Death in Ecstasy (Book Review)

Ngaio Marsh Death in Ecstasy (1935) #4 in the Alleyn series. A Chosen Vessel dies of cyanide poisoning during her first Communion at the Temple of the Sacred Flame. Suspects:  the presiding priest and six Initiates. The complications: jealousy among the females for the priest’s attentions (Being Chosen comes with sexual services), a lot of money, stolen bearer bonds, and drug trafficking. Nigel happens to be present at the murder because he noticed the Temple’s sign from his window, was bored, and went to investigate. A neat puzzle, whose solution turns on psychology: people have trouble controlling their speech when agitated. The murderer spent much of his life in Australia, poses as an American, but lets slip the occasional Oz expression.
     The book shows Marsh’s increasing interest in social comedy. “New Age” religions have been around a long, long time. Marsh has a good eye for the kind of people they attract. She doesn’t feel especially kindly towards them, though, and there’s no doubt she intensely dislikes the practitioners who prey on the weaknesses and doubts of the gullible. Alleyn’s facetiousness has been toned down somewhat; Nigel and Angela are once again roped into a bit of teckery; and Fox’s character has been augmented. The friendship between Alleyn and him goes deep. We will see more of it in future books.
     My copy was given to me by my Aunt. It’s a Penguin, printed in 1941 on very thin newsprint that’s begun to yellow in the gutters, no doubt a reaction with the glue. On the last page we read a request to deposit the book in any Post Office, for the enjoyment of the men and women in the Services. It has a tea stain on the front. The back cover is an advert for Pears soap, which cost 6d, or about 12 cents, at the time. That’s a lot of money in 1941. The inflation calculator says it’s $1.78 today, but in terms of average income it’s about $6. See:
http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/relativevalue.php
     I enjoyed the book. ***

The Nursing Home Murder (Book Review)

Warning: Spoilers!

Ngaio Marsh The Nursing Home Murder (1935) The third Alleyn mystery, and Marsh has mastered novel writing. Alleyn has lost some of his facetiousness, Fox has become the sidekick and sounding board, Bathgate and Angela have been demoted to “bright young things” as hangers on. Alleyn gives them the job of finding out a few facts about anarchists (the Red Scare was current at the time the novel was written). The victim, O’Callaghan,  was a cabinet Secretary about to introduce a Bill limiting civil freedoms as applied to Communists and such. This is one of the confounding factors, another is a cast-off mistress, who is loved by the surgeon who must operate on O’Callaghan’s inflamed appendix.
     As you can see, the plot is tricky, the murder less so. Marsh provides all the clues, even the unnoticed injection puncture at the hairline of the victim, referred as a possibility by the pathologist. The murderer is a eugenics fanatic with a Saviour complex, a bit thin, but the puzzle requires some such far fetched motive. The writing is much better. The characterisation is much indebted to theatrical types; I get the impression that Marsh was as much casting a play as writing a novel. No matter, it’s good entertainment. **½

Direct Descent (Book Review)

     Frank Herbert Direct Descent (1980) Yes, it’s that Frank Herbert: Author of Dune, as the cover reminds us. Part 1 was published in Astounding Science Fiction as “Pack Rat Planet” in 1954. Internal evidence suggests that Part 2 ("Direct Descent") was written around the same time. Both are classic mid-20th century SF tales, with hints of advanced technologies, sardonic humour, serious exploration of the social implications of technical and political change, and adequate characterisation, in all of which Herbert excelled. Here, Earth has become a hollowed core of its former self and houses the Galactic Library, a vast archive of text and artifacts recording the history of humankind. “Gravitics” maintain gravity despite Earth’s vastly reduced mass. Rhomboid boxes display “realised images” of distant persons or scenes, but Herbert (wisely) says nothing about how it’s done.
     Both tales are in of the victorious underdog genre. In Part 1, a fascist oppressive regime takes over and wants to destroy the Library. By doing exactly what they are told to do, the Librarians wreck the scheme. When the broadcasts of material stop as ordered, the rest of the galaxy turns on the new government and ousts the Leader. In Part 2, a band of cost cutters who want to eliminate the “inefficient” Library is stymied when the Free Islanders, who are entitled to miscellaneous periodic payments, and on whose maintenance about 60% 0f the budget is spent, demand that the accumulated debt be paid. The ruler of the Island assumes governorship of Earth, which also helps.
     An entertaining and nostalgic read. Illustrations extend the page count, but are uncredited. **½

Enter A Murderer (Book Review)

     Ngaio Marsh Enter a Murderer (1935) The second Alleyn book. At the Unicorn theatre,
professional and personal jealousies, skeletons in various closets, and sheer nastiness lead to murder. Nigel Bathgate (whom Alleyn inexplicably allows to act as his amanuensis) has invited Alleyn to accompany him to the play, so they both witness the murder. Bathgate  is Marsh’s attempt to give Alleyn a sidekick like Holmes’s Watson or Poirot’s Hastings. It works in that it adds another point of view and opportunities for more red herrings, both of which help solve the structural problem of a puzzle story: how to keep the reader interested in the plot.
     Alleyn here is still a parody of Wimsey and other gentleman detectives. Later on, he has more gravitas, but his habit of quoting Shakespeare and other poets, as well as his tendency for zen-like pronouncements  will remain. The novel’s heavy on dialogue, and includes some neat but mild satire of the actors. A good entertainment in the classic English puzzle-plot mode. It even includes a reconstruction of the crime, during which the murderer reveals himself (of course). Even in this journeyman excursion, Marsh was showing herself to be a master of the form. **½

