Undisputed Classic 10

Classic Historical Mystery: The author (1910 – 1967) was a Dutch diplomat who grew up in what is now Indonesia. An outstanding student of languages, he liked study and research from early on: at only 18 years of age, he had already had two papers published. He produced many scholarly items in the following years and his Lore of the Chinese Lute is still read by ethnomusicologists. Many years ago, my Chinese history professor recommended van Gulik’s whodunnits starring Judge Dee (630 – 700), a Tang era judge that van Gulik transported to the late Ming era (1368 – 1644). Hey, artists can do what they want as long as minors are not harmed.

Murder in Canton – Robert van Gulik

Judge Dee's adventures began in The Chinese Gold Murders with his first posting as a district magistrate and ended with his appointment as President of the Metropolitan Court in this outing from 1966.

This whodunnit combines elements of the thriller and the spy story. Court intrigues that are par for the course on the eve of dynastic changes complicate Judge Dee’s investigation of the disappearance and subsequent murder of a high court official. As usual the judge is assisted by his trusty aides. One is Chiao Tai, disgraced ex-soldier and the other ex-con artist Tao Gan, brainy and street-wise. A mysterious femme fatale will make Chiao Tai fall in love with her and a talented blind girl who is a dealer in crickets makes Tao Gan re-think his woman-hater stance.

There is no lack of murder victims nor of well-endowed women running about with no clothes on. Van Gulik did his own illustrations and half the drawings feature topless women. As in The Monkey and The Tiger, The Chinese Maze Murders and The Haunted Monastery, the author creates a villain who commits crimes out of pathological shame, frustration, and resentment. The villain is one of those smart guys who goes off the rails, a dangerous combination of intelligence and anger.

Ever on the anachronism watch, I thought that brick and mortar in Canton in the 15^th century was out of place. But in fact, by the Ming dynasty, although wood still dominated, bricks and stones became common building materials. Judge Dee becomes alarmed at plans of a massacre of the inhabitants of the prosperous port city of Canton and in fact a massacre was committed in 878–879 by the rebel army of Huang Chao. At the end Judge Dee predicts to himself that in the fullness of time he will have to tangle with the ambitious Lady Wu Tsertien, who in fact dates from the Tang era, not the Ming. I know, I know. van Gulik knew what he was doing: artistic license.

The writing is a bit clumsy, the characters cut out of cardboard, the plot twisted, and there’s of lot of talking, not showing. But I still got a kick out of this because of the period details and the variety of social backgrounds of the characters.

European Reading Challenge #9

I read this for the European Reading Challenge 2024.

The Ukraine: Reprint of a Lecture Delivered on Ukrainian History and Present-day Political Problems - George Raffalovich

This short work was written in 1913, just before the outbreak of WWI. An advocate of Ukrainian independence who was based in London, Raffalovich argued that an independent Ukraine would contribute to greater stability in a wobbly Europe. Ukrainians would fulfill their dreams of unity and freedom from the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires.

The Russian nationalists would be checked in their fevered dreams of anti-Western, pro-despotic pan-slavism, the ideological fig leaf for Big Sister Russia calling the shots and pocketing all the revenue from the exploitation of natural resources, agriculture and factory labor. Then, as now, Russia feared an independent Ukraine because it would serve as a democratic example in the West, standing in contrast to autocratic leaders knouting a bruised and bleeding public in the East. Russia feared 1905-type riots and protests of workers and peasants if an example of a democratic Slavic nation were allowed to exist and thus inspire dissent and the wish to be free.

So with this series of lectures, Raffalovich’s goal was to introduce the history, literature, and religion of Ukraine to a thinking audience. This quick overview of the history and religion of the Uniat church is very interesting. He also gives an overview of Ukrainian issues in the world situation just on the eve of the Great War. One would think these problems would be of scarce interest at the present time, but it’s fascinating to see what at least one thinking person thought of the immediate future, before August 1914 and its aftermath blew up empires.

