Reay Tannahill. Sex in History (1980)

     Reay Tannahill. Sex in History (1980) A nicely done survey of sexual customs and practices from as far back as they can be inferred from archaeological data up to the 1970s. Tannahill notes that through most of recorded history women were oppressed and sex was controlled. Even in the most libertine eras, there were strict limits on what was permissible, and usually a barrier between public and private behaviours.
     The great change from pagan (Roman) practices and early Christian ones came about because of St. Augustine and St. Jerome’s hang-ups. Both men were terrified of women and sex. This prompted them to misread Paul’s comments, easy enough to do, since Paul himself was somewhat ambivalent about the place and value of sex. He accepted the Jewish tradition of sex as a sacred duty and joy within marriage, but also approved of celibacy (an un-Jewish concept), mostly, it seems, because of the disgust aroused by the libertine Romans. Christians were to live a pure life, which meant one as unlike the Romans as possible.
     Sex inevitably includes marriage and family, and that’s the nexus of social and legal control. Marriage has always been seen as a duty and a means of controlling property. Ironically, the Christian emphasis on limiting sex to marriage in the long run strengthened the family as a personal relationship, so that we’ve now arrived at the stage where people see no connection between duty and marriage. Women are somewhat less oppressed now than they were 30 years ago. Young women take it for granted that they can do what they want, and “domestic violence” is not only no longer accepted, there is a determined effort to at least minimise it. That is of course in the West. In most of the world, females are still considered the less important sex. *** (2010)

Sue Grafton. K is for Killer (1994)

     Sue Grafton. K is for Killer (1994) It’s hard to believe that Grafton’s books are set in the early 90s. The only clue is the absence of computers, which have changed ways of doing things faster than any prior technology. They are the most disruptive technology ever invented. (I just read a gloomy comment on Arizona’s anti-immigration law, sponsored and supported by white Republican males with close connections to the Tea Party, which itself could not grow so fast so quickly without the internet.)
     Anyhow, Kinsey Millhone investigates a ten-month old murder, which was motivated by money, graft, and political corruption. The story is nicely twisty, with a couple of plausible suspects cleared one fact at a time. A crime boss, who had intended to marry the victim on the day she was murdered, wants Kinsey to pass on the identity of the murderer, which she does, because although she knows who he is, she doesn’t have the evidence to convict him. Kinsey realises that her desire for vengeance overcomes her respect for the law and due process. In a way this was foreshadowed by the story’s setting, almost exclusively at night.
     Grafton as usual delivers the goods; A well plotted tale, interesting characters, and sufficient atmosphere to produce plausibility. ***
(2010)

Eric Wright. Death of a Hired Man (2001)

     Eric Wright. Death of a Hired Man (2001) The second Mel Pickett story. He’s now married to Charlotte (Wright’s time lines are wonky, they don’t match Buried in Stone, the first Pickett story), and they spend time in both Toronto and Larch River.
     A man who rented Pickett’s cabin for a nominal sum is found murdered. Pickett is convinced he himself was the intended victim. A strait-laced couple connected to the victim provides plausible red herrings, and a string of robberies divert the investigation. Pickett wants to ensure his property goes to his “granddaughter”, and proposes to adopt her father, his supposed son, who wants to meet him. Mel and Charlotte are still working out their relationship, a process nicely observed by Wright. All in all, a well done novel, engaging enough that I wish Wright had written more Mel Pickett stories. I’m still looking for the last Charlie Salter book. Wright’s books would make very nice TV series. *** (2010)

Grace Paley. The Little Disturbances of Man (1959)

     Grace Paley. The Little Disturbances of Man (1959) Paley’s first collection of short stories. She’s a master of impersonation. Her first person narratives are completely believable. They are single mothers, grifters, nice middle class girls and women and occasionally men, children trying to make sense of the adults around them, lonely men and women looking for love and unable to let down the defences that imprison them.
    The tales have the ring of truth: the Wikipedia entry says they are semi-autobiographical. I infer that Paley was a superbly accurate observer, the kind on whom nothing is lost, and had a phenomenal memory for detail. She also was able to imagine herself into someone else’s life, a rare gift. Most of us most of the time have trouble enough imagining ourselves in different circumstances.
     One consequence of Paley’s art is a willingness to suspend judgement. Someone once said that to know all is to forgive all. Paley’s stories go a long way to proving the truth of that saying. ****

Johnny English (2004)

     Johnny English (2004) [D; Peter Howitt. Rowan Atkinson, Natalie Imbruglia, John Malkovich] A satire on James Bond movies that is good in parts.  Pascal Sauvage, a descendant of the Plantagenets, steals the Crown Jewels and forces Elizabeth II to abdicate. Then he offers himself as King. Johnny English, newly minted MI5 agent, must stop this dastardly plot. He succeeds despite himself, of course. There are some very good bits, but they don’t jell into the kind of seamless absurd logic of, for example, the best of the Pink Panther movies. Or Laurel and Hardy, or Buster Keaton. Still, the movie gave us an enjoyable hour and a half. **

Hazel Holt. Mrs Malory and No Cure for Death (2005)

     Hazel Holt. Mrs Malory and No Cure for Death (2005) A chatty, light-weight mystery set in a west-country village near the Cornish coast. Widowed Sheila Malory lives a comfortable and busy life. Her gift for gossip helps the local constabulary (a DCI she knew when he was still a boy) find the perp. A doc with a mysterious past and an aloof manner is stabbed to death in his clinic office. Nicely done until the end. The solution, when it comes, is kinda lame, involving past deceptions and lies. It explains everything, but the psychology is pat, superficial, and includes facts that should have been alluded to throughout the book. Holt devised a too complicated plot, I think, with too many plausible suspects. Unsatisfying. I suspect that her connections in publishing (she was Barbara Pym’s advisor and biographer) eased publication of this third-rate book.
     This Signet paperback is published by Penguin Group: the cover design echoes the old penguin covers, which IMO is a cheat. This is nowhere near the standards of those venerable (and now disintegrating) volumes. * (2010)

