Gerry Lieberman. 3,500 Good Jokes For Speakers (1976)

     Gerry Lieberman. 3,500 Good Jokes For Speakers (1976) A compilation of jokes originally published in the 1950s. Categorised, a mix of one-liners, short setups, and stories, of varying quality. What’s interesting is how taste has changed: many of the jokes wouldn’t fly these days, too sexist or racist. The style of sexism and racism has changed: mostly, only women can makes jokes about women, only blacks about blacks, etc. The other interesting aspect is how topical humour is. References to the garment district of New York just don’t work as well today, for example, nor do jokes playing with good girl/bad girl contrasts.References to the Cold War are unintelligible to anyone under 30 and dated to anyone under 50. As customs and values change, so do jokes. Jokes depend on a shared cultural context between teller and audience. Much of that context has changed or disappeared in the 60-odd years since these jokes were first collected. Thus the book provides data for a study of humour, which I will not, however, undertake. **

H. E. Bates. The Triple Echo (1970)

     H. E. Bates. The Triple Echo (1970) Another book I didn’t finish (although I did read the final episode). Alice, a farmer’s wife alone during WW2, takes in Barton, a deserter. Inevitably, the MP catch up with them. She shoots her lover and his captor as they approach the house. Bates’ attempt at writing a D. H. Lawrence love tragedy, perhaps. In any case, the prose, while sufficient for the job, doesn’t rise above the ordinary. The characters are well enough drawn to attract interest, but not to sustain it.
     I’m tired of these gloomily passionate stories. They seem to me to be a sort of slumming. These people don’t deserve their fate, and absent the war, they would have managed to disentangle the woman from her marriage and live more or less happily ever after. It’s the soldier’s refusal to return from leave that precipitates the deception and the final hunt, so I suppose Bates may intend this novelette to be his anti-war story. As such, it would have had relevance when it was published, at the Vietnam war’s inglorious winding down, but now it is, as the academics say, of scholarly interest only. The cover photo shows Glenda Jackson in the role of Alice; Michael Apted is named as director. I suspect that the film is quite good; weak books often make good movies. * (2006)

W. Heath Robinson. Absurdities (1975 reprint with alterations)

     W. Heath Robinson. Absurdities (1975 reprint with alterations). Robinson selected the images in this book himself, but the publishers have replaced some that were reprinted in another book with new images. No matter, the drawings are charming and wonderfully bizarre, and the book is well worth this second look through. My copy is ex-North York Public Library; I can’t recall where I found it, or else someone gave it to me. It prompted me to do a web search on Robinson; I found a number of sites and images I hadn’t seen before. I’ve not explored all the available material (most of the hits were for used book shops), but will eventually save what I find on a CD. **** (2006)

Gore Vidal. Dark Green, Bright Red (1950)

     Gore Vidal. Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) An early work by the master of the louche and creepily pornographic. Peter, a cashiered ex-Marine, drifts into the party planning and executing a coup in the stereotypical Latin American country. The evil General’s daughter supplies the sex interest, according to the blurb, but I didn’t get that far. -1 star (2006)

Dennis Reid. The Snowman Cometh (1966)

     Dennis Reid. The Snowman Cometh (1966) A Sexton Blake mystery. Adolescent fantasy of the worst kind, with noble noblemen (except when they are utter dastards), salt of the earth lower orders, maidens that chastely love from a distance, femmes fatales of unspeakable (and actually unimaginable, on the evidence) sinfulness, and so on. Workmanlike writing of its kind, but the puzzle isn’t interesting enough, and there is no doubt it will be “solved” by some insight of Sexton Blake’s that the reader cannot even guess at, there being no clues to support it. I never took a fancy to Sexton Blake when I was younger, and I couldn’t get through the book now. -1 star. (2006)

Howard Engel. Murder Sees the Light (1984)

   Howard Engel.  Murder Sees the Light (1984) This is third or fourth in the series (I really must check up on this), and Benny Cooperman exhibits the same mix of cynicism and romantic hope as in the earlier books. Engel’s skill is character and location, and he manages both with just the right touch of detached amusement needed to make this entertainment enjoyable and not too demanding. Some of the clues are telegraphed a little too obviously, but others are too obscure, so I guess it balances out.
      This time Cooperman’s job is to watch a televangelist on the run from the civil law, and if possible prevent his murder. As it is, two people die violently, and Cooperman almost does; and there’s an ancient death that turns out to be a murder, too. Cooperman decides not to turn in the perp of this last one, for reasons only vaguely moral. Nicely done; a better than average crime novel. **½ (2006)

Wexford arrives: From Doon with Death

     Ruth Rendell. From Doon With Death (1964) The first Wexford, short, little character development, a fairly simple puzzle presented fairly, but we already see Rendell’s fascination with abnormal and unusual psychology. There are no apparent reasons for Margaret Parson’s murder, and the only clues are some poetry books with passionate inscriptions, given her by a mysterious lover named Doon. Doon is of course the murderer, but the usual misdirections and unrevealed facts caused by people’s desire for respectability slow the investigation.
     Wexford and Burden make a good team. In later books, Rendell develops Burden’s character differently than hinted at here; only his narrow education suggests the rigidity of his moral judgments that she presents and explores in later books. Wexford already has the well-read mixture of cynicism and compassion that marks him throughout the series. A good beginning. **½