Links: Librivox and Text

The Ides of Perry Mason 60

Intro: On the 15^th of every month, we examine a topic related to Our Favorite Lawyer. Unbelievably, this is the 5^th birthday of this column. After 60 pieces, I’m stumped coming up with a new angle I can put a protractor to. Perhaps a spirited debate as to which was the cooler car, Mason’s 1957 Ford Fairlane Skyliner (TCOT Restless Redhead) or Mason’s top of the line 1958 Edsel Citation (TCOT Buried Clock)? Debate seems pointless since the correct answer is, obviously, the Edsel, even more strangely beautiful than a mid-seventies Rambler Matador.

The Case of the Restless Redhead - Erle Stanley Gardner

Published in 1954 after being serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, the 45^th Perry Mason mystery is a mixture of the good and not-so-good in Gardner’s novels starring America’s favorite lawyer.

On the minus side, the story is hyper-convoluted. PI Paul Drake and secretary Della Street have but small parts to play. Lt. Tragg is totally absent, but his lowbrow minion Sgt. Holcomb shows up in his sarcastic glory. Hamilton Burger appears, exasperated to the point of bursting his temporal artery, which minimizes dissatisfaction with the conclusion but doesn’t dispel it completely.

As in the pulpy novels of the 1930s, Mason performs dubious acts to confuse the evidence. His client Evelyn Bagby had been chased in her car by a hooded attacker in the other vehicle. As any red-blooded American worth her salt would, she took a shot at him with a revolver she happened to have to hand, sadly, one that had been planted in her apartment. When the cops lead by Sgt. Holcomb find the attacker dead from a bullet wound, Mason goes out on a limb for Evelyn by firing a revolver of the same make and model at the scene of the crime. Ah, nothing like hijinks with two guns in a Mason story, giving us fans that comfy been-there feeling.

Also on the plus side, Gardner hooks the reader not with a break-neck plot but with the exceptionally sympathetic title character. Aspiring actress Evelyn has been conned by a hustler who stole all her money with promises to make her a star. Then she is persecuted by the criminal justice system when she is falsely accused of stealing the jewelry of a Hollywood starlet and her rich friend. Mervyn Aldrich is the usual snot that hassles and hectors Gardnerian Little Guys and Cinderellas.  Luckily Mason gives timely advice to Evelyn’s greenhorn attorney which gets her off.

We readers also get on Evelyn’s side because she doesn’t frustrate us by lying to Mason or leaving out inconvenient facts. Evelyn also follows Mason’s directions about dealing with the cops. Let’s all repeat to get it by heart:

Don't talk to the cops. Ask to speak with an attorney. Get competent legal advice before you answer the cops’ questions. Remember, it’s legal for the cops to lie to you.

And unlike clients who rarely thank Mason for keeping them out of the gas chamber, Evelyn is tearful and grateful that Our Favorite Lawyer gets her off. Gratitude is a beautiful thing to behold.

Gardner used a Dictaphone and had secretaries take down the novels. This practice lead to natural-sounding dialogue that is breezy, snappy, earthy, and as American as deep-fried ice cream. While Gardner is less scintillating when it comes to description, clothes, weather, and word choice, this is balanced by well-structured chapters of perfect length and content to keep the story moving.

I think this is a better than average Mason story. Evelyn’s story is the perfect illustration of Gardner’s principle, “People derive moral satisfaction from reading a story in which the innocent victim of fate triumphs over evil.” 

This story was the basis for the script of the first episode of the Raymond Burr television series, aired on that happy day of September 21, 1957. It was the first of eight appearances for Vaughn Taylor, who could play both amiable and disagreeable. Plus, the beautiful and talented Whitney Blake played Evelyn.

Undisputed Classic 9

20th Century Classic. China in the 1920s. Expatriates in trouble. A cholera epidemic. What’s not to like?

The Painted Veil – W. Somerset Maugham

In this novel, bacteriologist Walter despises himself for falling in love with shallow Kitty. At 25 years of age, Kitty feels time growing short so she marries Walter though she finds him “physically repulsive.” Three months after their marriage and arrival in Hong Kong in the 1920s, Kitty falls in love with Charlie, a “vain, cowardly, self-seeking” diplomat. She ends up despising herself over loving Charlie. I’m suspicioning that a love that makes a person despise themselves had better be called an irrational infatuation. Call it anything but “love” which is supposed to make you feel happy, free, valiantly unconcerned about whatever fortune is going to toss in your path.  