Stella Margetson. Leisure and Pleasure in the Nineteenth Century (1969)

     Stella Margetson. Leisure and Pleasure in the Nineteenth Century (1969) I was about to put this book in a box destined for U. Vic’s book sale when I started leafing through it. Then I read it. A pleasure to read, filled with interesting anecdotes that taken together trace the history denoted on the title, from the easy liberty (and licentiousness) of the Regency through the narrowing of moral strictures during Victoria’s long widowhood (measured among other things by the tightening of corsets and increased layering of underclothes), to the loosening of behaviour (and clothes) in the last years of her reign and the ascendancy of the Edwardians. Margetson’s style is easy and straightforward. She’s especially good at linking what are in fact disparate stories. The only serious fault is that there are not nearly enough pictures. I won’t keep it, but I’m glad I read it. ** (2010)

Eric Wright. Buried in Stone (1997)

      Eric Wright. Buried in Stone (1997) Offered as the first Mel Pickett story, it’s really the second, as we first met Mel in A Fine Italian Hand, in which he helped Charlie Salter. Retired to Larch River, about three hours drive north of Toronto, Mel is nice guy, and much shrewder than his avuncular, vaguely rural externals suggest. But he can’t avoid being drawn into the case of a local thug’s murder. His legwork includes a welcome train ride to Winnipeg and drive to Kenora, where he finds proof of a crucial falsification of dates. The upshot is that Lyman Caxton, the local police chief, loses his woman, who has helped hide the thug (her brother) from the law. Pickett ends up about to marry Charlotte Mercer, the waitress/cook at the local café, with whom he has been spending pleasant Sunday afternoons in bed and at table.
     All in all, a satisfying read; the crime and its solution provide an excuse for a portrait of rural Ontario that has the ring of truth despite its somewhat sentimental point of view. The byplay between the OPP, Mel, and Caxton is nicely done: the combination of mutual respect, wariness of treading on foreign turf, and professional procedure feels right. **½ (2010)

Eric Wright. Death by Degrees (1993)

     Eric Wright. Death by Degrees (1993) Salter’s father suffers a stroke, and partly to distract himself from his anxieties, and partly to delay the boredom of writing a report on gambling, Salter takes on a case of poison-pen letters implying that the death of a recently elected college dean is murder, and not the side effect of a botched robbery. Salter’s investigation turns up a nasty mess of campus politics, which suggests there may have been a murder. Which it was.

     Wright’s dissection of academia, though set in a mere technical college, is clear-eyed and somewhat gentler than I would expect (he was a teacher at Ryerson for many years). He has a knack for quick character sketches that leave us with the impression of more than what was shown to us. Salter’s on-going family soap opera is dealt with a little more thoroughly than in other books. His relationship with his father is not resolved into sweetness and forgiving delight, but remains touchy and mutually armoured to the end (he will go home to be tended by May, his common-law wife). Annie and Charlie do what they have to do, because the old man is family; Charlie eventually can forgive himself for not having the kind of mutually affectionate relationship with his father that Seth has with his grandfather. A good read. *** (2010)

Jay Ingram. The Science of Everyday Life (1989)

     Jay Ingram. The Science of Everyday Life (1989) Ingram was the host of CBC’s Quirks and Quarks for many years. This is one of several books that indirectly came out of that show: a collection of bite-size explanations of common experiences, ranging from yawning to the change in pitch when you stir cream into your coffee to the mathematics of parties. He takes care to provide the latest and best research, with references. Better yet, he indicates when the phenomena are still not fully understood.
      Fun, enlightening, and above all an excellent primer in the scientific stance: The world is marvellous place, and asking questions about it makes it more marvellous still. That’s a great antidote to the pseudo-romantic notion that science destroys the mysteries of the cosmos. Actually, it replaces mystery with wonder, and the answers almost always add even more mysteries. Science is a journey without end.
     This book is out of print, but it’s worth searching for. ***

Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Rashomon and Other Stories (1959)

     Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Rashomon and Other Stories (1959) Specially translated for the Bantam Classics series, this is a good introduction to Akutagawa’s work. The introductory essay reprises his life, and places him in the Japanese tradition. It appears that Japanese writers often lifted stories from old books; their skill lies in the reworking of the story to suit both the reader’s tastes and their own preoccupations and weltanschauung. In this, Japanese literature resembles that of Europe before the Renascence, after which authorial originality became an admirable feature rather than a defect. It’s no accident, I think, that the shift towards the personal in art and literature coincides with the shift towards new discoveries in the sciences and technologies. I gather from reading the occasional review that Japanese literature is becoming “modern” in the same way. These stories not only offer a few hours entertainment but also insight into a different view of the world. **½ (2010)

Alan Coren, ed. Punch Book of Crime (1976)

     Alan Coren, ed. Punch Book of Crime (1976) Towards the end of its long run, Punch’s essays became more and more serious. At times, they sounded like leaders in the Guardian. Even the few fictional pieces in this collection exude a rage at a broken and barbarous system that fails to rehabilitate and punishes prisoners gratuitously merely for the misdeed of being cooped up. The cartoons are up to the old and rarely equalled standard, but the prose by turns enrages and nauseates, not by its style, but by its subjects. ** (2010)