Philobiblon

Literary types like to dismiss genre fiction as pure formula, yet judging by the number of published novels that are near- (or all too frequently far-) misses, a detective novel is as difficult to write well as any other.

I was musing on this after reading C.J. Sansom’s Dark Fire, the second in what looks likely to be a long series featuring a hunchback lawyer, Matthew Shardlake, who’s navigating the hazardous political/religious waters of the later years of Henry VIII’s reign with Cromwell (no the other one) as his patron.

Having enjoyed the first in the series, Dissolution, I was keen to pick up this one, but finished it feeling vaguely dissatisfied (although I did read it through in one session, so it was good enough).

Analysing why, I decided that Sansom has got it 75 per cent right. The characters are excellent – Matthew is an interesting, complex central figure, with believable sensitivities about his hunchback and a plausible back story, and there are colourful minor characters, particularly the apothecary Moor who is his best friend and, in this second book, an important character.

The historical setting is, so far as I can tell, well researched, and it only occasionally intrudes in a way that suggests the author couldn’t resist including this detail, without literary reason.

The plots too fairly rolic along, in a way that demands you keep reading, and have the sort of neatness and fairness that fiction demands and real life almost never delivers. (So in Dark Fire an orphan girl who is accused of murder is kept safe and finally, rightly freed, when anyone who knows anything about “justice” of the time knows she wouldn’t have had a hope. But fair enough: our 21st-century minds demand right triumph, in a way that would have been seen as hopelessly naive in the 16th century.)

What isn’t right is the language, and the detail of the writing. “Lay off the weather!” I feel like yelling at Sansom at regular intervals. And he hasn’t really got the “show not tell” rule. e.g. in Dissolution: “As I passed down Ludgate Hill, I noticed a stall brimming with apples and pears and, feeling hungry, dismounted to buy some.”. Drop the “feeling hungry”, please. Why else would you?

Overall Sansom does a pretty good job of avoiding anachronism, while using basically modern language (I’m not a great fan of the “thee, thou” school of historical writing – you can’t write “in period” because we wouldn’t understand it, and using such dressing is like those home improvement shows that turn a suburban dining room into a medieval hall with a bit of plywood and paint.)

But it is funny how odd words grate: Matthew refers sometimes to his “condition”, sometimes others refer to him as a “cripple”, both of which seem fair enough, but sometimes he is thinking of his “disability” – I’m not sure exactly why, but this just seems too modern a word.

Reading such fiction makes you realise how little we really know about the details of historical life. I’d question, although I can’t cite sources why, whether Matthew and his sidekick in the first novel would really have changed into nightshirts to sleep (which becomes significant in the plot) – surely, particularly when staying at a rough country inn, they would have slept in their day clothes.

Then Matthew in Dark Fire is forever saddling his horse to ride a mile or so across London. I think of Pepys, rather later of course, but he used to walk down to Rochester, and all across London. Given the difficulty of finding somewhere for the horse at the other end would not Matthew have walked?

Still, will I buy the next in the series? Probably.

My name using Egyptian Hieroglyphs!

Script by

Prompted by the fact that I’m about to throw out the T-shirt that I got embroidered with my name on it in Egypt … yes, I know, the things you do when travelling that you wouldn’t dream of normally. (And the odd thing is, the two versions are almost identical – when they could have embroidered anything on the T-shirt and I wouldn’t have known the difference.)

(Via Liberty Street.)

* Exciting news: an (almost) complete poem of Sappho has been reconstructed (from 3rd-century BC mummy wrappings). And it’s lovely.

Again I find myself wondering why it is that it is always women’s work that disappears, particularly Sappho’s, when she was so important to the ancient world. I suppose in this case we should blame medieval monks and the Arabic libraries, which we must thank for the survival of so many other texts.

* From the same issue of the TLS, a fascinating historical background to the Make Poverty History campaign, starting from the development of the idea that this might be possible – it really is a short history.

* Why are the poor in America apparently happy to give to the rich? What can you call it but false consciousness? This article has a sophisticated analysis of the problem.

* An excellent round-up of the state of the field: Ralph E Luker’s history of history blogging.

* I’m currently trying, for the second time around, to enter academia via an OU tutoring job, so I’ve noted this collection of essay criticism for possible future use. (I’d appreciate tips from anyone who’s successfully negotiated the application system.)

*Finally, for a bit of fun, plug yourself into the Buttafly Starbucks Oracle. Learn your personality type from your order! (Via Feministe.)

… I note that my Emily Hahn review has been chosen as a Blogcritics pick of the week. (Thanks Pat.)

This brings me to muse on another point – a discussion on Blogcritics about my Femme Fatales produced the statistic (which I can’t vouch for) that there are only seven women posting there (and many, many more men).

As the name suggests, it is primarily but not exclusively, a site to post reviews. (There are also “culture” and “politics” sections on which you can post just about anything.)