It makes the reader think that speakers of English make the word “love” work overtime. We use it to describe the positive feelings between parents and children, husbands and wives, and devoted friends. Heaven help us, we use the word “love” to describe the idolization of celebrities and the social and emotional upsides of job satisfaction. With so few words to describe different feelings about different relationships, no wonder misguided by crooked thinking we can’t help but make a hash of things.

And we use “love” to describe the heady releases of dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin when people fall into that state of mind, not sane, commonly known as romantic love. People are "made to" fall in love or they "just" fall in love. Married to a wife that belongs to the school “No Sex Please – We’re British,” Charlie says to Kitty, “You were the loveliest little thing I'd seen for years. I just fell madly in love with you. You can't blame me for that.” Passions, don’t you know, out of our control.

Charlie has made Kitty fall in love with his looks and charisma:

He gave her that charming smile of his which she had always found so irresistible. It was a slow smile which started in his clear blue eyes and travelled by perceptible degrees to his shapely mouth. He had small white even teeth. It was a very sensual smile and it made her heart melt in her body.

Yeah, there’s no feeling like that “melting heart” feeling. Kitty tells Charlie that Walter is “awfully in love” with her, which is OK with Charlie, since as, Percy Sledge sang, “loving eyes can never see.” Later Kitty blames her infidelity on Walter by throwing at him "If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers." Not our fault when the love tsunami carries us away to a sordid room in a curio shop on the cheating side of Olde Hong Kong.

Hurt and angry when he inevitably finds out, Walter offers Kitty an either-or. Accompany him while he doctors cholera patients in inland Kwantung province or face a divorce action that will blacken her reputation and end Charlie’s diplomatic career. Kitty assumes that Walter is taking her into an epidemic of cholera because he knows it will kill her. Maybe she’s spot-on though Maugham’s narrator is telling the story from Kitty’s point of view. We are never given to know what makes Walter tick. 

Once in inland Meitanfu, Kitty goes to work in a convent which is caring for girls who were orphaned or abandoned. She feels a distaste for the Chinese children at first but with time and contact:

…And presently, taking in her arms one or other of the tiny creatures, crying because of a fall or a cutting tooth, when Kitty found that a few soft words, though in a language the child could not understand, the pressure of her arms and the softness of her cheek against the weeping yellow face, could comfort and console, she began to lose all her feeling of strangeness. The small children, without any fear of her, came to her in their childish troubles and it gave her a peculiar happiness to discern their confidence. It was the same with the older girls, those to whom she taught sewing; their bright, clever smiles and the pleasure she could give them by a word of praise, touched her. She felt that they liked her and, flattered and proud, she liked them in return.

For the first time in her life she helps other people learn and get better. Kitty uses the coping method we are all too familiar with: the daily ritual of work. In the evening she contemplates the stars, practicing in all innocence the spiritual exercise called “view from above.” These activities give Kitty a wider perspective.

Why could he not realise, what suddenly had become so clear to her, that beside all the terror of death under whose shadow they lay and beside the awe of the beauty which she had caught a glimpse of that day, their own affairs were trivial? What did it really matter if a silly woman had committed adultery and why should her husband, face to face with the sublime, give it a thought? It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion.

Hey, what good is clarifying our values if they can’t explain away love swamping us in a deluge of hanky-panky? A little charity and patience for human nature, please. As corny sage Rick mansplains to Ilsa, "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Kitty has developed her capacity to distance herself from past mistakes and painful events. As she leaves inland Meitanfu she gets into the moment and puts her experience behind her both in space and time:

It seemed to have taken place a long time ago and in a far-off place. It was singular how shadowy the persons of that play seemed against the sunny background of real life. And now it seemed to Kitty like a story that she was reading; it was a little startling that it seemed to concern her so little. She found already that she could not recall with distinctness Waddington's face which had been so familiar to her.

At the end, Kitty lets herself down in Hong Kong. Some will argue Maugham is just being his icy self by making Kitty’s self-discovery and redemption a sham. But Maugham could be implying that though silly Kitty fouls up yet again, she is wiser about what values are important to her and she has developed the tools she needs to deal with failure: helping other people, view from above, and cognitive distancing. 

