Random Jottings

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas - a rant

Just over a year ago I had a rant about glossy magazines, you know the type, beautiful couples who have done up a house in the middle of nowhere while living in a caravan on site and "sourcing" furniture from "brocantes" in Provence and driving it home in the Volvo blah blah blah.

Links here if you wish to re-read.

https://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2019/10/random-rant-empowerment-mindfulness-and-all-that-jazz.html

https://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2019/12/a-sustainable-christmas-another-rant.htm

After these rants I decided enough was enough and gave up buying magazines which was quite a wrench as I have always enjoyed their escapism in a mild sort of way but as they were were practically the price of a book with less enjoyable content I did not suffer unduly. I did feel a pang at not buying Good Housekeeping which I have been reading for fifty years and nearly had a wobble and bought a copy early in the year. Fortunately, Clare Balding was on the cover so had no difficulty in avoiding that issue and the following month the front page featured Fiona Bruce so I was safe.

A year has passed (and what a ghastly year it has been) and as it was coming up to the Festive Season (of which more anon) I decided to dip my toe in the water and buy a couple and then immediately wished I hadn't bothered. Nothing has changed. Full of high achieving women guaranteed to make you feel like a lowly worm and houses restored lovingly with antiques and "bargain buys from the High Street" though how they have managed that when the High Street is closed gives pause for thought.

Anyway one of them said that this year is going to be a "simple" Christmas and this particular magazine tells you a couple of useful tips.

"Green table scaping" - yes really. "Create a living table runner using seasonal potted plants such as cyclamen and finish each place setting with a simple wreath".   Just remember to remove it before you start eating...

Warm welcome - "hang garlands of evergreen foliage from bannisters for a fuller look and accessorise them with baubles, twinkling fairy lights and smart ribbons"  Please note thay must be smart so put the crappy stuff away. 

Under this picture you will see that  "the charcoal painted bannisters make the greenery really pop" so if you have them painted a different colour you need to nip out quick get a tin of paint and get cracking. Of course, if you live in an apartment then you need not bother.

I had a bit of a snigger about all this and threw the magazine in the bin thinking what utter crap and what else would be dreamed up for us all in this Year of The Plague.   I opened up my paper and there it was.  The spoof to end all spoofs. Only as I read it I realised it was NOT a spoof, it was real and I read it with open mouthed incredulity.

And what caused this reaction? A pronouncement from SAGE aka the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - Gov. UK.  Now a sage, apart from being a herb you use in stuffing, is a person famed for wisdom and venerated for the possession of judgement and experience.  Never was a group more inaptly named...

They have issued a list of rules for this Christmas which have been met with widespread derision and hoots of laughter, immediately followed by fury at the bone headed attitude displayed by what is obviously a bunch of middle class, overpaid civil servants who have no idea of real life and who probably read glossy magazines.

Here are some of the SAGE suggestions

Put Granny at the end of the table that is nearest the window

WHO is this Granny that is constantly being referred to by the Government?  They seem to think she is a dribbling, grey haired, incontinent old hag who has to be humoured and spoken to loudly and treated like an imbecile. There is never any mention of a Grandad...

Open the WIndows to keep your home as well ventilated as possible.

Yes of course and make sure that Granny is put close to this wide open window. She will probably get pneumonia and die and they will put on her death certificate that she died of Covid thus boosting the figures

Have drinks outside by a fire pit instead of watching TV indoors.

A FIRE PIT? FFS a FIRE PIT?   WHO has a fire pit in their back garden? that is of course if you have a garden. If you live in a flat then you might find this rather difficult. And if you have children I would suggest a fire pit is the last thing you want handy.

Have two Christmas Tables so you can socially distance.

As I said if you have a small house or flat this might be a bit difficult.  I presume if you want extra sprouts you have to lob them across the room so you do not infect each other

Sing Christmas carols at a social distance, FACING THE SAME WAY

Yes folks I suggest you all stand in a row facing the wall and bellowing out God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen. It will give you a laugh if nothing else.

Take your own plates and put them in the dishwasher yourself.

OK so you have sat down with your nearest and dearest, no more than six, and had your dinner and talked and laughed and BREATHED over each other but somehow one person collecting the dishes is going to cause you all to catch the Plague?   And don't forget to get Granny to take her own plate if she hasn't frozen to death.  She will probably be glad of the chance to get warm. .

There is a lot more in the same vein but I really cannot be bothered to rant any more. It is exhausting.  The utter futility of getting your head around the stupid, ludicrous rules and regulations trotted out on a daily basis by our current Government defies belief and they wonder why they are being ignored.