The Fifteenth Century (Book Review)

     Margaret Aston The Fifteenth Century (1968) A survey of the century that not only moved European civilisation from the Middle Ages to the Renascence but invented the concepts. A well illustrated overview, with enough casual detail to bring the period to life, the book reminds us that much of what we consider the modern way of living was invented 500 years ago. Technology has changed, but our attitudes towards the past, the present, and the new were first expressed back then. By the 1700s, these attitudes were already deeply ingrained enough to attract criticism from satirists such as Jonathan Swift, who mocked uncritical acclaim and enthusiasm for whatever was new and different in his A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels. On the other hand, the realisation that human reason and imagination were capable of not merely changing but actually improving human life dates from the early Renascence and led directly to the accelerating development of technology and scientific discovery that we now take for granted.
     More importantly, the notion that social arrangements and politics were not inevitable but could be altered to suit ourselves dates from this time, too. Machiavelli was vilified for his proposition that the Prince’s responsibility for the safety of the state overrode the laws of individual morality. But his actual legacy was the very idea of that responsibility. Prior to his book, the state was seen as the property of the Prince, for which he was responsible only to God. His book implies throughout that the Prince is responsible to the people to keep them safe, promote prosperity, and prevent conquest by enemies. By 1776, the Americans spoke about a King’s failures in his duties to his subjects as not merely a reason for rebellion, but as a mandate. People and rulers have a reciprocal responsibility to keep each other honest.
     These and other reflections may occur to the reader of this very handy book, which, as many such have done recently, both reminded me of what I had learned in school, and also corrected misperceptions and clarified vaguenesses. **½

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video review)

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981) The BBC video series. Based on clips and previews of the 2005 movie, I think this video is still the best realisation of Douglas Adams’ vision. I’d use the word “definitive” if it hadn’t been used by too many critics before me.
     I’ve seen this video at least half a dozen times, and  each time I enjoy it just as much as when I first saw it on TVO many years ago. The simple computer animations displayed by the Book may seem endearingly old-fashioned, but considering how much information it must include, it represents a brilliant solution to the problem of maximising data and minimising storage. Douglas Adams’ wit sounds fresh despite repetition. As any serious (as opposed to solemn) philosopher knows, comedy and satire can express truth and wisdom more economically than any other mode. That’s why philosophers and preachers hate comedians, and do their best to make us think that gloomy mien and furrowed brow are the only true signs of deep thought.
     By this time “42" as The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is so well known that the number alone serves as a signal. That the Earth is a computer is not merely Douglas Adams’ joke: that the Universe is a computer is a metaphysical theory taken seriously by a surprising number of mathematicians. I prefer to think of the Universe as a hologram, however. ****

Van Gogh Up Close (Art Review)

Van Gogh Up Close (National Art Gallery, 30th August 2012)
     The show did not live up to its hype, but what show ever does? It depicts Van Gogh's time in France, when he was working towards his final artistic vision. Seeing early, mid and (too few) late pieces from this time was interesting in an art-historical way, but few of the pictures moved me. Most of them looked like what they were: experiments. Van Gogh was a very self-conscious artist, who spent his life trying to find out where he wanted to go and how to get there. It took him a long time to develop his visual language. Oddly enough (or maybe not), the earlier paintings I liked were the ones that reminded me of Klimt (eg Trees and Undergrowth 1887) and Monet (eg Undergrowth 1887, Rain 1889). These were all landscapes, most showed forests. The intermediate ones, in which he mostly experimented with Japanese composition and close-up subjects, showed that he was moving towards the astonishing last paintings in composition and content, but he was still trying to minimise the brushwork. A couple of the later paintings, in which he laid on the paint thick and largely unmixed, were worth a second or third look (eg Wheatfield behind St Paul Hospital 1889). The ones I wanted to see, all from his last few months of life, were not available.
     Most pictures looked faded and wan. Reproductions on postcards and posters are generally brighter and more intense. Perhaps a combination of new paint technology and cheap paint (Van Gogh often couldn’t afford the expensive ones) is the cause. It’s known for sure that some of his sunflower paintings turned brown because of a chemical reaction in the white paint that he’d added to the yellow. Or more likely I’ve come to expect originals to be even more brilliant than reproductions. Whatever, I was disappointed in the look of the show. The room of Japanese woodcuts, shown to illuminate Van Gogh’s composition experiments, was a delight. Looking at them, it occurred to me how much these pictures, with their unusual points of view, contrasts between foreground detail and mid- and background subjects, stylised drawing and colouring, resemble comic book art.
   Rating for the show: **½
   Updated 2012-08-06