You are welcome simply to cross-post items from your own blog, and it is a great way for increasing traffic and your personal web of contacts. (For example posts appear on Google News.) But you don’t have to post everything on your blog; I tend to post mostly reviews, and not more personally centred stuff.

The reviews tend to be of fairly popular items, but I’ve had a good reaction to posts on academic books covering topics of general interest. (And there is also an email list through which you can ask for free review items.)

So if you even occasionally review books/films/music etc, or you would like your political or cultural musings to have a wider audience, why not join? – particularly if you can help to redress the gender imbalance! (More here.)

Finally, after too long a break, to the theatre last night. I thought The -Countess would be an excellent encore to the season’s other pre-Raphaelite play, Earthly Delights and it did work out quite well. Together they send a message that if you were a woman at the time, the approach of any handsome young pre-Raphaelite should make you run in the other direction just as fast as your crinoline would let you.

The Countess hasn’t been particularly well reviewed, see for example the Guardian’s and Telegraph’s verdicts.

The publicity outside the theatre too doesn’t do it any favours, suggesting something suitable for a stereotypical maiden aunt, while in fact the themes, if not the language, would demand a broadminded one.

And it is curious that this production seems to have been a roaring success in New York, because it does suffer from a curious lack of intellectual sophistication. The set is plain tacky – fibreglass rocks and curiously literal railway stations, and two much of the first act set right at the back of the stage – and the staging, well, horribly, unnecessarily, stagey.

Alison Pargeter as Effie is definitely the star of the show; the two men OK if not spectacular and the minor character parts very well done.

But, as they say, the play’s the thing, and this is a not-half-bad portrayal of a psychologically abusive relationship, based quite closely, it seems, on the accounts of the time. The story goes that John Ruskin was unable to consumate his marriage because he was put off by finding on his wedding night that his wife had hair on her body – his image of womanhood being entirely formed by white marble statues – and he then proceeded, with the help of his horrible parents, to try to send her mad, or at least present her as such to the world.

He also thrust her into the arms of other men, finally the painter John Millais, for whom she left him, sueing for an annulment on the basis of non-consumation. (For a sociologist’s view of the effects on Ruskin, see here.)

In a scandal-obsessed age, it seems to have been one of the really good ones.

The play focuses on the time the threesome spent in the highlands – hence the fibreglass rocks, and lots of “rain effects”, and their return to London. It suffers a little from the fact that most of the audience will know the ending – and if they don’t a print on display in the bar will give it away, but some of the dialogue and the stage chemistry partially redeems it – this is the first sexy hair-cutting scene I’ve seen.

Had I paid for a full price £30-plus ticket I might have felt a bit cheated, but since only the stalls are open, my £10 ticket got me in the front row. That did require a bit of neck craning, but certainly got me close to the action, including the odd shower as plaids were shaken out in accompaniment with the rain soundtrack.

You can see what I mean by a “literal” production.

A quick update on the case of Zach, the gay teenager whose story I mentioned a couple of days ago. It seems the organisation holding him captive is being investigated for child abuse. Via Republic of T.

Now I’m as much a sucker for a nice revisionist history as the next person … everyone else has got it wrong, but here’s the TRUTH … but I was puzzled by the reception in the London press of Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.

The reviews seem to have swallowed it hook, line and sinker: everyone thought he was a great leader, but now it has been shown he was a pathological psychopath with no special skills or outstanding qualities. See for example The Times and The Telegraph. Now you might argue those are right-wing sources, but theGuardian is only slightly more critical.

Blood & Treasure provides an essential critical corrective.

Where are all the female bloggers? Here, in my weekly top ten.

I had been planning after the first ten weeks to start including bloggers who’d made the list before, but the excitement of collecting 100 women bloggers has gone to my head, and I’ve decided now to go for 200.

This seems to have been a family-orientated week. This Fish Needs a Bicycle has been thinking about how her sister was really there for her when she needed it, while Why not- right says thanks to “the best daddy in the world” and Purple Elephants Corner is combining celebrating the summer solstice and her wedding anniversary with a spot of novel-writing.

On the political side of family, Amy Loves Books explains her decision to put her children into a “inner-city, poverty-stricken, low-performing elementary school”, leaping into a raging international (or at least Western) debate, while This woman’s work is agonising over the issue of international adoption.

Familial links can be chosen, of course, and Ellen has been musing on the importance of the global email village to her life, and the vulnerability of the email list to the sad, the mad, or the ugly.

Turning overtly political, Ginger on LHLS ponders the question: “Did bushco really invade Iraq to keep the oil flowing or did they do it because they’re really insane? Or both?”

Then, in a post to which I can only say YES, Philoillogica deconstructs much of the popular journalism directed at women.

On a lighter note, Sarah on
It’s Not Rocket Science Peeps is lamenting phone callers who waste your time for no particular reason. (Not for the easily offended.)

And Pewari’s prattle says “you know you’re going a bit overboard with foodiness when … ”
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The list of the first 100.