I am spending Christmas with my family. No doubt when I come home I will have to bathe in disinfectant and self isolate in sack cloth and ashes for a month.

I sent this list to my daughter so she could prepare for The Big Day and she emailed me this response:

"We're getting a tent ready for you in the garden mum and will be feeding you Christmas dinner through a long tube"

No doubt if I sent this to SAGE they would think it a pretty good idea........

Agatha Christie's Poirot - Mark Aldridge

When I was eleven years old I was stuck indoors with a case of German measles. I did not feel ill but I was in quarantine and bored witless. My sister, a trainee librarian, was tasked with finding me something to read and she came home one lunch time with a pile of books one of which was Agatha Christie, Ten Little Indians only the it had a more politically incorrect title.....

I read it and was dumbfounded at the ending and when she went back to the library the next day I said bring me as many Christies as you can find and she did and that was that.

Dame Agatha always produced a book at the festive season and A Christie for Christmas was a marketing tool of which we can only dream.   If the author was unable to produce a title then her publishers always had a book of short stories or a compilation to hand so that we were not disappointed. I bought the Agatha every year and in hardback too when they were expensive and ebooks did not exist and as I was a teenager with very little money this shows my devotion in no small measure.

So it makes sense that this wonderful book by Mark Aldridge should be this year’s Christie for Christmas and if you are an aficionado it will not disappoint.

It is a hundred years since the author wrote the very first Poirot book The Mysterious Affair at Styles which first appeared as a newspaper serialisation which was common practice during this era. It took a year before it finally appeared in print in the UK being published in January 2021.  It had been written five years before but it found its audience, was popular and its initial run of 2,000 copies quickly sold out.   Her second title was The Secret Adversary which did not feature any characters from her first book and she soon found that the Belgian detective was ready to solve an even more complex case.   Her publishers were keen “So I went on writing detective stories. I found I couldn’t get out”.

Years later Agatha Christie realised she had made a mistake in presenting Poirot as the age he was in Styles and she also got rather tired of him, but like Mrs Ariadne Oliver with her Finnish detective, she was stuck with him as his popularity was enormous.   In the Mysterious Affair at Styles he was an invalided captain recuperating in the locality which meant he would have to be a middle aged man at the very least. 

Hasting’s description of Poirot is definitive, and it never changes in all of the books in which he is featured.

“He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the same as an egg and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was stiff and military and the neatness of his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound”

This description never changed throughout five decades of cases and by the time Curtain (in which Poirot dies) was published, the general consensus was that he would have been over one hundred years old.

I loved reading this book. For an Agatha fan this is nirvana, cornucopia, a sheer wallow in delight.  The author’s note at the start of the book states that although arranged chronologically it is designed so that you may read it however we choose “cover to cover or dipping into sections”. Well I read it cover to cover over two days and did not, as Mark Aldridge suggests “skip sections that you are less interested in”.  I could not do that as there were none.

So we start with the 1920s and come right up to 2000 and beyond.  Each book is discussed in order with comments on the mystery, the clues, and its solution though the author avoids giving spoilers, a courtesy that I think is probably unnecessary as everybody who buys this book is going to know the solution already.   But best to be on the safe side I suppose in order not to offend any sensibilities.

As well as discussing the books Mark Aldridge discusses the stage versions of her Poirot novels, ditto the various films.   Agatha Christie was usually pretty dissatisfied with the way Poirot was portrayed on screen. Close attention was paid by Agatha’s daughter Rosalind during the filing of the hugely successful Murder on the Orient Express with Albert Finney as Poirot made in 1974 and no rights beyond this one film were granted and this included an emphatic banning of any merchandising. Dame Agatha was not sure about it at all “I hope I shall like it but anyway I have certainly got to go and see it as soon as I have the opportunity even if my feelings should not be as favourable as I would like them to be” she wrote.

Last year Kenneth Branagh essayed a new version of Orient Express and this leads me to the one paragraph of this wonderful book that I totally disagree with, and it is the assertion that “it has always been the hope that Murder on the Orient Express would not be Kenneth Branagh’s only foray into the world of Hercule Poirot”……………………

No thank you.

This book is all every Christie lover could wish for.  Beautifully written, concise, total lack of hyperbole, a keen eye brought to every title and character and obviously written by someone who loves his subject.   It is the go-to book if you wish to double check on a particular title and knowing the background regarding its production and sales when you read does add to the experience.   I can only hope that everybody who thinks Agatha Christie is a remarkable woman and writer will want this in their Christmas stocking.

A Christie for Christmas. How wonderful.

Go buy.