Much is said about Maugham’s cynical view of human nature. I think he’s just realistic about time and resiliency. Both just happen with little cultivation. They help everybody, especially loosely educated unsophisticated people, spring back from adversity, defeat and loss. And I am old enough - tolerant, I hope - not to confuse his hard-boiled tone for his cheerful thought. He said, “But if to look truth in the face and not resent it when it is unpalatable, and take human nature as you find it, smiling when it is absurd and grieved without exaggeration when it is pitiful, is to be cynical, then I suppose I am a Cynic. Mostly human nature is both absurd and pitiful, but if life has taught you tolerance you find in it more to smile at than to weep.”

On the web: Librivox and Text

European Reading Challenge #8

I read Inspector Montalbano #18 for the European Challenge 2024.

Game of Mirrors – Andrea Camilleri

Set in Sicily in the early 2000s, this police procedural stars the series hero Salvo Montalbano. His appeal is his relatability. He’s getting deeper into middle age, so he can’t run or swim or stay up late like he used to. Plus, his nemesis Dr. Pasquano the coroner rides him obscenely on account of his slipping brain power. In fact, Salvo’s memory seems to be deteriorating, his logic is inappropriate, and his process of decision-making slapdash. He gives in to impulse. He tends to rely on insights garnered from dreams. And when he is stressed by an unwanted duty – like sign paperwork or deal with superiors – he’s apt to kid himself into procrastination or tell outrageous falsehoods to escape the burden.

As I said, relatable: we middle-aged people do not do as Salvo does but we often want to. And we don’t blame him for doing what he does.

Another plus is that in this outing the plot is a little more intricate and tantalizing than the two before The Treasure Hunt and by the numbers Angelica’s Smile. This installment starts with Montalbano investigating who placed bombs to blow up two empty warehouses and who vandalized his pretty neighbor Liliana’s Suzuki.

The investigation leads up to two murders committed so mercilessly that they could have been done only by organized crime and over high-stakes criminal enterprises. An anonymous letter writer succeeds in misleading Montalbano and his trusty subordinates Fazio and Augello. Thus we get the allusion in the title to how funhouse mirrors distort reality to make us conclude the false things we see are true representations of the world. This is a theme the writer liked, being a writer who wrote mysteries, not a mystery writer.

The familiar cast of characters are another attraction. The femme fatale is always a recurring character though her name will change. The subordinates of Inspector Montalbano include the womanizer Augello, mangler of messages Catarella, maddeningly efficient Fazio. His persecutors are martinet police commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi, sex maniac prosecutor Tommaseo, and Salvo’s pugnacious girlfriend Livia. Playing bit parts are Nicolo the journalist, Enzo the restaurateur and, salt of the earth Adelina the housekeeper and cook. Doubtless critical readers will yell Basta at same-old same-old, but we faithful readers feel smart when we identify even tiny variations within a framework that is reassuring in its changelessness.

The last two good points is that Camilleri writes a fast-paced story with lots of dialogue and exposition conducted in paragraphs of not more than three or four sentences. It reads incredibly fast. Finally, the ending takes us back to the Camilleri of the first half-dozen books, with Montalbano taking the roles of judge, jury and executioner, with a pinch of malice and wonder that the ferocity of criminals and delusions of leaders never seem to change.

Click on the title to read the review

The Shape of Water (1994)           The Terra-Cotta Dog (1996)          The Snack Thief  (1996)  Voice of the Violin (1997)              Excursion to Tindari (2000)           The Smell of the Night (2001)      Rounding the Mark (2003)            The Patience of the Spider (2004)              The Paper Moon (2005)  The Wings of the Sphinx (2006)   August Heat  (2009)         The Track of Sand (2010)

The Potter's Field (2011)               The Age of Doubt (2012)               The Dance of the Seagull (2013)  Treasure Hunt (2013)      Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories (2013) Angelica's Smile (2014)   Game of Mirrors (2015)  A Beam of Light (2015)   A Voice in the Night  (2016)          A Nest of Vipers (2017)   The Pyramid of Mud (2018)          Death at Sea (2018)