action lies in the fast-paced sketches of Montalbano’s interviews with subordinates, superiors, and persons of interest. Montalbano is a man of integrity who does not allow himself to be tricked by appearances and tries to bend the law and twist the nose of the law’s accountants, bureaucrats, and propagandists in their incessant war against the weak and vulnerable. For instance, Montalbano works against the secret authorities by helping out garbageman Saro Montaperto and an expatriate woman the bigwigs were trying to frame for the death.

From the social critique point of view, even in this first Montalbano novel, Camilleri is pitilessly examining Sicilian culture and “its stupidity, its ferocity, its horror.”

He depicts the unholy intersection of sexual passion and abuse within a family and their connections with the corrupt political system. It’s not the case that morals are degrading in these dark days because mistreatment of the decent has been harsh and constant for years. Incestuous relations, also featured in later novels like Paper Moon, are reflections of the age-old exploitation of the comely by the nasty, of the young by the old, of the calm by the psycho, of the vulnerable by the powerful.

Camilleri draws a straight line connecting social and political corruption with the two garbage-collectors who are college-educated guys. After literally centuries of misrule and misgovernment by such big wheels, degenerates and their enablers, what can we expect but that the potential and abilities of intelligent people ready to work be squandered?

So, from the very first novel, Camilleri identified his medium and message and went on to write 27 more Montalbano novels. Sure, a couple of them are not up to the high standards of the best ones. But remember that Camilleri was 69 years old when he started this series in 1994. It seems miraculous to me – exhausted by writing a book review – that again and again he successfully produced stories that demanded creating, writing, revising, and all the other cognitive strains of writing a novel.