I have not forgotten you

Oh dear the days merge into one as we all suffer lockdown again though I have been going out and about for walks and doing my shopping as per and getting on with things.   I have had a few interesting reads and some nice stuff arrived and will post in due course. I also sharpening my keyboard for a RANT as I feel it is time I let rip again.

In the meantime, here is what I have been doing.....

And I have also been watching tennis, the ATP finals in London, and though it is weird that there is no audience, it has been so good to watch. The final is on tonight and thank the Lord, Rafa and Djoko got knocked out in the semi-finals so we actually have two different players contesting - Thiem and Medmedev .  I do not wish Rafa and Djo ill but gosh I am so tired of watching them and Rafa in particular with his twitching and yanking his shorts out of his backside.

Oh and just to let you know in case you were interested. I have done all my Christmas shopping and am feeling very smug....

Random Ramble

It is a cold dark afternoon and I have revived the custom I instigated last year of spending such afternoons in my Boudoir AKA my bedroom. It is all very comforting and rather cosy and I am writing this on my bed wearing the latest in lounge wear from Marks & Spencer which I have lived in since its arrival (as the spaghetti bol stains down the front will attest to), woolly socks and a snug blanket over me. Propped up with fat pillows and cushions, radio on and laptop to hand, it is all rather hygge'ish.

I have had a question asked of me by many of you, namely, Elaine you have not ranted lately - will there be one soon?

My reply to that is that in the current situation rants are useless and upsetting and there are such bigger things taking place in the world that my reaction to stupidity and cupidity seem rather unimportant.   I could rant about the way the government are being led by the nose by scientists who seem staggeringly unable to see that practically everything they say is incorrect, get pissed off at the media who love scaring us all witless and lots more, but I am not going to.  As I have said before, if one has a platform of any sort, I think you have to be careful about imposing your political thoughts on anybody else. Why would they be interested and it also shows a kind of arrogance in the assumption that anybody wants to know what you think.   So I will try and keep this book and chat orientated today.

I have recently been sent catalogues by the British Library and Oxford University Press with the question Hello Elaine how are you do you want any books in the attached?   I do try and restrain my greed but it is very hard.  So I have sent off copious lists to both with the proviso that they only send me what they can spare and I am terribly sorry if I am asking too much but I do appreciate all you send me.......I always say this because I always feels this way and am amazed when brand new shiny books thunder through my letterbox or pile up in the cupboard by my door.  A sense of gratitude mixed with astonishment really.

I am working my way through a re-read of PD James as I believe I mentioned but have broken off for a while as I do feel that sometimes a binge read can stop you appreciating an author if you overdo it.  I am loving them though. 

I am finding myself reading lighter stuff too as though I have some really interesting books lined up my brain seems to be a bit mushy these days and I do find it hard to concentrate.  With non-fiction you really do need to have the Old Grey Cells working properly in order to review in a decent manner.

And the mention of Little Grey Cells leads me seamlessly into mentioning a wonderful book which the publishers sent me this week - Agatha Christie, Poirot, The Greatest Detective in the Word by Mark Aldridge. It is 100 years since The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published and we all met Poirot and her books are still in print and sell in millions around the world.   This book starts with her writing in the 1920's and comes right up to date and I have started it and feel that I will have no trouble concentrating on this one.

And then a delivery about an hour ago and this was inside the padded envelope A Surprise for Christmas and other seasonal mysteries from the wonderful British Library Classic Crime series.  How I love these books!  Not only for the fascinating content but also for the wonderful covers. This collection of stories is edited, as ever, by Martin Edwards whose knowledge of the Golden Age of Crime never fails to leave me in awe.

I am wondering why books on murder and mystery are of such comfort to me at this time?

I don't think I need an answer to that..................

The Unbearable Bassington by Saki

I read this book several years ago on the recommendation of Simon whose blog Stuck in a Book is full of books that are right up my street and I find that when I read a book on his say so I inevitably enjoy it even if I am not sure at first.

So a new edition of this arrived on my doorstep and I am delighted to have reviewed it for Shiny New Books. The link is below and please do check it out.  I found this book unbearably sad in its final few pages, such a contrast to the glittering Edwardian whirl that had gone before.

My thanks to the lovely peeps at Shiny who let me review for them. Such a joy.

https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-unbearable-bassington-by-saki

Current reading etc

I was sorting out my TBR pile the other day and had a sort out of those I was sent and did not particularly want (charity shop beckons) and those I pass on to friends as I think they may like them and I am not going to read them, and then those which I definitely DO want to read but gawd knows when I will get round to them....you know the drill.