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Please, if you’re impressed by something by a female blogger in the next week – particularly by someone who doesn’t yet get a lot of traffic – tell me about it, in the comments here, or by email.

I found myself musing on waking this morning, somewhat earlier than intended, on the appropriate collective noun for a collection of jackhammers: a “rattle of”, or a “pound of” perhaps?

Working nights has its advantages, but learning just how often they dig up the roads is not among them.

* Surely in litiguous America someone could sue to free a captive 16-year-old boy? Zach has been forced by his parents into a camp to “turn” him from gay to straight. Read the details – female inmates are forced to shave their underarms and legs twice a week. It is hard to think of a worse case of psychological child abuse.

* In Britain, liberty is being attacked by a “religious hatred” bill that will provide one particular set of beliefs with an astonishing degree of protection from criticism. (Replace “religion” with “communism” and see what you think … what’s the difference?) Ephems of BLB sets out the issue.

* There was a lot more to Helen Keller than her work with the blind, yet memories of her have become one-dimensional, a fate she shares with many other famous women, this article argues.

* It is very US-orientated, but then we are all “publishing” in the US, so this Legal Guide for Bloggers is well worth a read.

The problem with unpacking and sorting books is that it is so easy to get distracted.
(I’m supposed to be replacing a lightfitting just now, so that I can hoist up the left-over laminate boards to a shelf in the storeroom, but I just have to record this before I switch off the power …)

“The Committee are directed to investigate the circumstances under which Harriet Walters met her death, 12th June last, at the age of 17.
Her History as an Enamel Worker
She lived with her grandparents in rather poor circumstances at Sedgley. She entered the enamel works of Messrs Ralph & Jordan at Bilston, at the age of 16, in 1892, working as a brusher, and was there for six months.
From the foregoing Report it will be seen that the brushing department is the one where most danger exists in enamelling works.
The distance between her home and the enamelling works at Bilston is about three miles, which distance the girl had to walk in all weathers, in addition to which she had to stand practically all day, stooping over the plate upon which she was engaged, and brushing off this deleterious powder.
In January 1893 she entered Messrs Orme, Evans and Company’s works at Wolverhampton, where she also worked at brushing, the distance she had to work to and from her work being about the same as in her previous employment. Here she worked up to 5th June, on which day she felt so ill she asked the foreman to be allowed to go home. This she was permitted to do, and she accordingly walked back to Sedgley in the company of a fellow worker.
On the 6th she was first seen by Mr Ballenden, who attended her and prescribed for her until her death. This occurred rather suddenly on the 12th June…

The Committee’s Finding
The Committee agreed that she died of lead poisoning … They further believe that her death was accelerated by a persistence in the practice … of walking from Sedgley to Wolverhampton, a distance of three miles, without having tasted food, and of then working till the dinner hour, for, although the employers provided milk at one time, the milk was discontinued when the special rules were issued necessitating the supply of acid drink.
By this means the deceased got into a very low state of health, with great anaemia and constant want of appetite. The result was that, when attacked by lead poisoning, she had no reserve of health with which to resist it. Since the death of this girl the firm have recommenced the supply of milk at 11am….
The Committee found that the respirator in use at the time of Harriet Walter’s death was in reality a common handkerchief. It is probably that in the extreme heat of last May and June the younger and more inexperienced workers would take many opportunities of slipping these off.”
From: report from the Departmental Committee on the Various Lead Industries, C7239 (1983) pp. 20-21; P.P 1893/4, vol 17, reprinted in Human Documents of the Age of the Forsytes, E. Royston Pike, Victorian Book Club, Newton Abbot, 1972, pp. 258-9.

Those who lament compensation rights of today might like to ponder their importance.

Emily Hahn, on whom I posted yesterday, writes of a British Museum (library) reader she identifies only as Miss Stuart, who the writer saw on her first day at the museum (which must be late Twenties or very early Thirties).

“”She rode past me on a bicycle, through the opening in the great iron railings and across the courtyard …. She had a jaunty manner … but there was more than that to be noticed about Miss Stuart. On a cold, raw, dark day in January, in an era when women never wore bifurcated clothing for anything but the most drastic activities, she was attired in very short running shorts, a cotton sweater without sleeves, and socks … (p. 127)

After the war, Miss Stuart’s costume “is covered, winter and summer, by a frayed macintosh … and she now wears a hat as well – a thing like a basket pulled down over her straying, pepper-and-salt hair”.

And she has also got a bit strange …

Hahn is told another reader saw her spitting.
“She would spit on a page, then turn it over and spit on the next. She was very careful not to miss a single page…”

The book was Lives of the Popes, and when this neighbouring reader reported her an attendant came, saying: “Now Miss Stuart, you know you aren’t to do that. You’ve been told before.” As she was led away, Miss Stuart hissed “Papist spy” at the informant. (p. 136-7).

I don’t suppose anyone knows any more about “Miss Stuart”?