Anyway, here is a round up of read, to be read and will be read but I am not sure when....

Two from the British LIbrary series of Women Writers which is "a curated collection" which description makes me want to spit feathers. "curated" and "shop the edit" are marketing expressions which are now totally overused and incredibly irritating.  If I receive something so described I feel like chucking it in the bin straight away.  Which would be a pity as some of the titles are really interesting.  Father by Elizabeth von Arnim has long been out of print and it is good to have it back. I have a battered old copy on my shelves which I am hanging onto so this new copy will be passed on to a friend.

Jennifer has devoted years of her life to looking after her writer father who is selfish and utterly vile.  He arrives home one day with an adoring acolyte who he announces as his new wife.   When they go off on honeymoon Jennifer seizes the opportunity to do a bunk and make a life of her own.   Witty, funny and delightful and written with that wonderful detached humour that EVA does so well, this is a delight only marred by the ending when I wanted to get hold of Jennifer and bash her up against a brick wall....

Another in this series Tea is so Intoxicating by Mary Essex.  A new tea garden is opened in a country village much to the consternation of the lady of the manor who wants to shut it down. It is run by David who is a rather silly man with a high opinion of himself and is thoroughly irritating.   What was also irritating about this book is the author's penchant for totally unneccesary exclamation marks which are littered throughout and I am not quite sure why.   I have to be honest and say that this was not for me though I have read other reviewers who loved it.  Mary Essex is a pen name for Ursula Bloom who, it seems, was once recognised in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most published female author a fact which fills me with astonishment.   This title is being passed on.

Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford. An epistolary novel novel originally published in 1933. Hilary Fane has just left Edinburgh University and is determined to support herself by her own earnings in London for a year despite the resentment of her rather pompous surgeon fiance.  She finds works as a typist in a London department store (clearly based on Selfridges) and her misfortunes and mistakes and trials and tribulations are written about with wit and style.  She rises through the ranks to work in the library where all attempts at improving the service are met with disapproval by entrenched colleagues.

At first Hilary appears as a tad snobbish with a total ignorance of how the proles live and life comes as a bit of a shock but her natural resilience and good nature see her through. Initially unimpressed with this title by the end I had come to love it and it is staying on my shelves.  As I read it I realised it reminded me in style of E M Delafield which I think is A Good Thing.

In my previous post I said I had been watching the TV and film versions of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by le Carre. I decided I would re-read the book and, once more, found it totally gripping and superbly written.   I then turned to Box88 by Charles Cumming which is a brilliant spy story and very much in the le Carre style. Both Cummin and le Carrie show us what the reality of the intelligence sector is like, no James Bond swanning round in glam locations, but unobtrusive secretive men and women going about their business in a very understated way.  (Personally, I have always wondered how Bond could be a spy seeing as how everyone knew who he was...)

It is 1989 and the Cold War will soon be over, but for BOX 88, a top secret spying agency, the espionage game is heating up. Lachlan Kite, recruited from an elite boarding school, is sent to France, tasked with gathering intelligence on an enigmatic Iranian businessman implicated in the Lockerbie bombing. Lachlan is torn with loyalty to the service that has recruited him and to the friends he is staying with.

It is now 2020: MI5 hear rumours of BOX 88’s existence and investigate Kite only to disover that Iranian intelligence have got to him first. Taken captive and brutally tortured, Kite has a choice: reveal the truth about what happened in France thirty years earlier – or watch his family die.

The Narrative goes backwards and forwards in time, a device which I always find interesting and helps with charactr development. A tight, taut thriller, excellent writing and as good as Cumming's previous spy novels, all of which I have read. There is a cliff hanger ending so more to come and that is also A Good Thing.

Brothers at War - Robert Lacey.   Just published and loving a good gossip I read this with great enjoyment. All about Harry and William and their relationship.   Not all is as it seems as reported by the Press and Lacey seems to have good reliable sources for his facts.  An ongoing saga which will run and run. Various opinions expressed on Ginge and Winge or Cash and Harry as they are sometimes referred to in our fine tabloid press.

OK now onto books awaiting my attention:

Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey.  It is fifty years since this novel was written and I am delighted that Peter is still with us and still writing superb mysteries featuring Inspector Peter Diamond and set in Bath. This is a special anniversary edition and I am delighted to have it.

The Man who didn't fly by Margot Bennett. British Library Crime classic and I know full well that I am going to enjoy this.

The Artful Dickens by John Mullan "the tricks and ploys of the great novelist". As a Dickens fan and having read Mullan on Jane Austen I know this is going to be good and I am looking forward to reading it.

Dressed for War by Julie Summers. I know nothing about this except it is the story of Vogue editor Audrey WIthers from the Blitz to the Swinging Sixties. Sounds promising,

And I have to mention Miss Carter and the Ifrit by Susan Alice Kerby. Miss Carter by an combination of circumstances comes across an Ifrit "don't call him a genie" who is eager to do her bidding.  He brings her exotic foods and whisks her off through space to visit a nephew in Canada.  I am half way through this title and loving it - it reminds me very much of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day published by Persephone some years ago and has the same Cinderella quality. I will reveiw more fully later.   This little gem is published by Dean Street Press who are rapidly becoming my favourite place to find delightful unknown titles.

Well that is enough to keep me going for a bit methinks.

How are you all doing with your reading? Do let me know of any interesting titles and I hope everyone is keeping well in these trying times.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John le Carre

I mentioned in my last post that I had been watching the tv series which the BBC made over forty years ago.  It holds up very well indeed.  I had been reading a novel by Charles Cumming, Box 88 of which more anon, and it was very much in the mould of the Smiley novels of le Carre and made me seek this series out once more.

I found myself totally absorbed as I watched the story unfold. I now know it well but I remember when I first saw Tinker Tailor I watched it with my then husband and we both found it very complicated. It was shown on a Saturday and on the Friday evening the BBC repeated the previous episode as a reminder (this was pre video days remember) and we watched it to refresh our memory before then embarking on the next one. 

I found the terminology used by The Circus fascinating. There were "lamplighters" and "scalp hunters", names for the lower echelons while those on the top floor left them to do the grubby and dirty work.   The Circus has a source in Moscow "Merlin" and his intelligence was called "witchhunter" and there was a lot of lurking around in drab safehouses and hotel rooms.  One feels that this is how intelligence work operates with a lack of glamour and all rather drab, unlike the world of James Bond.

So I watched all the episodes and, once again, found I could not stop watching.  Some of the music is intrusive and overdone but most of the scenes where a discussion is taking place and you see the layers of treachery being peeled away have no background music at all and all the better for it.  It is "wordy" in the best sense of the word, a superb script and when spoken by the likes of Alec Guinness and Ian Richardson, it is pure joy.  Radio 4 did an adaptation of it some time back with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley and an actor of that stature rendered it wonderful to listen to.

I have to mention the theme music Nunc Dimittis composed by Geoffrey Burgon.  It was perfect and quite haunting. Having just heard it I find it hard to get it out of my head.  Here is a Youtube clip to listen to:

 

Today was a rainy cold day and after my morning walk I sat down with my toast and coffee and watched the film made some five years ago and starring Gary Oldman as Smiley. I remember seeing it in the cinema on the day of its release and wondering what it would be like and if it would compare to this series.  I need not have wondered as it was excellent and, once more, acting of the highest order.   As well as Oldman we had Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Ciaran HInds, Mark Strong and assorted British thesps.

It has made me want to read the book again and I searched in vain on my shelves and so by the wonder that is Kindle I downloaded a copy and will be taking a look at it in the coming week.

There are several books by le Carre featuring Smiley and I have read them all, but Tinker Tailor is the stand out one as far as I am concerned and I am looking forward to tackling it once more.

The BBC also did a second series, Smiley's People and I intend to watch that again as well.  With things the way they are at the moment and the winter coming in, it is good to have something as good as this ready to keep me happy.

I am away for a few days now and will be reviewing my recently read when I return.

 

Random Ramble

Hello to all my lovely followers/readers and, once again, time has passed and I have not posted. I am unable to fathom out why as I have time to do so as we all have at the moment, but I am finding it quite difficult to get motivated each day as they merge into one doom laden one after the other.

That makes me sound miserable and lacking oomph but I promise you I am not.  I am determined not to let things get on top of me and to live my life as normally as I can. 

So what have I been doing? A lot of reading and my next post will be an update on those read and those currently on my heap awaiting my attention. As per, there are quite a few.

One book I have just finished and will be writing about is Box88 by Charles Cumming, a taut immensely satisfying spy story, more in the le Carre mode than, say Ian Fleming and much more believable.  It is no coincidence that after finishing this I started watching the BBC series of Tinker Tailor starring the simply superb Alec Guinness as George Smiley.  It is over forty years old and yet, watching it last night, I was finding it as fresh as ever. OK the picture is "square" on the tv we all have today and some of the colours look slightly odd, but the script and the acting are superb. I know the story very well and so there are no suprises but what I love about it is the fact that it is, for want of a better word, "wordy". There are so many scenes where the characters sit and discuss and talk and unpeel the layers of treachery and it is totally absorbing.  And oh the delight of watching all the British thesps of long ago strutting their stuff. Wonderful.   I am half way through and had to turn off as I was aware it was nearly midnight and if I had carried on it would have been 3 am before I finished.   So tonight I shall watch the last few episodes. I remember when I first watched it my then husband and I would sit and discuss the ins and outs and decipher what was going on.

And the film, with Gary Oldman as Smiley which came out a while back is also very good.

OK I am rambling but it is 7 am and I have been awake for a couple of hours, I find I need less sleep these days, and so decided to sit down and write to you all.  I would love to hear how you are getting on and what you are doing and reading and surviving. I have turned into a jigsaw fiend this year after a long time of not doing any at all and here are a couple of pics of those I have finished.

 

They are pure nostalgia and lovely and delightful and I really enjoy doing them. Sometimes I will get up to go to bed and then think I will just put one more piece in.  Two hours later...

Back soon, I promise...

Anne Bronte - Happy Birthday

It is 200 years since Anne was born - it was in January 1820 so my birthday thoughts are somewhat late.  This year we were due to have a visit by Nick Holland, author of a superb biography of Anne, at the Felixstowe Book Festival but that never happened as along with other festivals, it had to be cancelled.

I was looking forward to his talk very much as I love Anne and think she is under appreciated and in this video I try to explain why.

I know some of you have difficulty with the sound of the videos which are filmed on my ipad and I tried to record this on my laptop. Unfortunately the video quality is not good and I looked like Morticia Adams so I reverted back to the ipad.  I have ordered a  microphone as the last one I had was useless so, let us hope next time is better.

In the meantime I do hope you enjoy listening and please leave thoughts and comments.

 

 

P D James- An Appreciation

Just recently I have been rediscovering Josephine Tey and I had forgotten what a wonderful writer she was. It is difficult to convey the sheer pleasure of such lucid, elegant and seamless prose which makes reading such a joy.  It is no surprise that after this rediscovery I decided to return to another writer whose writing falls into the same category as Tey, the kind of writing which flows, seemingly so easily, not a extraneous verb, adverb, comma or full stop. 

I came late to PD James, picking up one of her books at a book fair for 50p years ago and thinking that it looked interesting.  It was A Taste for Death and opened with the discovery of two bodies in a church in London, both with their throats cut, one of them being a Cabinet Minister who had recently resigned from the Government. So an intriguing premise.

I should have read the books in order but I never do, I just grab them when I see them but last week I read her first Dalgliesh Cover her Face (if I remember rightly this is a quote from the Duchess of Malfi and Agatha Christie uses it in Sleeping Murder.  I am just showing off here.....).

This title was published in 1962 and it has dated somewhat with class distinction a central theme. The victim, Sally Jupp, is an unmarried mother and, of course, back then such a person was regarded as a pariah.  While I feel PD James wants to feel sympathy with her she does portray Sally as a sly manipulative piece of work and her murder hardly comes as a surprise.  But this was the first in the Dalgliesh series and as the author became more certain of her ground and her characters they grow and expand.

A Certain Justice was next. Venetia Aldridge, QC is a distinguished barrister with a knack of arousing dislike in her colleagues and friends.  Her fierce drive to be the best and her ambition has led to an estrangement from her daughter and conflict with her fellow barristers in Chambers.  On the retirement of the current Head of Chambers, Venetia will take over, an event that is not greeted with any joy by Dyysdale Laud, who thinks it should be him, by the Clerk Harold Naughton who Venetia wish to be rid of and replace with an office manager, by the timid secretary who Venetia despises and other colleague who wish her ill.  Venetia's intolerance and impatience with them all is exacerbated by the crisis with her daughter Olivia who has become engaged to a young man, Ashe, who Venetia has just defended in a murder case.  He was acquitted because of her brilliant defence but it is clear that he is guilty.  For the first time in her life Venetia is powerless to act.  No surprise then that she is the victim.

The Private Patient was the last Dalgliesh and I think it is one of her best.

Rhoda Gradwyn is an investigative journalist, who has booked into a private clinic for the removal of a disfiguring scar on her face, inflicted upon her by a drunken father during her unhappy childhood. She has kept this scar as a badge of her determination not to let life defeat her, but now feels it is time to rid herself of this unsightly mark and to face up to her past.  She is looking forward to a successful operation and a convalescence at the beautiful manor house in Dorset which is the clinic's headquarters. 

Her operation takes place, all is well and she settles down to sleep in her bedroom.  In the middle of the night she awakes, she knows somebody is in the room and looking up she sees a dark masked figure coming towards her....

Dalgliesh and his team are called in and there follows the usual complex, beautifully plotted narrative which leads us to a denouement which is not quite the end of the story, as there is an added twist in the final chapter which is not totally cleared up, leaving the reader to wonder.

I remember posting on this some years ago and highlighted this paragraph which is so beautifully descriptive and made me feel in great sympathy with Rhoda and I insert it here again with no apology for so doing:

"Eight years ago she had taken a lease on a house in the City, part of a narrow terrace in a small courtyard at the end of Absolution Alley near Cheapside, and knew as soon as she moved in that this was the part of London in which she would always choose to live........many generations had lived in it, born and died there leaving behind nothing but their names on browning and archaic leases.........although the lower rooms with their mullioned windows were dark, those in her study and sitting room on the top storey were open to the sky, giving a view of the towers and steeples of the City....an iron staircase led from a narrow balcony to secluded roof which held a row of terracotta pots and where on fine Sunday mornings she would sit with her books or newspapers as the Sabbath calm lengthened into midday and the early peace was broken only by the familiar peals of the City bells"

I found myself liking Rhoda, probably because I too find it essential to find time to myself and to be on my own.  We are given the background to Rhoda's life and how she was scarred; her friends, not many, she was essentially solitary person, her desire to finally come to terms with her disfigurement.  Not necessarily an immediately lovable character but PD James tells us enough about her that we feel sadness that her life came to a sudden end and, what is worse, knowing in her last few minutes, that this was it, this was death coming towards her....

Brilliant.

In the last two weeks I have read Death of an Expert Witness, Death in Holy Orders and have now embarked on The Lighthouse.   It has been so long since I read them that I had actually forgotten the identity of the murderer though a glimmer of memory towards the end of one of them alerted me. One I had so forgotten it was a wonderful surprise to discover Who Dun It if that is an appropriate description. Perhaps not...

I still have another eight or nine to re-read and am looking forward to enjoying them all over again. Today is a windy, wind and leaf swept autumn day and is just perfect for staying indoors, keeping warm and reading.

Adam Dalgleish is in the tradition of elegant, fastidious detectives from Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn to Sayers Lord Peter, vulnerable and at times capable of great sensitivity.  Odd how the British detectives (I count Ngaio Marsh as British as the vast majority of her stories are set in England), despite multiple murders and gory details, manage to maintain this air of tea on the lawn, and servants in the kitchen below stairs, even though Adam certainly doesn't fit into that category.

 

Difficult to convey to you just how much I love her writing. The word mellifluos comes to mind the definition of which is  "(of a sound) pleasingly smooth and musical to hear".  Reading her prose and hearing it in your inward ear this description is perfect. Here is an example of her writing which I hope shows what I am trying to say in my muddled way:

 

"London had laid its spell on him and though his love affair with the city, as with all loves, had had its moments of disillusion, disappointment and threatened infidelity, the spell had remained ..... the panorama beneath him never failed to enchant. He saw it always as an artefact, sometimes a coloured lithograph in the delicate shades of a spring morning, sometimes a pen and ink drawing, every spire, every tower, every tree lovingly delineated, sometimes an oil, strong and vigorous. Tonight it was a psychedilic water colour, splashes of scarlet and grey latering the blue black of the night sky, the streets running with molten red and green as the traffic lights changed, the buildings with their squares of white windows pasted like coloured cut outs against the backcloth of the night"

 

Isn't that just perfect?

 

PS at the moment many of these titles are on Kindle at a silly price - do take advantage!

 

 

 

 

The Private Patient was the last Dalgliesh and I think it is one of her best.

Rhoda Gradwyn is an investigative journalist, who has booked into a private clinic for the removal of a disfiguring scar on her face, inflicted upon her by a drunken father during her unhappy childhood. She has kept this scar as a badge of her determination not to let life defeat her, but now feels it is time to rid herself of this unsightly mark and to face up to her past.  She is looking forward to a successful operation and a convalescence at the beautiful manor house in Dorset which is the clinic's headquarters. 

Her operation takes place, all is well and she settles down to sleep in her bedroom.  In the middle of the night she awakes, she knows somebody is in the room and looking up she sees a dark masked figure coming towards her....

Dalgliesh and his team are called in and there follows the usual complex, beautifully plotted narrative which leads us to a denouement which is not quite the end of the story, as there is an added twist in the final chapter which is not totally cleared up, leaving the reader to wonder.

I remember posting on this some years ago and highlighted this paragraph which is so beautifully descriptive and made me feel in great sympathy with Rhoda and I insert it here again with no apology for so doing:

"Eight years ago she had taken a lease on a house in the City, part of a narrow terrace in a small courtyard at the end of Absolution Alley near Cheapside, and knew as soon as she moved in that this was the part of London in which she would always choose to live........many generations had lived in it, born and died there leaving behind nothing but their names on browning and archaic leases.........although the lower rooms with their mullioned windows were dark, those in her study and sitting room on the top storey were open to the sky, giving a view of the towers and steeples of the City....an iron staircase led from a narrow balcony to secluded roof which held a row of terracotta pots and where on fine Sunday mornings she would sit with her books or newspapers as the Sabbath calm lengthened into midday and the early peace was broken only by the familiar peals of the City bells"

I found myself liking Rhoda, probably because I too find it essential to find time to myself and to be on my own.  We are given the background to Rhoda's life and how she was scarred; her friends, not many, she was essentially solitary person, her desire to finally come to terms with her disfigurement.  Not necessarily an immediately lovable character but PD James tells us enough about her that we feel sadness that her life came to a sudden end and, what is worse, knowing in her last few minutes, that this was it, this was death coming towards her....

Brilliant.

In the last two weeks I have read Death of an Expert Witness, Death in Holy Orders and have now embarked on The Lighthouse.   It has been so long since I read them that I had actually forgotten the identity of the murderer though a glimmer of memory towards the end of one of them alerted me. One I had so forgotten it was a wonderful surprise to discover Who Dun It if that is an appropriate description. Perhaps not...

I still have another eight or nine to re-read and am looking forward to enjoying them all over again. Today is a windy, wind and leaf swept autumn day and is just perfect for staying indoors, keeping warm and reading.

Adam Dalgleish is in the tradition of elegant, fastidious detectives from Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn to Sayers Lord Peter, vulnerable and at times capable of great sensitivity.  Odd how the British detectives (I count Ngaio Marsh as British as the vast majority of her stories are set in England), despite multiple murders and gory details, manage to maintain this air of tea on the lawn, and servants in the kitchen below stairs, even though Adam certainly doesn't fit into that category.

 

Difficult to convey to you just how much I love her writing. The word mellifluos comes to mind the definition of which is  "(of a sound) pleasingly smooth and musical to hear".  Reading her prose and hearing it in your inward ear this description is perfect. Here is an example of her writing which I hope shows what I am trying to say in my muddled way:

 

"London had laid its spell on him and though his love affair with the city, as with all loves, had had its moments of disillusion, disappointment and threatened infidelity, the spell had remained ..... the panorama beneath him never failed to enchant. He saw it always as an artefact, sometimes a coloured lithograph in the delicate shades of a spring morning, sometimes a pen and ink drawing, every spire, every tower, every tree lovingly delineated, sometimes an oil, strong and vigorous. Tonight it was a psychedilic water colour, splashes of scarlet and grey latering the blue black of the night sky, the streets running with molten red and green as the traffic lights changed, the buildings with their squares of white windows pasted like coloured cut outs against the backcloth of the night"

 

Isn't that just perfect?

 

PS at the moment many of these titles are on Kindle at a silly price - do take advantage!

Adam Dalgleish is in the tradition of elegant, fastidious detectives from Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn to Sayers Lord Peter, vulnerable and at times capable of great sensitivity.  Odd how the British detectives (I count Ngaio Marsh as British as the vast majority of her stories are set in England), despite multiple murders and gory details, manage to maintain this air of tea on the lawn, and servants in the kitchen below stairs, even though Adam certainly doesn't fit into that category.

 

Difficult to convey to you just how much I love her writing. The word mellifluos comes to mind the definition of which is  "(of a sound) pleasingly smooth and musical to hear".  Reading her prose and hearing it in your inward ear this description is perfect. Here is an example of her writing which I hope shows what I am trying to say in my muddled way:

 

"London had laid its spell on him and though his love affair with the city, as with all loves, had had its moments of disillusion, disappointment and threatened infidelity, the spell had remained ..... the panorama beneath him never failed to enchant. He saw it always as an artefact, sometimes a coloured lithograph in the delicate shades of a spring morning, sometimes a pen and ink drawing, every spire, every tower, every tree lovingly delineated, sometimes an oil, strong and vigorous. Tonight it was a psychedilic water colour, splashes of scarlet and grey latering the blue black of the night sky, the streets running with molten red and green as the traffic lights changed, the buildings with their squares of white windows pasted like coloured cut outs against the backcloth of the night"

 

Isn't that just perfect?

 

PS at the moment many of these titles are on Kindle at a silly price - do take advantage!